JOURNAL ENTRY
Ervin, Mike
JOURNAL ENTRY Mike Ervin Land of a Million Elephants Because of car trouble, I got separated from the pack last summer in Washington, D.C. But I heard the chant: Nursing Homes Have Got to Go. And...
...What else, who else, have the Republicans got to strut...
...That got another big laugh...
...That's the standard Plan C. When we don't take no for an answer the first time or two, the enemy sometimes assumes it must be a communication problem and digs up someone they think can speak our language, someone who can break our secret gimp code...
...Instead of Lincoln, they've got pictures of Lee Atwater and Marilyn Quayle on the walls...
...And that led me to the long line of people in wheelchairs marching up a street near the Capitol...
...American Indians for Nixon...
...The elephant counter had been abandoned...
...We told the fresh-faced youth we were here to see the chairman of the Republican Party...
...He told us he shared our concerns, but not enough to support them...
...Abust of Eisenhower sat on a pedestal that looked like papier-mache painted gold...
...And there was a large, ultrarealistic, oil portrait of Eisenhower on the wall...
...But there was no discernible sign of him...
...I wasn't even sure where I was going...
...I jumped into one of the gaps near the front...
...The most depressing button was about six inches in diameter and featured a picture of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat and proclaimed South Dakota to be Reagan Country...
...Impeach Hillary...
...The man in the wheelchair was another immaculate specimen...
...After about six hours of effectively shutting the place down, we marched out...
...They parted long enough to let a squeaky-clean lad in a white shirt and a tie step forward to ask us who our chairperson was...
...How appropriate.William McKinley buttons...
...Our chant became: Republican Schmublican, Health Care Now...
...Inside a cabinet was a commemorative silver spoon from the 1892 convention...
...Soon, through the glass of the locked door, I could see a man in a wheelchair milling about in the inner sanctum...
...Must be the headquarters of the Republican National Committee...
...It was depressing because I realized that there are some people out there who would actually wear that button in public, which also made me realize what a big job we have to do...
...On display behind the glass were all different shapes and sizes of souvenir elephants: glass-blown elephants, onyx elephants, wicker elephants, pewter elephants...
...Our photograph made The New York Times...
...Keep Coolidge...
...We had the whole lobby jammed, with still more folks in wheelchairs on the sidewalk outside...
...I expected Lincoln to be stuffed and mounted at the door...
...I wonder why...
...My favorite was Pretty Girls for Nixon...
...Dour guards, with arms akimbo, protected the locked door that led to the inner sanctum...
...I soon found myself wedged up against an oaken wall, packed in by the dozens of people in wheelchairs around me...
...They were full of campaign buttons: Nixon's the One...
...The Republican National Committee was different from what I might have imagined—if, that is, I had spent a lot of time imagining what the Committee's offices would look like...
...The most inspiring Gerald Ford button the Committee could find said: Keep a Good Guy President...
...The young man gave us the usual line about how the chairman was unavailable and unreachable by phone but if we all went outside he'd find someone to listen to our concerns...
...I really wanted to see about buying a little crystal elephant as a remembrance of how much fun I had at the Republican National Committee, but the counter woman was nowhere to be found.U Mike Ervin is a disability-rights activist and freelance writer in Chicago...
...When the woman who worked it saw all the wheelchairs pouring in, she fled in terror...
...Click with Dick...
...We're all chair people," someone shouted, and got a big laugh...
...Nice try...
...But he never came out...
...Congressman Somebody from Texas appeared after a few hours to tell us he'd be glad to talk to us if we stepped outside...
...There was a smiley-face button with letters G and O and P forming the eyes and nose...
...Lots of Nixon/Lodge buttons but very few Nixon/Agnew buttons...
...I just followed the line up the ramp of a no-nonsense, square brick building where a lone black man on wobbly legs stood sentry at the door...
...He just rolled up to the door and looked out a few times...
...We were occupying both party headquarters until we got a guarantee that this would remain a part of whatever passed...
...As he stood his ground in front of the lead wheelchair, telling us we couldn't come in, all the others—including me—just went around and in...
...A system of in-home attendant services for people with disabilities was included in the Clinton health-care plan...
...Maybe that freed-slaves concept still offends too many elements within the Party...
...I still didn't know where I was, until I noticed the display cabinets mounted on the wall beside me...
...He retreated...
...I just expected there to be a blaring Lincoln motif...
...Behind me was an oaken cabinet...
...I wasn't surprised that it attempted to be so reverent, like an Ivy League study hall...
Vol. 59 • February 1995 • No. 2
