carry a big stick

Hanging out with President Theodore Roosevelt yesterday, I got to thinking about his famous quote, "Speak softly and carry a big stick."  (Apropos of what, right?  But -- people tend to like that quote even if they don't know the context -- it just "has a ring to it.")

Thinking of "carrying a big stick" made me think of gun control -- if people went around hitting with sticks, would a "stick control" lobby organize?

Remembering:  one time when there was fighting between Israelis and Arabs in the news, and what they were doing was throwing rocks -- in, like, the Golan Heights or something....and a steady, balanced-type association manager-&-lobbyist said, "If they'd just get all the rocks out of there, it would solve the problem. ..."

Had to process that for a couple of moments before realizing he was taking a nuanced poke at the idea of "gun control."

And the "stick" image also brought to mind a wonderful scene in a film that is all wonderful scenes, "Coal Miner's Daughter":  Doolittle Lynn and Loretta Webb (Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek) marry -- the girl is 13 or 14 what-are-they-thinkin' -- anyway they have difficulty adjusting to living as a couple, so they separate pretty quickly.  Loretta goes home to her parents -- (her father greets her with, "Girl, I believe married life is makin' you fat!" and Loretta's mother's face shows the "Oh no" recognition. ...)

Loretta goes to see the doctor in their little Kentucky town.  When she leaves the doctor's office, out on the street she sees Doolittle in his jeep driving with some other girl beside him.  When he stops, Loretta looks around to see what object is handy -- picks up a stick, off the ground, insults the girl --

("Whatt'd you call me?!?...),

and advances on the car.

The other girl squeaks and runs away; these old men sitting on chairs on the front porch of a store start cracking up laughing....

Seeing that movie for the first time, on the big screen, I was riveted, amused, horrified -- well, "horrified" is a little strong, but -- it seemed to me, in a very strong way, that a grown-up married woman should not be reduced to picking up a stick to chase another woman away from her husband, on the other hand, she wasn't a grown-up she was a child.

Anyway -- she gets in the car with "Doo" --
what were you doin' in town?
went to see Dr. [something].
you sick?

Sulkily, grumpily, she huffs at him, "No.  I'm gonna have a baby."

(Again, I'm sort of scrunching in my movie-theater-seat....people are supposed to be "delighted" at this "joyful news" -- that was weird, to me, to say it like that....It was so sad and strange, and yet so funny, in a human way.)

========= Earlier when Doolittle and Loretta were still living together in their little house, Doo comes home from work to disappointing mush in a saucepan for dinner -- he berates her, saying,

"You don't know how to clean the house, you don't know how to cook, you don't know how to love-yer-man like yer sposst-oo"

(and I'm like flattened against the back of  my seat -- "oh! it would be horrible to be married if it was like-that!!")

But later on when she pouts grouchily at him in the jeep, "I'm gonna have a baby", his face breaks into a powerful grin and he declares, "Lordy, Loretta, it looks like you found something you know how to do!"...

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