Happy Labor Day Weekend!
I’m taking off Labor Day weekend, to read up and prepare for next Tuesday’s Welcome to Charlottesville post. That will be the 50-60 years after the Civil War, which I think is the least understood and most important period in Virginia history. Meanwhile here’s a story I’ve told at Big Blue Door story shows about my high school foray into politics. Enjoy!
1981
Charlottesville High School during my junior year was cracking down on kids hanging out in their cars during lunch, drug use, and water balloons. I wasn’t a drug or water balloon user myself and our family was too poor for teenagers to own cars, but cracking down always rubbed me the wrong way, so I circulated a petition.
I was inspired by a book, Thomas Jefferson: Revolutionary Philosopher, edited by John S Pancake. It was a collection of Jefferson’s speeches, letters and essays grouped by subject. I purchased it when I moved to Charlottesville at the age of 14. Since Jefferson was from Charlottesville I thought it might help me fit in. (That’s how much of a nerd I was.) There were chapters of Jefferson’s writings grouped by subject: Politics, Religion, Slavery, Agriculture, Native Americans… it seemed like everything.
I loved that book and read it till the binding disintegrated. I’m not a person who cares about biographies or admires famous people. It didn’t matter to me what Jefferson accomplished or whether he was a good person or not. I just love language, and I was so grateful to discover the way Jefferson wrote. This precise, knowledgeable, vivid passion. And I’d never read anything like it before.
The institutions of mankind are to serve mankind.
The dead have no rights.
The tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of tyrants.
So I tried to capture that tone in my petition on water balloons.
After I turned in the petition I was called to the Vice Principal’s office. Mr Frazier was sitting at his desk with the petition in front of him. He looked a little pale. He complimented me on my prose style and asked if I was having any problems at home.
Soon after I was called to the Guidance Department and Mrs Derdeyn told me that I had been picked by the school administration to attend something called Boys State of Virginia. She said Boys State of Virginia was a prestigious week-long summer program run by the American Legion where kids learn about democracy. “We think this will be a better outlet for your interest in politics.”
The thing is, I had no interest in politics. I knew about the State of Nature and the Social Contract but I had no idea who the governor of Virginia was. I’d never campaigned for anyone. I’d never been involved in student government. The only position I’d accept in student clubs was vice president, and that was because vice presidents never had to do anything. But I agreed to go, so that summer I was off to Boys State of Virginia at the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg to learn about democracy from the American Legion.
Dorm City
At Boys State of Virginia, learning about democracy began with ID cards. Mine said Joel Jones. Eisenhower City. Nationalist. Each 20-kid dorm was a different city and named after a U.S. president. Nationalist was one of two randomly assigned political parties. (Federalist was the other.) At Boys State we all wore matching white shirts and blues shorts. Led by our dorm leader who was a marine sergeant we learned to march in formation to meals at the dining hall, and three daily assemblies at a huge gymnasium where Legionnaires in blue shirts introduced Guest Politicians who gave speeches.
Meanwhile kids ran for office. Boy’s State was an entire imaginary state campaign season crammed into one week. Kids run for mayor of their cities and precinct captains early in the week, and then candidtes vie for seats in the Boy’s State of Virginia legislature, and the big three offices of Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General. The final voting is Saturday afternoon. Sunday the new pretend regime is sworn in and our mom’s come to pick us up.
The Campaign
I sign up to run for Lieutenant Governor as Joel “Bones” Jones. Lt Governor because I figure Lt Governor is the closest thing to being a vice president, and “Bones” because a nickname will show I’m a man of the people. On Wednesday we have our party nominating conventions. Between each vote city precinct captains and various candidates are wheeling and dealing, promising to back your governor if you’ll back their attorney general and so on. I’m good at the wheeling and dealing and after more than a dozen ballots I Joel Bones Jones am the Nationalist Candidate for Lt Governor.
Now the other major candidates start campaigning hard, but I don’t bother because I have a secret weapon. Thomas Jefferson. See, at Saturday Assembly before the final vote the candidates for the big 3 give speeches up on the podium just like the Guest Politicians, and I’ll pull out the Jefferson. The institutions of mankind are to serve mankind! The dead have no rights! The tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of tyrants!
Everyone will go nuts
Because people are already nuts.
During the first couple of days when the Guest Politicians gave speeches we clapped politely, but by midweek the Guest Politicians say anything. The United States of America! Our Young People! Our Fighting Men and Women! And hundreds of boys in white shirts and blue shorts are on their feet clapping and yelling. Me along with everyone else.
