The Flu Made Me A Conservative

It was Junior year of high school. Springtime...because I say so. Having spent a miserable week in-doors in bed with the flu & not sure that there was an out-doors anymore, I was finally allowed to leave the confines of our little railroad apartment & venture into "fresh air". (By the way, don't you just have a feeling of all-out love for the kid that brings you all the homework you missed? Uh, yeah)

It was magnificent sitting on the open porch - the sun, the breeze, trees with leaves even. After an hour of this crap I was bored. Not being an avid reader at the time unless the dialogue was wrapped in a balloon , I mosyied?, mosied?, mozied?, walked the 3 blocks to the magazine store.

Unfortunately, all they had were...magazines. Some comics, but who the hell read Little Lulu? So I looked at the magazines. Time, Look, Life, US News, all the usual things I saw in a doctor's office (having been a recent visitor to one). My eye caught the cover of this one magazine. Can't remember what the heck was on the cover. And it was kinda thin for a magazine.

Well, I flipped through it. Lotta words in that little thing. Where were all the pictures? But then an article caught my eye. Forget what the article was about, something about politics, but I read it even though there was no balloon around it. I was like, wow, yeah they are soo right. I went on to skim a few other articles & columns & like wow, they are soo right too. So between Little Lulu & this mag, the mag won.

Got home, went back onto the porch & devoured the magazine. It was so right. Everything they said. I never knew political philosophies really existed, much less me having one. But it was all there in front of me. I found a voice for what I loosely felt, but could never define or even think of defining.

That magazine was William F. Buckely's National Review. It told me what I didn't know - that I was a Conservative. From that moment on I had a political philosophy. And each issue of the magazine from then on reaffirmed that.

I still am a Conservative after all these years & still read the mag on line. So I guess maybe the flu was worth it that year. And I'm still looking for that kid who brought me such joy.