This Land Was Your Land

A guy asked me yesterday, “What are your politics?”

“I guess I’m a fan of Woody Guthrie”, I answered, “you know, the guy who wrote “This Land is Your Land.”

The guy who’d asked me, “What are your politics” looked kind of blank.

I returned his blankness, saying nothing, thinking I’d choked and not given him a good answer, or the answer he’d expected, the answer he wanted to hear.

We shook hands anyway, having finished our conversation,, and he took my phone number. I thought maybe we’d have other conversations about politics, business, or sports.

Later that same day I thought about what I could have said to him after he asked about my politics: “I guess I’m a Marxist”, knowing that would have made it clearer to him.

R.I.P. Lee Bontecou, 1931-2022.