Mitt Romney: Reality Check

Is there anything sadder than Willard "Mitt" Romney wearing blue jeans, trying to convince himself, and us, that he is just an ordinary, good guy who understands our situation because he, too, has drunk coffee from a paper cup? Once. Just recently, in fact.

He understands the mania for NASCAR, and the Indy. He has friends who own racing teams. Like many of us, he as "flown on an aircraft". Most of us, of course, fly on airplanes, but who are we to quibble? He has been unemployed: not a job in sight, living from unemployment check to unemployment check.

What he does not have, and might have no way of recognizing, is a reality check.

When my mother died, somebody in the family decided that I should have my mother's jewelry box. That is it, above. There is a little spring-loaded, rusty button that opens the lid. Inside, there was just a nail buffer, although all of us siblings have seen Mom open that box, all of her adult life, to see a couple of rings, and a watch; not much, but every treasure she had.

Today, there is a ring in there, too. A simple little ring with a patch of gold. She told me once she was going to give me that ring, but she never told where it came from. I still do not know, but I suspect there might once have been an awkward boy, about her age. I never saw Mom wear that ring, but she did, sometimes, pick it up and look at it before she put it back in "her jewelry box".

Inside the sagging lining of the cover is stamped:

MERRICK & RACE

JEWELERS

1201 PACIFIC AVE.

254 ELEVENTH STREET

TACOMA, WASH.

The Tacoma Public Library archives indicate that the building, to the right, "is the former home of Merrick & Race, Jewelers: I wonder if my mother ever went in there, or if, by chance, the little box is as old as her marriage? 1930. I believe it was in the early 1930s that Buster Brown Shoes moved into the building.

I, myself, am of 1931 vintage. All of my fingers are too large to allow me to wear the little ring. Too many table saws and arthritic knuckles. So I keep the little, what-seems-to-be paper-mache box as a reminder of who I am, and who my parents were. It is useful knowledge: whenever, for instance, I hear a politician rail against all the poor people of the world who want to come here to make their lives better, I remember Mom's "jewelry box", and that we were an immigrant family, too.

Mitt Romney does not have such a jewelry box. He surely has jewelry boxes, and rings to put in them, but he does not understand.

He does not understand.

Comments

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