rlfj: Blog

When I originally wrote this story, I published the Epilogue as a separate story. Now I am going to publish it as additional chapters for the main story.

Carl Buckman has spent the last two decades up to his ears in politics. If you thought that after he retired he was going to get out of politics, you are naïve! If you have managed to get through the first 175 chapters of the story, roughly 75 of which are political, don’t be surprised when he gets into politics in the Epilogue!

For those of you who wondered what kind of trouble Carl could get into now that he is retired, don’t worry. Carl will get into plenty of trouble! Enjoy!

Several readers commented that McCain was a guaranteed loser in the 2008 election. Their theory was that as a ‘novelty’ candidate, Obama was picking up huge numbers of votes, even from Republicans. He was younger, better looking, gave better speeches, etc. All of that was true, but McCain had some serious advantages, specifically the economy was fairly good through the late summer. It only collapsed in September. That was when McCain’s poll numbers dropped through the floor. McCain had a realistic chance up until then.

However, the real election wasn’t Obama vs. McCain, it was Obama vs. Bush. By the end of his Presidency, George Bush was the most despised President since Richard Nixon. (This is not an opinion; check the historical records of popularity indexes.) Bush had two disastrous wars, had screwed up Katrina, and by 2008 it was obvious we were trillions in the hole. None of this happened in this timeline. McCain would have a very good chance under these conditions.

Some interesting feedback on the funeral episode. Several people wanted Carl to make up with his father at some point, but I always thought there was too much damage by that point. If he was going to hook up with his father again, it would have been back in the ‘80s, and that didn’t happen.

There were also some questions as to whether I have experience like this of my own. The answer is simple – no! I am no more a disappointment to my parents than any child is. By that I mean we all have hopes and dreams for our children, and they never turn out EXACTLY as you planned. I certainly didn’t, and neither did my children. As a rational adult, I simply smile and say, ‘So what? It’s their life!’ and then go play with the grandkids. That’s what my parents did with me. My father passed away 20+ years ago (dementia) but I still see my family when I can, and we talk every few weeks. We are normal people. Mom is not crazy, though as part of the ‘Mom’ job description she drives her kids crazy.

A reader recently commented on knee replacements and the length of time they take. Grayhut wrote: “And those that rush recovery have problems for the duration. I had a partial knee replacement on the left, a full knee on the right and rushed that one. It took me only 8 years of suffering before I let them "Fix" it. And it still aches every day. Don't rush your recovery or overdo therapy! You will regret it. Do what the doctors and therapists tell you to.”

The last cliffhanger proved so popular, I will have to find a few more! Also, for those who seemed to doubt it, my parents were married at the time of my birth, and even to each other, no less.

As for why Marilyn was jailed, the top reason suggested was that she punched out the reporter who wanted to see the dead body. A distant second was she punched out a reporter who was rude to Megan. Actually, I completely discounted the idea that she would punch out a reporter. By now she has a lot of experience ignoring them, and the Secret Service keeps them at a distance. What I needed was a scenario that would surprise even the Secret Service. I think what I proposed would be very surprising!

Several readers commented about having Westboro Baptist declared a ‘hate group’ and using that as some form of legal retribution. A few problems with that, specifically, we don’t have laws against hate groups in this country. In the US, the FBI has their own internal classification and tracks these guys, and both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center formally list groups as hate groups, but they don’t have any force of law behind them. Simply declaring a group a hate group has no legal power; there are no laws against being a hate group. As for what they spout, the First Amendment is an extremely powerful shield, and the laws against threatening federally protected individuals would probably fail in a Supreme Court test.

Several people commented that Marilyn could appear with the Patriot Guard Riders, a national motorcycle group who provide escorts for fallen servicemen to protect them from the Westboro Baptist Church. Whether the Secret Service would ever allow that is questionable, but there is one big difference. In this alternate timeline, Carl never went into Afghanistan or Iraq the way GWB did. He has had less than 10% of GWB’s casualties in his timeline. The PGR probably hasn’t been created. Interesting idea, though.

A few people contemplated that the time required for a knee replacement as I described (two weeks hospitalization and two months of rehab) was much too long. They knew people who had done theirs in half that time. I simply used the times broadcast on NBC News by Brian Williams when he had his knee replaced. Blame him!

More family fun in this chapter. The incident with Maggie’s wedding, with the 24 hours of vomiting, and Elspeth scratching her butt as the flower girl is what really happened when my youngest was married. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I laughed the entire time we followed her down the aisle!