Don’t ask if you don’t want to know:

            At the auto parts store, I was waiting for the man behind the counter to get off the phone, so I could get a sparkplug for my mower. When he finally hung up, he apologized and assured me that he didn’t mean to ignore me. I told him that I was hard to ignore. I went on, “Why, even John F. Kennedy couldn’t ignore me.” “How’s that?” he absent-mindedly mumbled. Wrong answer! That meant he was going to hear the story, and so would everybody in the store.

            “Back in the fall of 1960,” I began, “I was going to a junior college in Belleville, Illinois. It just so happened that JFK was trying to win an election at the same time, and he was doing some politicking in Belleville. We were walking across campus to get to the parking lot. My good friend, Doug Eskra, was with me, and there was a fella I’ll call a fox terrier because he jumped around and yapped constantly. Just as we were coming off campus the Kennedy motorcade was coming up West Main – right in our path. Doug got all excited, mostly because he was a Democrat. The fox terrier was nonplussed, even though he was a Catholic; I suspected he was a Republican. At first I didn’t get too excited because it was going to make me late for work, and I knew I wasn’t a Catholic, but beyond that I wasn’t sure what I was or if I was… if anything.”

            “We were at a point where there were about a half a million people down the block to our left and another half a million people up the block to our right, but there wasn’t a soul within 50 yards of us in either direction. Doug was going crazy, and Rover was getting into it. I guess the church house over rode the White House. Actually I was getting a little excited myself, and by the time JFK and his knockout wife drew abreast of us I was jumpin’ and yellin’ like a regular Catholic Democrat. I was afraid I was gonna start looking for a fish fry and a union job. At the very moment his car came directly in front of us, he turned to us, waved, and said, ‘Hi-ya, fellas’. He wasn’t talking to the 500,000 people at either end of the block. He was talking to us!”

“So,” I told the auto parts guy, “if John Kennedy couldn’t ignore me – nobody can”. I paid him the $1.62 for the sparkplug, turned, and smiled my way past the six glaring people standing in line behind me. I left with the confidence that I had done my part to stimulate the economy once again.

It's Ready To Go!

The latest (# 6) of the Ben Blue Series

is ready and should be available on Nov. 19 or 20.

On Amazon Kindle and other e-readers.

 Books by Lou Bradshaw available on Amazon Kindle

 A Fine Kettle of Fish – Hickory Jack – Blue – Ace High – Blue Norther - Cain 

And Soon – One Man Standing  

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