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Dad's Campaign Photo

What do you think?

When I was 5 years old my father ran for the Minnesota Senate. Below is a picture of his young family. We had a happy family, but my sister fawning over my dad as he cooked is pretty funny, as that never happened in real life.

He lost that election, but later in life he won an election to be a Scott County Commissioner, where he served for 3 terms. He loved that job, and he was well respected, but we still received nasty letters. One letter called my mom fat, which did not have anything to do with policy. Apparently, the letter writer did not like my dad or mom or maybe both.

My dad loved a good joke and many of them were ethnic jokes. He would always change the joke to be Irish people as my mom was 100% Irish. The jokes were funny as my mom was never threatened; they respected each other. Later I grew to understand that sometimes people are threatened. Where I grew up almost everyone was a white Catholic.

Once, while he was County Commissioner he went to buy a bottle of gin, the store owner said he could have it for free. Dad would not have it, and he paid for it. As a young adult I wondered “who passes up free booze?” When I thought of it more, no one offers me free anything, but I don’t have power.

As my mom became disabled late in her life, my dad actually started to do the cooking. He was no Julia Childs. Everything he made was catchup based. He was so proud of what he cooked, but the difference among the meals he prepared generally had to do with how much catchup he added.

There are many truths, and it is up to us to pick the right ones.