But my PolitiChicks director and producer were urging me to ‘get in there’ and interview the protesters. I didn’t want to admit my fears to them; I wanted them to believe I was this ‘fearless chick’ and that pushing my way into the middle of angry protesters was no big deal to me.
My Grandpa PD was a tough Texas man. He used to work in the oil fields in West Texas, taking care of those giant insect-looking oil wells scattered throughout the Texas plains. He and my grandmother later retired to East Texas where Grandpa PD planted huge gardens, raised goats, hunted deer and he provided for his family.
His daughter Lou Ellen, my mother, is a 4th generation Texan. Like her mother before her, Lou Ellen taught high school for 44+ years and was the type of teacher all the kids loved and respected.
Here’s a picture of my fearless mother, holding a copperhead she had just killed on their front porch. With a garden hoe. (True story.)
Lou Ellen was also the only teacher who would consistently break up student fist (and/or knife) fights. My tiny mother would literally push her way past all the coaches and grown men and gawking students and she would put herself in the center of the fight—yet she never got hurt. The students respected my mother; they would stop fighting.
I definitely come from good and brave Texas stock.
So flash forward to this 4th generation Texan getting out of a taxicab in Washington, D.C. The first thing I saw was hundreds of purple and pink shirts representing the SEIU and Planned Parenthood. They were chanting, “We love Obamacare!” and “Healthcare is a human right!”
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