It dawned on me

It dawned on me recently that the most honest politicians are the ones that... Seem to have lost my train of thought here.

When I was just a little boy in our one room school in the middle of the open prairie with twelve kids and eight grades our teacher, the one with the eyes on the back of her head, would read to us after lunch from the great works of literature which were on some grades curriculum, which she knew darn well would never get read if she didn't read them to us. And so it was that I first heard the story of Jean Valjean. Using the long braid from the gal in front of me for a paint brush from my ink bottle I would doodle and listen to the great adventures from lands beyond comprehension.

Now I remember... those honest politicians. They don't get many votes. Seems the vast majority of us enjoys being cajoled.

Jean Valjean was a thief. This seems to have been a pretty common occupation in the mid 19^th century as there was lots of poor folk across Europe and beyond before our present rise of egalitarianism which has not seemed to have had much impact on the number of poor folk or the number of thieves for that matter. But Jean Valjean was a good thief, as he stole bread for his sister and her starving kids, although this didn't matter much to the bourgeois as thieving undermined the whole concept of making money from the rabble. Thank god for egalitarianism and ink and long braids.

Oh to be cajoled... seems to give rise to a sense of adventure and belonging. Those wickedly smart politicians.

In the middle of the open prairie we didn't lock too many doors and my folks would heat a bowl of borscht for the hobos who wandered in from the main CPR line to fascinate us kids with their tales and strange odours. It was a time of resourcefulness such as picking a bouquet of crocuses on a fine spring morning on the way to school to make things go more splendidly with the teacher with the eyes on the back of her head. Then came the sixties and wandering the earth to find low life scoundrels ravaging every nook and cranny of dirty smog ridden conurbations, using every dirty trick imaginable to empty the last dime from your shabby jeans.

And then it dawned on me... Seem to have lost my train of thought once more. Oh well.