The RNC Ringleader<\/p>\n
by Mary Jane LaVigne<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you only help others\u2026\u201d Tom Kennedy pours beans in to my coffee grinder, cocks his head, gives me a sideways grin,\u201c \u2026and don\u2019t let yourself receive help\u2026 \u201d The whirr of the grinder drowns the end of his sentence, but I know what he means. I\u2019m feeling a little bad. We\u2019re sitting at my kitchen table on the Tuesday morning after Labor Day, the second day of the Republican National Convention. For the last four days, the Missile Truck, the MDC bus and a dozen Missile Dick Chicks, have roosted at my suburban White Bear Lake house, swooping down on Minneapolis and St. Paul to taunt Republicans.<\/p>\n
This morning, I hit my limit. There\u2019s been no ultimatum, just a sense I woke with that my family, my neighbors and I had had enough. As we made the bed, I told my fella Allen what I was thinking. By the time I was out of the shower, Tom and Allen had it all arranged. Now, the Chicks, the bus and the Missile Truck are packing up and moving on down the shore to finish out the Convention at my friend Larry\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not holding up my part of the bargain,\u201d I say, \u201cexpecting Larry to take up the slack.\u201d Through the kitchen window, I watch the neighbor girls in their new clothes head off to the first day of school. In my yard, the big old MDC bus belches exhaust their way, while their mother, a middle-aged woman like me, casts a critical glance and gives me a forbearing nod. Soon I\u2019ll be back to Minnesota mundane.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty to do to move the Missile Dick crew, but Tom pours me more coffee and sits down to tell me a fable about asking for help. Tom\u2019s story is about Bosnians, bridges and bikes. The cast of heroes includes an old girl friend, Shelly Buschur, the U.S. Air Force and a NATO commander from Northern Ireland. Did a kid\u2019s bike parade create peace between Bosnians and Serbs? Tom doesn\u2019t go that far. But the opportunity to pitch-in drew the best from everyone involved.<\/p>\n
When the story is over the bus is packed and my living room floor is again innocent of cots. It\u2019s clear, my concern for the convenience of my friend Larry, the next host to this troupe, is minor. In truth, I\u2019m sad it\u2019s over. \u201cOur goal is to beat the bad guys by having more fun,\u201d Tom had emailed me months ago as we were planning for the Republican Convention. Mission accomplished.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce everyone is gone,\u201d says Tom as he hugs me good-bye, \u201ca couple of us will come back and make sure it\u2019s just like we found it. There\u2019s red paint on your driveway. We\u2019ll take care of that.\u201d Like the Cat in the Hat when the mother comes back, all is in order when the bus and Missile Truck chug out of my yard.<\/p>\n
A few days later, when they\u2019re just about to head back west to San Francisco, Tom calls to say he wants to come by and take care of the red paint. \u201cForget it,\u201d I tell him. \u201cConsider it a souvenir.\u201d Now that Tom won\u2019t be coming east again, with his head full of visions and his emails full of schemes and new refurbished hopes, life doesn\u2019t offer as happy a prospect. What\u2019s left is a passel of memories of when the circus stayed at my house and of Tom Kennedy, the best ringleader of them all. That, and a little red paint on my driveway, will have to be enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The RNC Ringleader by Mary Jane LaVigne \u201cIf you only help others\u2026\u201d Tom Kennedy pours beans in to my coffee grinder, cocks his head, gives me a sideways grin,\u201c \u2026and don\u2019t let yourself receive help\u2026 \u201d The whirr of the grinder drowns the end of his sentence, but I know what he means. I\u2019m feeling… Read More »Tom in MN: The RNC Ringleader<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-sent-in"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomkennedyart.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}