March 10, 2019
Well, first, I have to tell you that finding our way out of the Vermont woods wasn’t easy and finding a pay phone was even harder. I finally just gave Hubris his head and said, “Hubris, find us a road.” When we found a road, I flagged down the first car that came by and asked the driver which way to the nearest gas station. I figured any country gas station would have a pay phone. Fortunately for Hubris, the gas station was down-hill most of the way and not very far. It did have a pay phone on a wall just outside the station’s front door. I dropped a quarter in the slot and asked for a Washington, DC operator. When that operator got on the line I told him who I wanted to call and to place the call “collect.” Kamala wasn’t exactly glad to take my collect call but when I quickly explained that I had just met with Bernie Sanders and that I personally knew Howard Schultz she said, Okay operator, I’ll accept the charges.
It didn’t get any easier from that point on. When I told Kamala I was really from a relatively little-known place in New Mexico, she probably suspected I was some kind of an alien or an illegal immigrant calling to beg for her help in getting me across the border. However, when I began to lay out my idea for a tri-partite ticket she did stay very quiet and her silence seemed to indicate she was really paying attention. I had just finished explaining my basic reasoning as to
the combination of talents I believed would be needed to solve the problems our previous and present governments had created when she stopped me cold with a one liner, “Just who do you suggest would be the President?”
I had to admit that I hadn’t given that subject any though as yet, as I figured my first priority was to put together a team capable of doing what the country needed, and was socially balanced enough to get elected—and let that team sort out the details later. Then, when her question was still hanging in the air, (questions can “stay hanging” a lot shorter when you phone long distance collect) I had the perfect genius of an idea. I told her, “Confidentially, I believe Bernie is too old and too narrow minded and Howie doesn’t have the political experience to be President. You have to be the President, and you have to pick who you want for Vice President and put the other in a top level cabinet position. The key is that you run as a team and you function as a team. If we have to, we’ll change the structure of our government. Both you and Bernie need the common sense and business sense that Howie will bring to the ticket.” When I finished my brief, but spectacular, little lecture there was only silence on the line. I found myself thinking that I had just had a great idea: “The job of being President was just too big for one man—or woman.”
I was about to ask Kamala if she was still on the line when, in a soft but firm voice she said, “Let me think about it. Call me back in a week. Thank you for calling.” And then we both hung up. That was as much as I could hope for! It was time for us to head home. Lefty’s saloon and his old fashioned Kentucky bourbon was calling me and Hubris looked like he wanted another one of Howie’s cookies. So, I UN-tethered Hubris from the gas pump, remounted, and with a shout of Hi Ho Hubris, Awaawaay! We were headed back to our home in New Mexico. It would be a long ride but it would give me time to think about where our country needed to go—and how to get it there.
Copyright, Louis J. Christen, March 10, 2019