Feet pounded down the stairs, the not-so-little miscreant taking two at a time, her younger brother trying to catch her, sliding around the landing.

"Careful!" I barked, mostly at her, the one who should have known better.

"This looks great, Alice," said Hon, who had removed the tin foil and placed a steaming dish on the table.

"I got the recipe from Tina," Alice said. "She belongs to a cooking club, and this was the recipe of the month."

"So what did you contribute to this wonderful meal?" I asked Uncle Chet as everyone sat down at the table.

"I transported it at the legal limit, which is why it’s still simmering," he said and nodded toward the beer. "Let me try one of those black-and-tans."

"You’ll need a church key for that," I said and passed both items down the table.

"Try some refried beans," Hon told Buddy, the only one who wasn’t excited about enchilada casserole, refried beans and tossed salad.

"Did you hear about Sandra Day O’Connor?" asked Uncle Chet.

"Saw the headline online," I said.

"Here’s a Reagan appointee, a true conservative, warning about the right wing of her own party trying to strong-arm the judiciary," he said as he opened his beer.

"This isn’t Hillary Clinton talking about the vast right-wing conspiracy, in a moment of lucidity. Here’s a woman in the mold of Barry Goldwater, grew up on a ranch — for real, not some transplant dude — warning us to be vigilant about the signs of dictatorship in our one-party government, where the only good Democrat is a docile Democrat."

"Except Russ Feingold," I said.

"Except the soon-to-be late Senator Feingold," he said, "who’s called for W. to be censured for spying on us without a court order, then lying about it until he was caught. Poor Feingold’s come out of the closet, and if I were him, I wouldn’t even ride in a car, let alone fly in an airplane."

"Wouldn’t that be too obvious?" I said.

"They don’t care if they’re obvious," Uncle Chet said. "If you go far enough right, you take the `republic’ right out of Republican, and all that’s left is a strongman in the White House and some flunkies in Congress and the court to make it look legal. Look at Sandra Day O’Connor. When she was appointed to the court, she was a conservative in her own party, but if she keeps it up, they’ll start talking about her like she’s Castro’s sister."

"I’m sure she’d like to hear you defending her like that," Hon said.

"She could take it," he said. "She’s an old woman, and she’s for real. She loves her country and knows we don’t stand for legalized torture, punishment without trial, reckless deficits, wars based on lies to benefit the rich, and warrantless spy programs.

"Look at our federal government. At the top it’s mostly lackeys looking for a handout from Abramoff and his ilk, a bunch of middle-aged good ol’ boys looking for a way to make a killing and retire to the Bahamas. Lately, you hear a lot about Abramoff, because he’s the one they caught. And you hear about the congressmen he bribed, but you hear almost nothing about the Big Bosses, the ones who were pulling the strings through Abramoff. Who are these guys rich enough to own a senator or a couple of congressmen, and what’s their agenda?"

"You’re saying `follow the money,"’ I said.

"Follow the money," he repeated. "The only way to understand the lies is to see who stole what. When they say Bush is running a $400 billion deficit, it isn’t as if the money disappears down the sewer. Someone gets every one of those greenbacks, and when you see who got what, you’ll start to see the big picture."

"I see nothing, on Saturday," I said as I closed my eyes like Sgt. Schultz.

"And the worst part is how they wrap themselves in Jesus," he said, "pretending that the Prince of Peace stood for pre-emptive war, lying, torture and enriching the rich, when the opposite is true."

`’But so many are blind," I said.

"Amen," Alice said, and then a chorus of "amen" arose from around the table.

"So what type of music are we going to play after dinner?" Uncle Chet asked.

"We’ve been playing a lot of brass instruments here recently," I said. "Why don’t we start with ’The Star-Spangled Banner’?"

———

Cooperstown News Bureau Reporter Tom Grace is traveling with his Uncle Chet, who he says is imaginary. Grace’s column appears twice monthly.