When it comes to political elections I was raised in an unusual household. An avid supporter of FDR, my mother was an organizer of Democratic Clubs in West Los Angeles and in 1960 worked with Ted Kennedy going to Bakersfield, Fresno and other smaller cities to create such a club to support JFK’s presidential campaign in 1960.
She had met the Kennedy’s and anybody who was anybody at the Democratic National convention held at the L.A. Sports Arena as she was in charge of the seating. A joke I admittedly used before, if one is in charge of seating at a 5 star restaurant or a national political convention, you automatically become a big shot.
So it was that my mother instilled in me an interest in politics from the time I was eight in 1952. Even though it was a school day she drove us to the airport in San Diego to join the crowd there greeting Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic Nominee for President.
As he was about to pass us my mother gave me a gentle shove that Stevenson took to mean I wanted to shake hands. “Aren’t you a confident young man?” he said as he shook my hand. (I wasn’t confident, my mother was a good pusher.)
My father was even more liberal than my mother. But what I got most from him was his sports and comedy. He loved Jackie Gleason and I loved how laughter relieved his tension.
In my freshman year at UCLA I got involved in a political campaign that I found hilarious, a state proposition to ban pay public toilets. My hero, other than Sandy Koufax, was Ralph Story, whose real name was Ralph Bernard Synder, an extremely popular CBS TV channel 2 humorist and because of that I took a TV Broadcasting class.
My professor, Dr. Kingston, was very stoic in manner and even in looks and was very much like James Lipton the creator, executive producer, writer and host of Inside The Actor’s Studio which ran on TV for 22 years viewed in 95 million American homes and in 115 countries and received a record 17 Emmy nominations.
Much like these columns, during the week I would research and write my copy which was to run no longer than five minutes and on each Friday I would often nervously recite my hopefully humorous shtick into a TV camera. Only I made a considerable mistake in how I joined the grass roots campaign. But first, a few comments on the current presidential campaign.
Trump and his Maga followers attack President Biden’s cognitive issues. And yet, the twice impeached and four times criminally indicted Trump takes the cake. After bragging how he “aced” that absurd cognition test from years ago, three times the stable genius confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and blamed her for Jan 6.
In his muddled mind, Trump somehow thinks he ran against Obama and is going to beat him again and predicts the Democrats are going to start WWIII. He called COVID a hoax and suggested bleach as a possible remedy. He holds his rallies at night because during the day he’s in court, where a jury found him guilty of sexual assault and the Judge labeled him a rapist.
As for my “mistake” on the pay toilet ban, still living at home, I typed a letter on my mother’s typewriter to the author of the proposition expressing my interest. Except the only paper I could find in her desk was California Democratic Council stationary through which I drew a line and typed on the blank back of the page.
Almost immediately I got a letter back from the author of the proposition thanking me. I interviewed him about his history and that of the unusual proposition. I then wrote about it for my TV class and got huge laughs.
Unfortunately, the overly optimistic man somehow assumed that the CDC was backing his proposition and called them directly. In fact, my overly busy mother came home exhausted after work and asked if I knew anything about a campaign on public pay toilets. I felt guilty for deceiving her and the poor campaign manager.
I soon apologized to my mother who wasn’t half as angry as she had a right to be. In fact for my birthday she and my father bought me my own typewriter and reams of blank paper, along with a proviso I was never to use their typewriter. I got off easy.
The ban on pay public toilets didn’t pass, but many years later they are all but gone in America but still flourish in many corners of the world. In fact in Mexico, a majority of pay toilets have turnstiles.
In my senior year I took Dr. Kingston’s class again. It turned out CBS was looking for an intern for Ralph Story whom I met again. I didn’t get the job because of my draft status as they didn’t want to train me and have me wind up in the army. I carefully left out some of the nefarious details, but our meeting was nonetheless a thrill for me.