I’m a political junkie and Tuesday I sat glued to the television, enthralled as I watched coverage of the Democratic presidential primaries from North Carolina and Indiana.  I’ve lived through eleven presidents and even though this year’s election isn’t my first rodeo, I readily admit that I understand the politics of a presidential race little more than I did fifty-six years ago.

Harry Truman was the president when I was born but I have no memory of him as a lad.  My first recollection of the political process is when I was six.  It was at my grandparent’s house in Vivian.

Jim and Lela Pittman were good Americans and had strong views on how our country should be run and who should run it.  I don’t remember much about their views except that Grandma and Grandpa Pitt often supported different candidates.

The Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson race is the first campaign that I remember, not vividly but subliminally.  I do recall sitting in their bedroom – that is where they always held court – and listening to campaign speeches on their old upright wooden-bodied radio.

The Pitts had six children and one thing that I do remember vividly is that all six sibs usually had very different opinions on almost everything.  The grandparents loved it, in fact encouraged everyone in the family to think for themselves.  If one of the siblings would declare something as the gospel, Grandpa Pitt would always interject a little doubt, just to shake that belief and make sure it was real and not just subterfuge.  Because of this, any discussion by the Pittman family usually sounded like a full-blown argument to the uninitiated.

The family had widely divergent opinions on many subjects but they always stood together.  What I mean is that despite what often seemed like extreme polarization, especially when it came to politics, the family still loved each other deeply and always respected the opinions of others, even if they didn’t always agree with their own.

If I live until 2009, I will see the inauguration of my twelfth president.  Even though I don’t understand every nuance of politics, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.  There is room for diverse opinions in this country.  We should embrace our differences because that is one of the things that makes us strong, and continues to keep us that way.

No matter who wins in September - man, woman, black, white, republican or democrat, we will all survive and prosper, and the United States will still be the most wonderful country that ever graced this old green globe.  My grandparents taught me that.

http://www.ericwilder.com