Drive by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

Author:Joyce Moyer Hostetter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

30

IDA

November 1952

On election night Daddy roamed the house, turning the knob on the radio up and then down. Jackie marched through the living room singing a campaign jingle about everybody liking Ike.

“Be quiet!” said Daddy. “I don’t wanna hear you singing that!”

Election results wouldn’t be final until the wee hours of the morning, but the commentators seemed to think Ike would win.

Ellie went to bed singing “I Like Ike” even though I kept telling her to be quiet. “Would you quit? You do not need to be upsetting Daddy.”

“It’s just one of those songs,” she said. “It gets in your head and it won’t get out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But you do like Ike and you’re hoping he’ll win, and the rest of us don’t want to hear it.”

The next morning, before I was out of bed, I heard Daddy talking to the radio. I went to the kitchen and General Eisenhower was on, making a victory speech about the weight of responsibilities that we’d placed on him.

“Yes,” said Daddy. “And God help us if you don’t get our boys out of that conflict.”

Ann Fay sat at the table with him, patting his hand. “It’ll be okay, Daddy,” she said. “Eisenhower is going to visit Korea. Maybe he knows how to get us out of the war without dropping a bomb.” She was trying to keep Daddy from going downhill, but the truth was we’d won the last war by bombing Japan. And now that we had that awful weapon it seemed like using it would be just too easy.

On the bus I thought about how lots of people were bound to be upset today. Losing always hurts. But this wasn’t like Ned Jarrett losing a stock car race. The election was personal because real people were sending their sons off to Korea to a war they didn’t think we could win. And everybody thought their candidate could fix things. Now we’d just have to wait and see.

In the hall at school, on top of all the talking and the slamming of locker doors, people were chanting. It moved down the hall in waves. “I like Ike. I like Ike. I like Ike.”

I shoved my history book into my locker and banged it shut. “Some people have no respect,” I muttered. “Whatever happened to being a good sport?”

Arnie was in his seat and I could see the words on his lips too. He bobbed his head to the beat of it. But he stopped when he saw me come through the door.

Buster, who was almost always making a racket in the hall or sitting there in homeroom looking to trip somebody, did not seem to be around. At least I didn’t have to listen to him being obnoxious.

Ellie ran to greet Arnie and for a minute I thought she was going to hug his neck. “Arnie, our man won. Woohoo! Are we celebrating by going to the big showdown between Staley and Johnson on Sunday? Please say yes. I’ve never ever been to North Wilkesboro.

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