The Tories

“Hey Idril! Let’s be the Tories!”, my friend Luchessi shouted from across the classroom. I don’t even remember his first name, in the eighth grade we just called each other by our last name.

“Sure”, I responded, always up for a good losing political battle, which would follow me most of my life as I strove for change in a world filled with no desire to do anything that involved more work than picking up the TV remote.

Our eighth grade history teacher, Mr. Lorraine, was one of those teachers you remember and appreciate your whole life, he could bring the entire class to life. At one point we conducted our own government with House, Senate, and President, and everybody was involved and had a role. If memory serves Silva was the President and I was the Vice-President, I don’t even remember the laws we passed, I think it had to do with how to arrange the schoolroom, but his vetoes got everybody pissed off at him and they attempted to impeach him. The impeachment failed to get 2/3rds majority, and just like Al Gore, I didn’t get to be President.

This was earlier, near the beginning of the year, when you always studied The American Revolution. We moved a lot so I got to go to seven different schools in four different States in those first eight years, and wouldn’t even get to finish Mr. Lorraine’s class before we moved again. No, I didn’t get thrown out of schools, there was never time, my dad simply changed jobs and we changed States at the drop of a hat.

Every school I went to never even got to the Civil War when they studied history. We would usually dwell for half a year on the Revolution, I suspect looking back, because the teachers didn’t know much else and it was easy. I distinctly remember one teacher remarking that men had one less rib than women because God took Adam’s rib out to make Eve. I kid you not.

Mr. Lorraine decided to split up the class into three equal groups, Patriots, Tories, and Mugwumps, or fence sitters who couldn’t decide. Which is really what America was in 1776, oh, and I guess nothing’s changed in 237 years, the useless, spineless, undecided, Mugwumps, still get to determine the future of America.

Mr. Lorraine asked for volunteers to lead the Patriots and Tories; everybody wanted to be the Patriots so Luchessi and I filled in the vacuum on the Tory side. He gave us talking points for both the Patriots and the Tories. After seven years of American Patriotic indoctrination, nobody had ever told me there was another side to the story, Britain’s side. There in front of me in black and white was the proof that the Patriots could never win. Britain had just defeated the great nations of France and Austria, we controlled the seas, we could control any city we wanted, we offered protection from foreign powers, we offered protected trade and prosperity, the list seemed endless. The Patriots were just a bunch of crybabies about some necessary taxes to keep the French out of North America.

I walked up to Mr. Lorraine and only in half-jest asked, “How did we win?”

He just smiled. He wanted me to figure it out, what a great teacher.

So Luchessi and I prepared ourselves and we had two separate class debates, with students allowed to ask questions, to determine a winner. At the end Luchessi and I convinced over half the American citizens in the class that their best bet was staying with England and to vote for us. We were pretty chuffed at our victory, it really wasn’t that hard, we had the facts on our side, all our Patriot opponents had were slogans and cheering. Our class was pretty smart, I determined. Plus the girls liked Luchessi.

Much to my pleasure the Patriot and Tory leaders were then sent on a field trip to a second grade class at a nearby elementary school. Who doesn’t like field trips? All of the second graders were sitting in a big room watching a movie about the American Revolution and how brave and wonderful the Patriots were.

After the film we got to present our case to all of the second graders. The way this worked is we would make our pitch, take a vote, then come back in a week and present our cases again and take a final vote.

We got our butts whooped. If I remember, out of about one hundred kids, we got eleven votes. I was actually surprised and pleased we got that many, the odds were greatly against us in that virulently Patriotic environment. But there were eleven plucky second graders who refused to go along with the masses.

Then Mr. Lorraine did something that stunned me and I remember to this day; he crooked his finger at each of the kids who voted Tory and invited them into a side room with us. There he pulled out an entire bag of candy, presented it to them, and said, “I am a representative of the King, and King George rewards his loyal subjects”.

Outright bribery, what brilliance.

At the time I was not thrilled with this, we should earn a victory fairly I said. The Patriot leaders were just open mouthed and making futile objections, Mr. Lorraine was not to be moved. The kids went nuts and split up all the candy and wouldn’t you know it, went out and TOLD EVERYBODY what a vote for the Tories meant.

The next week we came back and gave a shortened version of our presentation. This time we won fairly easily, about sixty votes. The second grade teachers were much amused at the little traitors in their midst.

I learned a lesson in the art of politics, bribery works.

And the second graders learned a lesson too, there was no more candy forthcoming. Once a politician has your vote, you’re fucked.