Smile-breaks
The Kerry Bush Branches Out
The kerry bush, the kerry bush – it’s all over the nation these days. You can’t escape it. Although it’s rooted deeply in the soil of Texachusetts, its canopy covers every state from coast to coast. Fortunately, its trunk is big enough to hold a dozen denim overalls for farm country appearances and a trio of hardhats for the steel mills and six crisp L. L. Bean shirts for the suburbs, along with a couple of dozen freshly scrubbed pairs of deck shoes for Key West and eight or ten of whatever it is they’re wearing in Boston and Orange County this fall.
You’ll recognize the kerry bush when you see it. That’s for sure. Its canopy of red, white and blue flowers stands out in a crowd and it strews its petals along the campaign trail as the train/plane/bus passes through your town. If you look closely, you might even see the handfuls of red neckties hanging from the lower branches. That dark green you thought might be leaves is actually the money, honey. Dropped by the faithful along the way.
While leafy tendrils from the kerry bush climb up and down the polls, trying to get a grasp on the issues, there is great dissension within. One branch reaches far to the left, forks, and then retracts; another extends to the right and then loses all its petals when it shakes its flowers vehemently. Publicly the branches argue loudly about which direction to go and what branch said what and why it isn’t so. But not to worry – the trunk is firmly attached to the middle and that’s where it’s going to stay. Both of it.
That’s because, although its roots are there, the kerry bush is not native to Texachusetts. No, the kerry bush is a native of Washington, D.C., a place firmly rooted to the middle. Here all of the kerry bush branches live in nice big government buildings and spend their days in Executive Offices and Congressional Hearing Rooms - when they’re not on vacation in Texachusetts or Kennebunkport or Cape Cod.
The kerry bush thrives on Washington’s indoor lighting and temperature-controlled environment, where lively debates, committee meetings, politicking and missed roll calls nourish its spirit. Only in the early summer and fall of an election year does it gather its strength and branch out to bring its weapons of mass instruction to the nation.
From May to November, the kerry bush informs the people of its splendid plans of action to make this country a better place than it was while the kerry bush was in Washington tending to business, and exposes all kinds of truths about itself and denies all kinds of truths about itself, and thus prepares us for the day when we will poke a hole in a ballot or touch a screen and determine the fate of the kerry bush for the next four years.
So that’s the deal - there’s a decision to make: The bush hopes to kerry the election head over heels – not flip over flop. But the kerry hopes to win in a breeze, leaving the bush swaying in the hot dry air of Texachusetts. Come November, it’s all up to you.