mo

Having spent many newspaper years among politicians -- mostly listening -- I developed a personal liking for several, dislike for a few and tolerance for most.
I didn't grade them on political affiliations or positions on issues. It was purely personal.
For instance I once wrote a column saying I'd rather sit down and have a beer and shoot the breeze with George W. Bush than with Al Gore.
I still feel that way, though I could never, ever vote for George Bush.
As a working newspaperman, I always did my best -- I truly did -- to put aside any such personal feelings and partisan opinions and just write everything straight down the middle.
I think I did pretty well at that. But that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy -- enormously enjoy -- the Mo Udalls and Pat Schroeders of this world.
For me, you see, Morris King Udall, the late congressman from Arizona and candidate for president, and Patricia Scott Schroeder, long-time congresswoman from Denver, remain my favorite politicians among all the pols I ever met or knew much about.
Why?
Well, for starters, both were smart, honest, dedicated, accountable, liberal, open-minded and compassionate. In addition -- and this is important -- while they could be deadly serious, both could be almost outrageously funny.
Politics can be fun, you know.
I first met Pat in 1972 when she ran for her first term out of a store-front office in east Denver. In the next two decades, I saw a lot of the witty and effective congresswoman.
I can't claim to have had nearly as much direct contact with Mo Udall, but I chatted briefly with him a few times on the campaign trail, followed his career at a distance and I still grin when I think of some of his campaign chatter, like a couple of quotes I happened to run across the other day.
Samples:
As a candidate for president: "I'm a one-eyed Mormon Democrat from conservative Arizona, and you can't have a higher handicap than that."
After finishing second in his fifth primary in a row: "The people have spoken, the bastards."
That's my kind of guy.

cinema

This week the Denver Post reported on a plan to turn Civic Center into an open-air movie theater for 30 nights this summer. It's said to be the first such venture for any U.S. city.
Well, for the record, I have to say this isn't exactly a new idea. My old home town had open-air summer movies 70 years ago.
My home town? That's McLouth, Kansas, founded mostly by Brits and Germans in the early 1880's near the northeast corner of the state.
McLouth's population? Not much, even today. And in the days of the outdoor movies it was maybe 500.
Okay. So it's not a city. Never was. But I bet the patrons of Denver's 21st century cinema won't enjoy it any more than we enjoyed ours in the thirties.
In both instances, as is often the case, money was the motivator.
In the 1930's, when I was a boy, the U.S. midwest was being ravaged simultaneously by depression and drought. Merchants in crossroad hamlets were suffering right along with city financiers.
Like today, people were reluctant to spend money even when they had it. Like today, folks often just stayed out of stores.
Well, as these hard times continued to crawl by, someone in McLouth got an idea how prospective customers might be lured "downtown" (Union Street) at least one day a week.
Give them something for nothing. Oldest trick in the book.
And so it was that McLouth merchants made a deal with a fellow who had a projector and temporary screen and access to cheap movies.
Presto! Saturday night movies. For free.
Seating? No problem. Set a bunch of planks in rows on concrete blocks on a vacant lot across the street from the postoffice and the city bandstand.
Sure, there was lots of squirming on those planks, but hey, it was free, wasn't it?
It beat driving six miles to Oskaloosa or ten miles to Tonganoxie and paying a quarter for a ticket to a real theater.
And since it didn't get dark enough to start the show until 9 o'clock there was plenty of time for waiting townspeople and farm families to drop by Dutch Chapman's grocery store and Red Luse's appliance shop and get a hamburger at Ott Harding's restaurant (which also was the only place in towm you could buy a beer).
I never really knew how McLouth's plan worked out financially. We kids didn't care.
Of course the 2009 Denver project isn't going to be free at all. It requires a temporary grandstand and tickets will be $15 or $20.
Obviously with this sort of outdoor event you have to be concerned about rain.
In dust-bowl Kansas in the 1930s that wasn't much of a worry. It hardly rained there for years.

good book

Over the years I have collected three translations of the Holy Bible, but seldom open any of them. Recently, however I was compelled to take a look inside the King James version.
Why? Because of news reports of the commercial, on-line sale of bumper stickers and T-shirts bearing this simple biblical message: "Psalm 109:8."
How does that verse read?
"Let his days be few, and let another take his office."
And at whom is that aimed today? Obviously at Barack Obams, already the target of a despicable, race-related hate campaign with a violent fringe.
Oh, no, you're wrong, weasel-worded apologists will say. You're taking words out of context, they will say. We aren't advocating assassination, only a one-term limit.
Really? Anyone who believes that should continue reading Psalm 109.
The very next words, in verse 9, are: "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg . . ."
And, finally, in verse 13: "Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out."
Sounds pretty terminal. It's startling to see what twisted minds can do with a Psalm of David.
With that in mind, I was showing Psalm 109:8 to a fellow I know the other day. He recommended I look for guidance elsewhere in the King James.
He suggested Matthew 25, verses 35 and 36: ". . .for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me."
Which, when you think about it, are inspiring words for all seasons.