I had to go to the Old DU to retrieve this - re: George McGovern

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

I live in Florida, not far from where Senator McGovern's Florida home was located. I was very sad to learn he had gone into hospice.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I met him at a birthday party last year.

This year, I went to the birthday party for the same person and there he was again. I walked up and introduced myself and he kissed me on the cheek while clasping both my hands, for I had just told him he had always been one of my heroes. I told him I had always wondered what the country would be like if things had gone the other way all those years ago. He smiled, and said, "Well, I like to think it would have been better for everybody, that's what I was trying to do." He asked me if I'd like to dance and I smiled and said oh yes please. (Jeepers, this was like something from my bucket list).

So there I was, with a fairly decent rock band playing classic rock. A fifty-five year-old, fat, gray-haired nobody, dancing with George McGovern.

Sunday Night
11/28/10

[Laura PourMeADrink]

1. wow..nice story. He is to me as well. He never, for a single second,

deserved to be mocked by the right. Oh, and the extraordinary sadness he had to live through when his daughter died, froze to death, in the back of a bar.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. What a great story.

Like Adlai Stevenson, I always felt that McGovern was just "too hip for the room" to be elected. Not sour grapes here. Just an opinion.

[malaise]

3. Lovely

[senseandsensibility]

4. What kind of dancing?

I am so impressed that he was dancing to a rock band just a couple of years ago. Thanks for the memory. He is an all around wonderful person, but the details like this just add to his persona.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

5. He went to Africa just a couple of years ago on a humanitarian mission, too

A friend of mine was working as his assistant and traveled with him.

We were mainly dancing to a Stones tune, just moving about. He was still pretty spry until about a year ago, when he had a fall.

His son died recently, I think in July of this year. I bet that took the remaining zest to live out of him. So sad.