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What if the White House was the Yellow House and a vote mattered?
In this heavy-duty political season, it's hard not to think about what a politician's life might be like.
How about being president or being a first lady?
What would your first 100 days be like?
I think we all remember our moms telling us “if we worked hard, we could be anything we wanted to be, even president of the United States.”
At the time I did think about being first lady. I tried to decide would I rather be an ingenue type with pink pillbox hats that matched her pink suits like Jackie Kennedy - or a strong woman who fought for the rights of the underprivileged and dressed in plain but dynamic clothes - like Eleanor Roosevelt.
Eleanor wrote when she was 14 “no matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her.”
An amazing insight at the young age of 14, and something to think about in these times where you sometimes wonder what is really going on.
Eleanor went on to be, in a very real way, as powerful and as well loved as her husband, Franklin.
Jackie Kennedy was well loved as well.
That was the first time I paid attention to how first ladies decorate the White House - changing the china and the furniture to match their tastes.
We remember the White House Kennedy family as Camelot, always dressed for every occasion.
Jackie went on to have worldly influence of her own and if there's anything we will never forget about her, it was her incredible and quiet dignity.
White House dogs always struck a chord with me, too.
Do you remember President Nixon's dog Checkers or were you still a baby when he was in office, or maybe not even born yet?
I do remember how cute Checkers was, and how upset we were when Nixon said Checkers was a dog gifted to him by a political contributor and he might have to give him back!
We didn't want him to have to give Checkers back even if it wasn't fair money!
And so he didn't.
Recently, we loved watching President Bush's cute little Scottish Terriers run and slide around on the wooden floors in the White House.
And one of my favorite movies I just watched was “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.” Nothing beats a dog movie.
So if I were president or first lady, we would have Shih Tzus in the White House.
When reporters would come to White House briefings, they would be encouraged to wear jeans and bring along their puppies.
Instead of the cocktail hour, we would have “puppy” hour where everyone would sit around drinking green tea or chocolate coffee, eating gourmet chocolate candies, watching dog movies and playing with puppies.
There would be a special White House baker who would bake special cookies with such things as liver, chicken and beef in them for the puppies who lived there and who came to visit.
Everything would be yellow. The White House would be painted yellow and would be called the Yellow House. The china would be yellow, the furniture would have yellow accents, the tablecloths, curtains and bedspreads would be yellow, lemons would fill the fruit bowls and sunflower and wheat art would dress the walls.
I would order a National Yellow Sunshine Day and everyone who wore yellow or who spoke or thought “sunny” thoughts would not have to pay taxes that day.
And anyone who took very good care of their dogs would not have to pay taxes for a whole month.
Wow.
Let's see what else I could do with all that power - or is a president not supposed to be a dictator?
Actually, I think if I were president, I'd have a cabinet of people who used thought, reason and intellect, where reading books wasn't frowned upon, where people talked to other people about the best ways to do things and included every segment of the population, where “living green” and using biofuels was in, and every government office and agency ran on solar, wind or clean coal energy and every government and personal vehicle ran on E85 and no one had to make excuses for not being dumb.
Where there was just a little bit of respect for the other person, no matter who they were.
If I were president - or even first lady - things would finally be right (just kidding, of course!).
But things can be right if we vote.
And in some elections, one vote just might really matter. What if this election was one of those times when your vote really mattered?
I think I'll vote.
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What if the White House was the Yellow House and a vote mattered?