If you will pardon a personal note, we’re celebrating my father’s 80th birthday today. Ed Kilgore, Sr., instilled in me a powerful interest in politics from an early age, during the turbulent civil rights era of the Deep South, when he (and my mother) were atypically liberal. For years, we had a Sunday ritual of eating breakfast, reading what was then a big, fat newspaper, and talking politics for as long as it took.
My father also had an extraordinary knack for seeing all points of view. He often talked conservative, but then voted progressive, being the best critic of his own arguments. He and I were among the very few voters in Tucker, Georgia (where he still lives) who cast a ballot for George McGovern in 1972, and he was a proud Obama voter (along with his wife, my stepmother Patricia) last year.
Aside from the love, support and patience he unfailingly provided over the decades, I also owe him my sense of humor (he more or less became Richard Pryor for a while there), and whatever perspective I bring to world events in my writing.
Happy birthday, Chief. I look forward to many more talks and laughs with you, no matter what happens in the wider world.