Eulogy for Wellstone
(Daschellus Caesar, Act III, Scene 2)

Friends, Democrats, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come not to bury Wellstone, but to endorse Mondale.
The elections that men win live after them;
The ones they lose are oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Wellstone.
Our party is nothing if not ambitious:
If it were to lose control of the Senate, would be a grievous fault,
And grievously Wellstone trailed in the polls.
Here, under leave of Clinton and the rest--
For Clinton is an honourable man;
Clinton, Kennedy, McAuliffe, Lautenberg;
So are they all, all honourable men (ha ha!)--
Let this not be Wellstone's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But internal polling data says he was going to lose;
And winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
No, therefore, let us rally for Mondale, his successor,
And bring him great victory.
He hath proposed the taxes greatly to increase
Whose ransoms will the general coffers fill:
When that the special interests have cried,
Mondale hath wept with them:
Is this not how the game is played?
Ambition should be made of stern stuff:
And, brother, are we ever ambitious;
Daschle is an honourable man.
You all did see that on C-SPAN
Jim Jeffords presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did did not refuse: now that is ambition, baby!
Yet Daschle says he is not ambitious (who doth he fool?);
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to eulogize poor, dead Wellstone,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You want to keep control of the Senate, right?
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for Wellstone
When you can be out working for a Mondale victory!
Bag the funeral and let's have a rally!
My heart is not in the coffin there with Wellstone,
For I must vote early and often for Mondale.

(Apologies to the Immortal Bard)
Posted by: Michael Morley on October 30, 2002 07:30 AM

Today was our day to take Monica and family their Hershey goodies. (Hey, Mark was out of town, so Monica could pig out on the chocolate entirely by herself!) She told us she would be at their playgroup, with the babes all in costume.

At the rest area, there were a few thousand kids. I asked a parent what they were doing, and they were heading to Muir Woods for a field trip. We said a silent prayer of thanks that this wasn't a Muir Woods day for us! We heard about a traffic jam on the 680 so we went down the Nimitz instead and got stuck in another, but much closer to San Jose. And we arrived at Monica's house and picked up our parking pass only a couple of minutes late. Then we walked to the playgroup.

There were a number of small children there, playing near each other as their Moms talked. Monica introduced us, and explained that I didn't always have green hair. I talked to Tigger, 3, and started with the Tigger song. However, we hit a snag when we got to "his tail is made out of springs." "I don't HAVE a tail!" Oops. He spent much of the rest of the morning looking for his tail, with Rich thinking I'd asked "where's your tail?" Married to me for 3/8 of a century and he still thinks I'm that stupid.

Tigger's mom also babysits so she had three babies with her, and of course they all cry at the same time. I took Morgan, a peapod, and fed her. I noted that one of the peas was missing... "you're missing a P... oh, no, I bet you aren't!"

Genevieve had brought two of her Teletubbies and was being pretty reasonable about sharing, but in the sandbox her natural tendencies overcame her. Monica said "SHARE, Genevieve!" and got such a look. "SHARE??? Are you NUTS, Mom?!?"

Then we all walked back home. Genevieve was quite taken with "granpa" (She's pretty good about calling me "Nana" but not so sure about "Djadja.") It was "I hold granpa's hand. Granpa hold Po's hand" and etc. etc. etc. Monica had wanted her to talk... be careful what you wish for! She's definitely the chatterbox of the group. The others tell Monica they don't quiz their children like she does. Nothing wrong at all with M's approach... if G. doesn't want to play along, she won't, and meanwhile she knows a lot of her alphabet and has a huge vocabulary, if only you can understand her.

Monica also said she liked this one South African clothing line, since the children's clothes look like children's clothes, not like something M. would wear. She said this in all seriousness wearing Tigger overalls.

We also talked about names for the new one. If it's a boy, she was looking for a respectable middle name, and testing grandparent's names. I also mentioned the great-grandpas (well, not Ernest or Frederick!) as potentials. For a girl, it appears "Genevieve" is a hard act to follow. "You can't follow a name like 'Genevieve' with 'Ann'!" Not enough gravitas. Heh. There are a lot of names I like, but I had a chance to name my children, and they should have the same chance. I never understood family members who told the new parents they didn't like the baby's name.

We had lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Monica's kitchen is being repainted and refurbished. It's going to be very pretty. And so home.

Funeral Pep Rally picture. The Boston Globe says "The Democrats will soon run out of 70-year-old issues and 70-year-old senators."