In five days voting citizens of the United States of America will decide whether incumbent President Donald John Trump will be given another four year term or whether he will be replaced by Joseph Robinette (would you name your kid Robinette?) Biden, Jr. The high anxiety result of next Tuesday's vote took me back to Monday, November 1, 1948, where I sat in the classroom of history Professor Daniel L. Gadke. Professor Gadke was a longtime iconic teacher at Willamette University known for his deeply conservative political beliefs and his love of rhododendrons. The Willamette campus today is richly adorned with the magnificent rhododendrons he had planted over his years at the University.
Common knowledge of the race between Democratic President Harry S Truman (the "S" was his name, not an initial) was considered all but over with Republican challenger Thomas L. Dewey's wife having already chosen the new drapes for the Oval Office. After the cabal of close advisers to Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the bum's rush to his vice president for being too far left in his politics, the little (5'8") senator from Missouri, Harry Truman was chosen to run with Roosevelt in 1944. Roosevelt had small regard for Truman and they rarely met together right up to Roosevelt's death in 1945
There was something about Dewey that was a bit off-putting. He was too slickly perfect (some newspaper critic once said he looked like the splendid little guy you put on top of your wedding cake. The zinger stuck). Harry focused his campaign on the Republican do-nothing congress and took his "Give 'em Hell" rant on a train ride across America. He addressed his fellow citizens from the rear platform of the train's last car.
As class ended that November Monday, an almost-giddy Professor Gadke announced to our class, "When we meet again on Wednesday we will be blessed with a new Republican administration."
Forty-eight hours later a thousand rhododendrons lost their leaves.
