Another very typical item is a Congressional Proclamation. Parker got one when he made Eagle Scout. You get a nicely written framable document that made patriotic noises about the wonders of whatever or whoever was being proclaimed. A big benefit I had in living so close to Washington was that it was entirely possible to actually show up and make a presentation, especially if it was in the evening. Nothing like showing up at an Eagle Scout Court of Honor to present a flag or a Proclamation. Give a little speech, shake a few hands, NEVER mention an election. Trust me, they’ll remember — and vote for you!
One routine thing that was pretty serious were the military academy appointments. As a Congressman, I got to nominate an applicant for the Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, and the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. Curiously, the Coast Guard Academy doesn’t require a Congressional appointment. (Is that a good thing or bad?) The rules could change slightly, but most years you got to nominate one student to each academy, for a total of four students.
Andy Stewart, for all his general uselessness as a human being, had a procedure for handling academy nominations. From what I could see, it was a fairly standard type of setup. Every year he would send out a letter to every high school in the area, inviting students interested in an academy appointment to apply for one, along with a packet of information for the school. That worked out to nine separate high schools, when you added the ones that were located inside the district and the ones where they were located outside the district but had students who lived inside the district. If they had decent enough grades and test scores, they could apply and I got to select one of them for each school.
In many ways I was of two minds about the whole process. On the plus side, I had generally enjoyed my time in the military, and had done well at it. The service academies were generally pretty good schools, academically rigorous and a free ride for the students. On the other hand, while I had known any number of really good officers who were graduates of Hudson High, I had also known more than a few real fucking morons who were ring knockers. As a student, I would have hated it! There is very little academic freedom, an extremely regimented personal life, hazing at a level that made my fraternity life seem like a party, and discipline that led to suicides and hospitalization. You’ve got to be really hard core to want to go through that.
The only way to handle it was to talk to the kids. If they qualified by the various objective standards, I set up an appointment schedule to talk to them. The worst ones were the kids who were pushed into this by a parent who was a campaign donor and figured this was a quid pro quo. Mom or Dad wanted a West Point or Annapolis graduate in the family, regardless of whether their son or daughter liked the idea. I made sure that I met with the high school students without a parent in the room, and pushed to see what their real feelings were. Sometimes the young man or woman was hard core, and that was fine. Sometimes they didn’t really know what was involved, and I would roll up my pants leg and show them the scars on my right knee and wave my cane at them and they woke up to what could be involved. The hardest time was when a young man came through who was academically and physically marginal but whose father was a big contributor to the campaign. He was a big time car dealer in Parkton and ordered me to send his son to Colorado Springs, and make sure he became a pilot once he was there. I sent them both home, with an offer to return his campaign contribution and the request he not come back.
During the summer recess, we spent almost a month at Hougomont. Charlie protested that he was missing race dates and the girls protested they were missing their friends. Marilyn and I ignored them. We cruelly forced them to swim in the ocean and run around on the beach and stay up as late as they wanted to. We even slept late and made them make their own breakfasts some days. We were heartless! We kept the G-4 flying back and forth, though. Tusker, Tessa, and the boys came down for a week, and we managed to get Harlan, Anna Lee, Roscoe, Mary Beth, and Tyrone (the newest and littlest Buckminster) to visit a different week. Big Bob and Harriet brought a few of their kids down, the youngest, the ones who didn’t have to spend the summer working at the sales lot. I also would usually cut out for a couple of days every week and fly back to D.C. to get some work done with my staff.
We came home at the end of August. The kids needed to start school again, and I needed to press some flesh (What an awful saying! It sounded like I was packing canned ham!) around the district. Congress reconvened on Wednesday, September 11, and I flew back to Washington that Monday morning. That first morning I was expecting to be buried in phone messages and call back slips, and to a great extent I was, but mid-morning there was a bit of a clamor out in the lobby of my office, and I heard a familiar voice. “Is he back yet?”
I looked over at Marty curiously and then stood up. I went to my open door and looked out. As I thought, it was John Boehner, along with another one of the new Congressmen, who I recognized, but couldn’t remember his name. “I’m back. You looking for me, John?”
“Great! You busy? We need to talk!” He came towards me and went to enter my office.
I laughed. “It’s good to see you, too, John.” I stepped out of the way and let him barge into my office. John was turning out to be a good friend. He was smart and knew how to get things done, and very personable. The other Congressman grinned and followed. I shook my head and smiled, and then followed them in.
“Congressman?” commented Marty Adrianopolis. When we were alone, it was ‘Carl’, but he made sure to address me as ‘Congressman’ when anybody else was around — it built me up, he said, and he was right.
“Marty, give us a few minutes, please. Thank you,” I told him. Marty skedaddled and I commented to John, “John, how is it that I go to the Bahamas for a month and come back with only a sunburn, and you stay in Ohio and have a tan George Hamilton would envy. Is Ohio really that sunny?”
“Very funny! Carl, you remember Jim Nussle, don’t you?”
I turned to the other man, remembering him now. “Sure. You’re one of the newbies like John and me. Where was it, Iowa, Nebraska, somewhere out in the middle of the country, right?”
“Iowa, the Second District,” he responded, reaching out and shaking my hand.
“Well, how can I help the Iowa Second and the Ohio Eighth?” I asked. I extended my hand towards the sitting area to the side of my office, and we all seated ourselves around the coffee table.
John answered. “Have you seen the report out of the GAO about the House bank?” I could tell he was excited, and Jim was nodding furiously as well. “I figured you’d be interested, after kicking the crap out of Andy Stewart.”
“Sorry, guys, but you are going to have to bring me up to speed. I’ve been on vacation with Marilyn and the kids. We only got back in time for them to start school. What are you talking about?” Something about this sounded vaguely familiar, but I needed more information. The GAO, or General Accounting Office, was the official government watchdog, charged with ferreting out waste and mismanagement. With an operation the size of the Federal government, there was always something capable of eliciting outrage.