“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.
