The RNC chair admonished republicans to not join the presidentialfray just to promote a book.

Wait…what? Is that anoption?

Anyway, aren’t they the ones who are BANNING books? What are they doing WRITING them?

I can’t imagine what they’re even writing about.  Probably some social ideal that never was butthey claim to remember.

Today, the air in my town is orange and smokey from forestfires in Canada.  It reminds me ofgrowing up when the blast furnaces were cooking.  I never knew the sky could be blue withfluffy white clouds.  I thought it was a ruse to sell calendars.

When the EPA passed a law in 1974 to curb pollution, in asleight of hand, the black smoke turned white. Titanium? Who knows how they finagled that. The air was still dirty nomatter what color the smoke. Another ruse. 

People talk about getting those jobs back. They forget theprice we paid for those jobs.

Hey, the orange air is making me nostalgic too even though Ihate that. I hate visiting the cathedral of my past. Very hazy in there. I didn’t have an idealizedRepublican childhood with no curve balls. 

I’m thinking today of a boy I knew in home room in high school.  Something La Rue. I forget his firstname.  

We had a couple boys commitsuicide that year and that year was a long time ago.

One of the boys had long hair and was very handsome. Hisdaddy, an executive at the steel company, was rich. He couldn’t have been crazyabout his son’s long hair. The boy always had a paperback in the back pocket ofhis jeans. A loner. Always reading instead of playing sports, which boys like himwere expected to do. He took acid and jumped off a bridge.  That was the official word.

I couldn't be sad, because I knew him: I didn't know him. I was sadbecause he was enough like me that it took my breath away. I read a lottoo. 

The other boy, Someone La Rue, I saw at the swimming poolthe summer between junior and senior year. I was with my friend, Janet.  Wewere looking through Glamour magazines trying to find the right “look” for ouryearbook pictures, which we had to get taken the next week before schoolstarted.  La Rue was sitting on a stripedgreen towel close to us, although we had to look twice to recognize him. If Ithought about La Rue at all, which I didn’t, it was that he didn’t have anyfriends and the homeroom teacher, Mr. Butz, always seemed particularly kind tohim. That day at the pool, he didn’t see us until Janet laughed loudly atsomething in Glamour, and he turned to see us. Then he stared straight ahead,daring someone to say something about the bright yellow 2-piece string bikini onhis skinny body and bright red lipstick that clashed with his yellow mop ofhair which he had obviously permed.

Janet punched me and whispered. “Hey, is that?”

I’m not a saint. I giggled. I didn’t have words for what Iwas looking at.

Maybe if I did, I would’ve said, “Hey, La Rue. Want somejelly beans?” or “Hey, La Rue, want to look at Glamour magazines with us?”

No words, though.

Maybe if I had had a book.