My Grandfather
Today, my maternal grandfather would have celebrated his 108th birthday. Jake Shapiro was a nice Jewish boy who was born in Lithuania, but grew up in Pittsburgh. He was a doughboy who arrived in France on the very day that the Armistice was signed. Jake loved baseball more than shul and politics a lot more than religion, but he was better educated than most college boys and at least as morally engaged as any rabbi. He was a radio operator, a compulsive walker, a voracious reader, and, as you may see below, a notorious writer of letters to the editor.

Oh, and another thing: Jake Shapiro was a Democrat. I wonder what he would think of his "little monkey's" politics. No doubt he'd wring my neck!

Anyhow, I found this letter a while back and thought I'd share with you the proof that being full of shit is a heritable trait. Enjoy.

Carter mystique

29 July 1976

El Paso Herald Post

EDITOR: What is this mystique about Jimmy Carter that has captivated the American people, North and South? Here we have a Southerner from rural Georgia, who, when Governor of his state, administered its laws from the City of Atlanta, the city which General Sherman and his Union Army burned to the ground in his march to the sea during the Civil War! "How come? How come?" people ask.

How did he brush aside conventional presidential politics and the leaders of the Democratic party like a giant ocean liner brushes aside the waves as it cuts through the sea? Well, your guess is as good as mine but it is one man's opinion that, from the cold and windy snows of New Hampshire to the steaming podium in Madison Square Garden, he did it on sheer personality and the refreshing grace with which he projected it.

We have been hearing that Carter's support is soft and spotty in many areas, but what those who say that overlook is his great strength that has fired the imagination of millions of Americans with a strong sense of history, who visualize that the election of Jimmy Carter will unite this greatest and most powerful country on Earth as it has not been united for more than 100 years and vindicate the Pledge of Allegiance, in truth as well as in words, that this is one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Heh, heh.