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Speaking of fate!   Our fate and the fate of the World hangs in the balance of the upcoming election.  That sounds dramatic—maybe too dramatic, I don’t know.  One thing’s for certain, whoever is elected to succeed Bush will lead/push us down the path of his choosing.

So, all we can really need to do is identify the path.  That seems easy enough.  The McCain/Palin path looks the same as the one we’ve been on the last eight years.  Oh, I know, McCain is saying he’s different—calls himself a ‘maverick‘.  But just exactly what is a ‘maverick’?

Let’s get back to the source: It all began, folks, with Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803- 1870) who was born in Charleston, South Carolina to some well-off, genteel types.  Sam was home-schooled, tutored, graduated from Yale, dabbled in the family business, apprenticed under an attorney at law, Henry St. George Tucker, Sr. and became a lawyer.

He was a Southerner, by god, so I have good feelings about the fella! But where did he stand on secession from the Union?

As a practicing lawyer in Charleston, Maverick ran for a seat in the South Carolina legislature.  He took a peaceful stance to the tariff issue (a federal tax levied to hurt the South), plus he was against nullification (the right of a state to obey or disobey the feds). This stance was not the least bit popular, nor practical, amongst the many Southerners crying for Yankee blood, so Maverick placed 9th out of 13 candidates. Presumably discouraged, Sam moved to Alabama where he added to his failures by unsuccessfully running a gold mine.

Unsuccessful entrepreneur? Unable to envision war as the answer?   How can you not like this underdog!

OK, so now we know Samuel Maverick was somewhat of a pacifist.  But where did Sam, the born and raised Southerner, stand on owning folks?  Happy to say, he didn’t like that much, either:  After his stint at goldmining, Sam took 25 of his father’s slaves and headed for Alabama to try his hand at ‘plantationing’.  According to historian, Paula Mitchell Marks (Turn Your Eyes Toward Texas: Pioneers Sam and Mary Maverick) being a slave master wasn’t to Maverick’s liking, so he threw down his whip and headed for Texas.

There was a political problem with this choice, folks.  Texas was part of Mexico, an openly rebellious part.  Naturally, Samuel Maverick, the American, got involved in the fracas.  Seen as an instigator, Maverick, along with about sixty other Anglo-Americans, were seized by the Mexican Army and taken on a three month march to the motherland (Mexico). Although the journey was difficult and the men were forced to sleep in manure filled sheep pens, Maverick writes in his journal that he “‘saw and experienced a thousand new thrills.”  To each his own, I suppose.

Not too thrilling, however, was the treatment he received upon arrival at the Mexican prison in Perote. Men were chained together in pairs and put to hard labor. On behalf of his comrades, Maverick complained about the meager food amounts and was thrown into solitary confinement (January 5, 1843).

Despite the fact that he was incarcerated and called Fayette county ‘home’, Maverick was elected by the people of San Antonio to the Seventh Texas Congress.  Needless to say, he was not allowed to attend.  Maverick was, however, offered his freedom several times, provided he would publicly support Mexico’s claim to Texas.  He refused: “I cannot persuade myself that such an annexation, on any terms, would be advantageous to Texas, and I therefore cannot say so, for I regard a lie as a crime, and one which I cannot commit even to secure my release.”

Wow, folks!  Since when has any politician considered a lie to be a crime!

Moving on. The Mexican government finally released Mr. Maverick on March 30,  the same day his wife gave birth to daughter, Augusta.  Two months later Maverick returned home, toting the chain that had bound him.

Now it gets even more interesting, ’cause Samuel Maverick was elected to the Texas State Legislature (1851-63) and served as a Democrat.  And what was his main focus as a Democrat in this state legislature?

According to Paula Mitchell Marks (the historian), he worked “to ensure equal opportunity for his Mexican and German constituents, to foster fair and liberal laws for land acquisition and ownership, to develop transportation and other internal state improvements, to provide protection for the frontier, and to ensure a fair and efficient judicial system”.

Marks goes on to say that Maverick did not support a War between the States, but, seeing that the conflict was inevitable, threw his support behind the Confederacy.  During the Civil War, he was elected Chief Justice of Bexar County and served a second term as San Antonio mayor. “After the War, he received a presidential pardon and was active in attempts to combat the radical Republican regime in Reconstruction Texas.”

Which reminds me… back to the word for which he stands—maverick:  During his hopping about from Alabama to Texas, Samuel Maverick left a herd of unbranded cows roaming the countryside. It was this wandering herd that gave rise to the term maverick.

Can’t you just imagine some cowpoke like Clint Eastwood riding the range and coming across a little unmarked ‘dogie’.  “Oh that’s just a Maverick,” he’d say to his partner, “sling the little feller over yur saddle, Routy. We’ll take him home and brand him.”

It wasn’t long, folks, til the word ‘maverick’ became the generic term for an unbranded cow. How an unbranded cow then evolved into a free/independent thinking human is unclear; because, by dictionary definition, a maverick is an independent thinker, or an unbranded calf that’s free pickings.

Which brings me back to my original thoughts—although they might have seemed a bit murky at the onset: What part of the Republican Presidential Candidate, John McCain, is unbranded?  And what part of his brain is thinking freely?

By all counts, the man didn’t even select Sarah Palin for his running mate–he wanted Lieberman, his buddy but caved in to advisers. This cave-in thing seems like a pattern, folks. The worst was to Bush about torturing prisoners. I guess pandering to the religious right was pretty bad, too.   Enough, I say!

John McCain may have once roamed the Washington range unbranded, but that was a long time ago.  He’s done been slung over the saddle and corralled in the bosom of the Republican Party.  Heck, the dude voted with Bush 100% of the time in 2008.

I don’t see a free thinker.   I don’t even see an unbranded calf.  Do I have to tell you where I see that big fat ‘R’?

Happy tales,

Laura signing off

p.s. Hold onto your fate, folks!  it’s gonna be a rough ride.