Chapter 1, Part 2

I became a full-fledged politician as a freshman in high school. That was the year I ran for student senate. I was not extremely popular. I wasn’t a tremendous athlete. Nor did I date the prettiest girl in school. Even with the full knowledge of my sociopolitical status amongst my peers I believed I still had a shot at winning one of the six seats. My campaign manager (my father) came up with a great campaign strategy. We decided to go simple. Borrowing from the British pop group Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s promotional campaign “Frankie Says. . .” , we made posters, buttons and t-shirts with large black letters on white backgrounds that said, “Roger Says . . .Vote For Me” or more humorous ones that said “Roger Says . . . Eat Broccoli or Watch Cartoons”. The humor must have been lost to my classmates, because I lost the election. This began my long stretch of cynicism towards politics.
“Finding” yourself in high school is a daunting task for anyone. Our family has moved back to the conservative Midwest where I attended a high school filled largely with upper middle students. It was the type of school and community that surrounding school systems loved to hate. We won just about every state championship we entered. From marching band to football or from show choir to swimming, it was hard to beat my aulmumater at anything. The students at my school were stereotyped as spoiled rich suburban white kids. And seeing as how I knew three students during my junior year that all drove Porsche’s to school every morning, that stereotype was rooted in some form of truth. To say my adolescent years were formed in the midst of the conservative right would be an understatement. As I searched to find my place among the privileged and well to do, I found myself gravitating towards the students for what ever socio-economic reasons found themselves at the bottom of the social hierarchy at my school. I was a punk. Well, at school I was a punk. While riding the bus or in a friends car to school I would change from my yuppie Izod tennis polo (with collar popped) into bleached out, cut up jeans with my Clash concert t-shirt. I led a dual existence. At home I was a bible study attending, well-mannered, quasi-conservative young man. But at school I was a We Are The World, free Nelson Mandela, damn the man liberal. My parents did have some idea of my political leanings. Our political conversations would always end with my father excusing my viewpoints by saying something like, “If you’re not a liberal at 16 you don’t have a heart and if you’re not a conservative at 35 you’re just stupid.” I don’t think my views at this stage in life could be called true convictions. I was into being anti-, well anti-just-about-everything because I thought it was a great way to meet girls. I remember a specific occasion of me traveling to the convention center of our state capital to protest the appearance of Ronald Reagan (one of our greatest presidents of all time) at an Amway business meeting. I had heard that a young lady I wanted to get to know better was going to be there so I went. I believe the protesters were upset about nuclear weapons traveling across the US by rail car or something like that. Heck, it would not have mattered to me if we had been protesting peoples rights to choose Pepsi over Coke in a blind taste test, I was there for the chicks. About the only activism I remember performing in my high school years that didn’t have alterior motives was my coordinating a mile of people in the “Hands Across America” movement. I sure could talk a good game about being liberal, but when push came to shove I wasn’t acting out my supposed convictions.