LETTERS FROM HOME: THE BEST AND WORST WE CAN DO

Dear Julie,

Sickness around the house lately. Is there any such thing as equine flu?

DC and I were supposed to go to the homecoming parade with family a few days ago, but she woke up groaning. When I went out to the barn I discovered that one of the horses, a new bay mare named Hideaway, was rolling around in her stall and looking at her stomach. Margy, who owns the horse, looked worried.

Back in the house, the indomitable DC was showered, dressed, throwing up and soon back in bed.

The parade was much the same as I'd remembered many years ago, and different too. One sameness was the college men chanting "We want girls" as each band's majorettes marched by. Some things might never change.

But this year's parade saluted the university's international students, who in past years haven't been involved much. Unclear on the concept of homages to pigskin, I suppose.

The parade had plenty of political candidates, including lots of people who seem to want to be a judge. How to be fair and judgmental at the same time. I don't know if I'd want that continual tug of war in my stomach.

Next week, we Missourians vote on whether lower taxes and slot machines are good for us.

The first case is a Constitutional amendment that requires a popular vote before the Legislature can raise taxes.

In other words, forget it.

Some people who didn't grow up in the '60s -- and some who did -- laugh at Bill and Hillary Clinton for insisting government can help improve people's lives. It's the same promise John F. Kennedy made, the one LBJ broke and the one Nixon's cynicism all but destroyed.

To me, Reagan and Bush seemed to be cynics of another stripe, ones who appealed to a new belief -- that government is at best inept and at worst the source of all our problems. The hopelessness behind that belief couldn't be sustained without Reagan's charisma, so along came the Clintons, an amalgam of our love-hate relationship with government.

Tom Wicker used to say the American people seldom get the government they want but invariably get the government they deserve.

The Clintons aren't the presidential couple of our dreams, but at different times they've personified the best and the worst we can do.

Missourians also are voting on whether to allow gambling boats -- only recently legalized -- to add slot machines and roulette to their repertoire. That's because a judge, being fair and judgmental, ruled that the new gambling law didn't specifically sanction "games of chance." Turns out all those bingo players in their church basements were playing games of skill after all.

If you're betting, it's tax no, gambling yes. The worst scenario might be for the tax amendment to pass and gambling to fail. The state would be broker than California.

Sometimes I stand on the courthouse lawn and look down Broadway toward the spot where the proposed riverboat would be moored, and I think it would be swell to have a big boat there, something to jazz things up downtown.

Other times I remember the people in casinos. It's not the losers' faces that bother me but the winners'. They're easy to spot. They have an exultant look that says, "See, I AM lucky."

Lao-tzu told them, the Bible told them, but it takes three cherries in a row for them to believe it for just one moment.

When I returned home from the parade, both DC and the horse were up off the ground.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.