One of the readers of this blog asked me to weigh in on Sara Palin’s nomination to be John McCain’s running mate. If you know me, you may find this hard to believe since I’m not much of a political animal. In fact, I had to check to see if I spelled ‘McCain” right, and then check again to see if Palin is 42 or 44. She’s 44.
But, this is where the six degrees of separation comes in. I am married to an Alaskan. And my Alaskan claims Wasilla as his home town. So does Pailn. They even graduated from the same high school, the high school where Elsie, Hiram’s mom, was an art teacher. Sara Palin could have been one of her students. But Elsie died a few years ago so we can’t know, and I haven’t worked up the nerve to email the candidate and ask her.
Hiram’s brother Cassius is two years older than Sara (as an alumni-in-law, Sara and I are on a first name basis) so he probably remembers her from high school. And he still lives in Alaska, part of the time near Wasilla. We’re talking primary source here, folks. Hiram spent the weekend playing phone tag with Cassius, and they have yet to connect. Once they do, I’ll give you a full alumni report.
Until then, here are Hiram’s thoughts from conversations with Cassius during a visit to see him during the summer of 2007. Cassius’ report at that time was quite favorable, somewhere along the lines of “Well, she hasn’t screwed up anything big yet.” If that isn’t a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.
One thing I won’t do is wade into the pregnant daughter issue. Anyone who has raised teenagers knows they could be dealing with the same situation facing the Palin family right now. Since we would all want others to treat us with compassion and grace in such circumstances, I say let’s do the same thing for the Palins.
