Beech Tree News Network

I am hoping there is deliverance.  Four years ago my Dad was struggling to stay alive.  Stricken with an illness that none of us understood, my Dad meandered back and forth between the Medical Center at Bowling Green, SKY Rehab and Vanderbilt University Hospital.  He was dying but we didn't know it - at least not initially. I withdrew, leaving my sisters and my Mom to deal with the unpleasantness of death.  They knew the inevitable before I did.  

But, one thing I was able to do was bring my Dad an absentee ballot to SKY Rehab while he still recognized me, while he still knew what was going on around him.  Some of you might think that worrying about an election was an insignificant thing considering my Dad's health.  It wasn't.  Knowing my Dad, meant knowing that he was a true Republican to the core.  Knowing my Dad meant that you knew what he felt during the presidential election of 2008.   He did not like John McCain that much; he was a reluctant convert to Mitt Romney that year during the primary, which was mostly the result of my persuasion.  I have long been a fan of Mitt Romney.  And, this takes us back to the beginning, back to when me and my Dad did elections together, voted together in the same voting booth, watched election returns like children waiting for Santa Claus.  It takes me back to times from my adolescence and to the times to when I was a young adult … where we talked politics continually … even until the last few days before he got sick.  I remember how much fun he had when Obama talked about how lower tire pressure would help people use less gasoline, which would be good for the economy by saving energy.  Dad got a big laugh by packing around his tire pressure gauge in his pocket explaining candidate Obama's proposed energy policy for the country.  He wasn't fooled as others were.  He took Obama at his word - that he meant to transform American society and not in a good way.  Thus, when it came to John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008, there was no hesitation.  He was for McCain without a doubt.  

I brought the absentee to him that night at SKY Rehab with some reservation.   Was it the right thing to do?  We, as a family, didn't understand what was going on with our Dad, but we knew we were battling something we couldn't control, something we couldn't understand.  Dad voted for John McCain that night… and at that moment he was clear in his mind.  He wasn't fooled by the theatrics and hype of Barack Obama.  My Dad knew that the election of 2008 was a defining election, just like 2012 is.  

In that small block building in Aberdeen that was his bait shop, later to become my office, we talked politics - local, state, and national.  He was a man of principle, not one of convenience.  He was a man not easily persuaded, not easily manipulated.  Therefore, he was a John McCain man in 2008, not because of John McCain but because of the principles for which he stood.  In 2012 he would be a Mitt Romney man.  Why?  Not because it was convenient but because he would have earnestly believed it was the right thing to do for America.  

Mitt Romney may not win this election.  If he doesn't, then "it is what it is." We persevere.  If he does, then Dad will be smiling in heaven.  It will be deliverance for me and my Dad as I remember that lonesome night in 2008, replacing it with a much better one in 2012.   

* * * 

John Embry is the author of Out on a Limb and the host of a radio show on WLBQ 1570 AM of the same name.  He is the co-founder and vice-president of Beech Tree Media (www.beechtreenews.com and Beech Tree 1570 AM WLBQ).  John teaches American History (8th Grade) at Butler County Middle School and is the head softball coach at BCHS and BCMS.  He is married to Beth and they have two children, five-year-old Isabella Faye, and a newborn son, Will Lincoln.  They live in Aberdeen - site of the original "beech tree." He can be reached at [email protected].