But now it’s Thursday and I’m not like everyone else. I’m Joel Bones Jones. Nationalist Candidate for Lt Governor. I have responsibilities. I have to give a speech that sounds like Thomas Jefferson, which means I need some issues, ‘cause thinking about it, I realize all his stuff was organized around issues, so I’m listening to the Guest Politicians for issues and there are none. And the rest of Boys State is pretty much the same.
The two political parties are identical, every city is interchangeable with every other city. We have no budget, no bureaucracy, no taxes, no highways, no schools. Our cities have no zoning battles, no crime. No women.
It’s unsettling. For the first time in my life not having to do anything seems wrong.
No, I’ve got to put this out of my mind and come up with a speech. But I can’t. Friday night the other Eisenhowerians are out at Boys State-mandated pizza parties during their two-hour block of free time and I’m pacing the room. How can I ask people to vote for me if I don’t have any policies, and even if I had policies I couldn’t implement them, and even if I could implement them I’d never know if they worked? I’ll go to sleep. Tomorrow morning I’ll wake up with an idea. But I can’t sleep. I toss and turn and when I wake up Saturday morning I still have nothing. Then it’s all a sickening blur. Breakfast. Marching in formation to Assembly.
Could the candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general please come up to the podium?!
Next thing I know I’m sitting in a semi-circle of folding chairs listening to the candidates for attorney general. The United States of America! Our Young People! Our Fighting Men and Women! This time all in teenage voices. But with every phrase what looks from up here like thousands of identical white-shirted teenagers scream and yell and applaud. Meanwhile I’ve got a sweaty, crumpled piece of blank paper and a ball-point pen still trying to come up with something to say.
Then I hear it: Nationalist Candidate for Lt Governor of Boys State, Joel Bones Jones!
The gymnasium erupts in applause. I zombie my way to the podium. The clapping and whooping and cheers go on and on as I’m spreading out the piece of paper as if there’s a speech on it. Finally the sea of white shirts sinks into folding chairs and settles into silence. A moment goes by and I can’t say anything. I’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then I hear my own voice squeaking:
“None of this really means anything.”
Silence.
Nobody applauds.
Not even some weirdo in back.
I don’t know why I said it. I didn’t mean to. It just came out. I sputter, trying to explain, trying to tell them I don’t look down on anyone and it’s good to be enthusiastic but we can’t do anything really but we can still believe in stuff and that’s probablygoodtoshowwhatwethinkbecausethinkingis…
But I don’t even know what I’m saying; it’s an incoherent jumble. I babble on for a minute or so more and then just mumble thank you and retreat to my folding chair. Still no one applauds. Not even politely.
Then a red-faced legionnaire rushes across the stage, his belly spilling over his cinched belt as he grabs the microphone.
We’re not taking sides here but if anyone tells you that what we’re doing today doesn’t mean anything, they’re wrong!
And Boys State of Virginia erupts in deafening applause. Hundreds of kids, row after row, city after city, on their feet screaming in approval, hands raised as if touchdowns were scored, fists pumping in fury, whistling as if watching strippers. It goes on and on and on.
When all the speeches are done, I walk back to the area where Eisenhower City is seated. No one looks at me. No one says anything. And for the rest of my time at Boys State, it’s the same.
It’s weird. I’m expecting conflict but it never happens. No one spits on me, beats me up, short-sheets my bed, threatens me. No one laughs at me. No one even asks my why I said what I’d said. For the rest of my time at Boy’s State no one says a word to me. I’m a ghost. Completely ignored.
And strangely, it wasn’t so bad. If I’d had to be there for months I probably would have cracked up, but once I realized I was a ghost, it was fine. I found I could be hated by hundreds of people and I could live with it. Looking back, that’s one thing the American Legion did teach me for which I’m grateful.
2024
I thought of this story in the car yesterday talking with my daughter. She’s running for middle school student council, and she was talking about the campaign, considering what it would be mean to be elected or not elected, wondering what chances she had, discovering aloud in the flow of her thoughts conclusions much like what I came to believe at Boy’s State about mock elections decades ago.
I hope she’s elected. (I know she’ll at least write a speech). I don’t know what her chances are. But if mock elections weren’t about learning to run for office, if they were about learning to govern, and if her school peers knew that they would depend on their elected council in order to have food and shelter, if elections really did matter in that way, I believe she’d be a shoo in.
Speaking of food and shelter, Happy Labor Day.
We’ll be back Tuesday with the continuation of Welcome to Charlottesville. Thanks for reading and please subscribe and share!