Roy Exum: A Pre-Thanksgiving Nudge

  • Thursday, November 20, 2014
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

This time next week it will be Thanksgiving and, as I was browsing on the Internet yesterday, I was absently searching for something to catch the holiday mood when I found it. In 1978 Ronald Reagan was running hard to become the President of the United States, which he became in 1981-89, and, as fate would have it, suddenly it came that time during the week when he would record a weekly radio address. I doubt he had any idea what he might say.

“Dutch,” however, was quite gifted in coming up with his lines and I can only picture his solitude and his mood as he sat before a microphone and delivered what is now known as his “Looking Out The Window” address.

Running for the Presidency, it has been often said, is a lonely job and I can only try to imagine the heart-in-his-throat feeling that Barack Obama has right now as he awaits the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Ohio. How on earth do our leaders get a pulse of what on earth the result may be?

As I think about it, I can’t say that I’ve ever sat in front of a radio and listened to a president address the nation but, as Dutch was trying mightily to attain the office on January 27, 1978, here is one broadcast I wish I’d heard Dutch recite:

* * *

LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW

It’s nightfall in a strange town a long way from home. I’m watching the lights come on from my hotel room window on the 35th floor.

I’ll be right back.

I’m afraid you are in for a little bit of philosophizing if you don’t mind. Some of these broadcasts have to be put together while I’m out on the road traveling what I call the mashed-potato circuit. In a little while I’ll be speaking to a group of very nice people in a banquet hall.

Right now, however, I’m looking down on a busy city at rush hour. The streets below are twin ribbons of sparkling red and white. Tail lights on the cars moving away from my vantage point provide the red and the headlights of those coming toward me the white. It’s logical to assume all or most are homeward bound at the end of a day’s work.

I wonder why some social engineer hasn’t tried to get them to trade homes. The traffic is equally heavy in both directions so, if they all lived in the end of town where they worked, it would save a lot of travel time. Forget I said that, and don’t even think it, or some bureaucrat will try to do it.

But I wonder about the people in those cars, who they are, what they do, what they are thinking about as they head for the warmth of home and family. Come to think of it I’ve met them–oh–maybe not those particular individuals but still I feel I know them. Some of our social planners refer to them as “the masses” which only proves they don’t know them.

I’ve been privileged to meet people all over this land in the special kind of way you meet them when you are campaigning. They are not “the masses,” or as the elitists would have it–”the common man.” They are very uncommon. Individuals each with his or her own hopes and dreams, plans and problems, and the kind of quiet courage that makes this whole country run better than just about any other place on earth.

By now, thinking of their homecoming I’m counting how many more hotel room windows I’ll be looking out of before I’m in the rush hour traffic heading home. And, yes, I’m feeling a little sorry for myself and envious of the people in those cars down below. It seems I’ve said a thousand goodbyes, each one harder than the one before.

Someone very wise once wrote that if we were all told one day that the end was coming; that we were living our last day, every road, every street and all the telephone lines would be jammed with people trying to reach someone to whom we wanted simply to say, “I love you.”

But it doesn’t it seem kind of foolish to wait for such a final day and take the change of not getting there in time? And speaking of time I’ll have to stop now. “Operator, I’d like to make a call … long distance.”

This is RR. Thanks for listening.

* * *

There. That’s what I wanted and it is what I’ll think about as next Thursday approaches and we share our thanks.

royexum@aol.com

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