Three intriguing items arrived in the daily avalanche of catalogues, bills, credit and charitable solicitations today.
Two postcards with original watercolors on fine art paper arrived from Saskia,9, and Graham,6, with notes on the back acknowleging a recent visit to our home. Each created their own sea turtle interpretation on the front and Saskia added a drawing of her new best friend, our dog Smokie, on the back.
Graham scrawled a simple declarative sentence in English. His sister added her message in both English and their native French. The sea turtles are tribute to a project I am working on with their mother.
The work of both children is simply beautiful and instantly treasured -- not only for the talents inherited from their artist parents, but the warm understanding that they live in a home where it is taught to share their gifts and be appreciative of other people.
Saskia and Graham's cards are on the table right by the door because I know they will make my husband smile when he comes home from a lousy day at work.
I've placed the other arrival next to his chair because I feel he should probably have a glass or two of wine first.
My husband is retired from the US Justice Department and now works for Homeland Security. He has never contributed to a political campaign, written a letter to an editor, attended a rally or ever been tempted to afix a bumper sticker to anything.
After all these years of sleeping together, I know a few of his secrets including who he voted for in the Democratic primary yesterday.
But somehow or another his full payroll name appeared on an envelope from the Bush-Cheney campaign. A bright red box on the front contains bold, block lettering proclaiming "DO NOT BEND! PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO ENCLOSED."
The "Dear Friend" saluation on the letter inside from our close personal acquaintance Marc Racicot has "Friend" slashed out with a machined pen in favor of my husband's formal, payroll, first name.
"Will you become one of the first to join the Bush-Cheney '04 Team as a Charter Member in Georgia? I would be thrilled to tell the president that you are with us."
I read no further, so enthralled was I with the down home, front-lawn-of-a-ranch-house, shirt-sleeves and khaki, photograph of George and Laura. Sure the "To Charles R. Griggs" inscription was printed in the lower part of the frame, but damn if they didn't make their individual autographs look darn near real.
This is was the closest I'd felt to our commander-in-chief since he took office.
Do they presume that we will get out the old checkbook for our new best friends for the opporunity to add them to the family photo album? Or is it that federal employees should kick back a little more than simply their share of taxes? I thought it could be that our home is in an affluent community. It would seem to be a Bush strategy to look strictly at the perception of wealth versus individual reality. But the neighbors I queried didn't make the cut.
Bush obviously doesn't feel a need to hear how we feel about WMD, Halliburton, job creation or making our gay friends political and moral scapegoats.
It doesn't seem he has learned much at all about appreciating the American people who invited him into the White House in the first place.
His upbringing clearly missed some of the finer points of grace that our little artist friends are learning today.
We will decline the opportunity to participate in G.W.'s personalized plea. However, we have a lovely family picture from this year's Christmas card that we're going to send to George and the Missus.
And I'm setting up an exploration committee for a Saskia and Graham presidential ticket in 2032.


Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs