John Wayne Grandpa

I’ve written about my grandfather before. He looked a bit like John Wayne. Not so much that you’d mistake him on the street or anything, but if you met him and I pointed this out, you’d likely say, “Yeah... around the nose and eyes, maybe a little.”

I was thinkin’ about him today. My grandfather, not John Wayne. He was a WWII vet, a working man, and a big believer in patriotism and a fierce opposer of communism, much like a great many other men of his generation. And he was a BIG fan of John Wayne, of course... and of Richard M. Nixon.

Nixon was President at the time, and my grandpa was just as happy as anything about this; he did not care for Hubert Humphrey, and Nixon had chased all the commies out of Hollywood back in the fifties, and this was as good a credential as you could ask for, far as Grandpa was concerned. He WAS a little disconcerted when Nixon went to China, but “Well, he must have had a good reason,” said Grandpa, and that was that.

Richard M. Nixon could do no wrong in my grandfather’s eyes. And me? Well, I was a child at the time, and paid little attention to the news, and the President was something like a third lieutenant God as far as I knew, and I was happy to take Grandpa’s word for it.

And then Watergate broke the news.

And my grandfather did not care for this. And I learned this when they came to visit, and my grandma brought me a new GI Joe, and my grandpa gave me five dollars, and then explained how this whole Watergate thing was a big crock of crap. At length.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this -- Grandpa had never made political speeches before, that I had noticed -- but, well, he must have had a good reason, right? And I listened, and when he was done, I ran off to play with GI Joe.

Thing about Watergate? It ran ON for a few years. And a year is a very long time to a child. And I began to hear more about this thing called Watergate. And I began to pay attention. I watched the news sometimes before the evening TV shows came on. Learned a lot about what was happening in Vietnam, back when you used to see some pretty gruesome things on the news. And while I still didn’t understand what this Watergate thing was, it seemed that maybe the President... or maybe some guys who worked for him... had done something... bad. Maybe broke the law. And there was a lot of talk about “secret tapes.”

But I was a child, and all this was happening way off between Oz and Narnia and New York City, and other faraway places. It did not concern me.

But the thing was? It really started to dominate the news, particularly after Nixon had fired this one “attorney general” guy from his job, a goofy looking man in a bow tie. It was something different almost every DAY.

And a year is a very long time to a child.

And we saw my grandparents at Christmas, and Grandpa was PISSED. And I remember hearing him rant to my immediate ancestors about the goodness of Nixon and how this was all just a big screwjob, and quite a bit else, at some volume. Plainly, he felt strongly about this issue, as Grandma had to keep reminding him about Indoor Voice.

A year went by. I paid attention. Still didn’t quite understand what had happened, but apparently a LOT of Nixon’s friends had broken the law, and there was some question as to whether he knew about it, or wasn’t involved, or had TOLD them to break the law...

... and I saw my grandfather three times that year, and he was angrier every time. Thanksgiving was a struggle to keep to topics away from politics, and that Christmas was what we today would call a hot mess. My grandfather’s anger at the media and the hippies and the commies and the Democrats would NOT be denied, and YOU PEOPLE JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND! HE CHASED THE DAMN COMMIES OUT OF HOLLYWOOD!

I was a child. A bright child, I like to think, but I didn’t understand why hippies were bad, because they were all about love and peace and really cool music, and I really had no idea what the media was, and apparently commies and Democrats were two different flavors of “villain,” as far as I could figure. And I didn’t dare ask. In that age, in that family, when a man raised his voice, overvocal children tended to catch a clip around the ear, so I stayed the hell out and kept my mouth shut.

But my grandfather wasn’t normally given to fits of temper. At least, not before Watergate. But these days, ANYTHING about politics would set him off.

And this continued on a rising note until Nixon finally resigned.

I watched it on TV, and he gave his speech, climbed on a helicopter, and flew off to Narnia or San Clemente or somewhere, not to be seen again anytime soon.

And the next time I saw my grandfather after that, he was still angry. And he cornered me at one point and howled at me about how GODDAMMIT, THEY NEVER PROVED ANYTHING! AND EVEN IF HE DID ANYTHING WRONG, HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING THEY ALL DIDN’T DO! THEY’RE ALL GUILTY! NIXON JUST GOT CAUGHT IS ALL, GODDAMMIT!!! THE DEMOCRATS ARE NO BETTER! NONE OF THEM IS A GODDAMN BIT BETTER!!!

I was, I believe, ten at the time. And I stood there with weak knees and heart soaked in terror and eyes as big as eggs and nodded wordlessly, head bobbing up and down. Yes sir, no doubt about it, you are righter than right, sir! Yes sir! Please don’t hit me, sir!

And Grandma screamed at him for screaming at me, and then he got mad at himself, and apologized, and walked off. Later he gave me a ten dollar bill.

And I began reading the hell up on Watergate, because plainly this shit was important in ways I had not known, to get my grandfather all lathered up like THAT.

And it was years before I finally understood what it had all been about, and why it was called Watergate in the first place, and who G. Gordon Liddy and John Dean and H.R. Haldeman were, and about the Secret Tapes and the missing 18 minutes, and the Smoking Gun, and why Sam Donaldson talked about Nixon and “The Divine Right Of Presidents.” (“If the president does it... that means it is not illegal.”)

But it took me longer to understand why my grandfather went off like that, and STAYED like that for several years. Why had he been angry at ME? Why wasn’t he mad at Nixon, who’d betrayed the country? Or at the evil media, who’d done the screwjob, with the help of the hippies and the commies and the Democrats?

I was grown before I figured it out. He wasn’t mad at me. He’d put his faith in Nixon, and Nixon had let us down, all of us, sure. But worse than that? My grandfather had been wrong. He’d backed the wrong horse. He’d trusted and defended a crook. And he’d been WRONG. And that meant that everyone he hated, all the hippies and the commies and the Democrats... had been RIGHT. While he had been WRONG.

And he didn’t handle that very well. Plainly, if Nixon was guilty, then so had every other president in history. Nixon just got caught, that’s all. They’re all equally evil. They HAVE to be. Both sides are JUST AS WRONG!

I remember my grandfather. He looked a bit like John Wayne, who was a cowboy actor, and a staunch conservative, and whose name, when spoken by a European, is a warning you’re about to get a faceful of European attitude.

John Wayne voted for Nixon in 1960. So did my grandfather.

I wish I had more happy memories of my grandfather.

And I wish that half my country had learned the lesson he taught me, clear back in 1974, somewhere between Narnia and New York City.