by Sam Chauncy

I recently had the opportunity to speak, independently, with the widow of a long-serving liberal Republican U.S. Senator from New England and a current Republican member of Congress from the Midwest. In the course of each conversation I asked about the hostility which seems to exist in Congress between members of the two parties.

The current member of Congress told me that many Representatives and Senators band together and rent apartments and houses in Washington both because of the high cost of living, but also because their spouses have careers back in the home state or district and cannot come to Washington. He said that it was "natural" that one would seek out members of one's own party when trying to find such housing arrangements, so most of the group housing is Republicans living with Republicans and Democrats living with Democrats.

In talking with the widow of the Senator, and she is quite elderly now, we got to reminiscing about the "old days."She told me of a time when her husband was locked in political battle with a Democratic Senator and they had gotten so angry they would not speak to each other. When he told his wife about this spat, she remembered that some weeks earlier she had invited that Democratic Senator and his wife to dinner and the date was just a few days away. When she reminded her husband he immediately said they would have to cancel: "I won't have that man in this house" he said. She, being a strong-willed person, put her foot down and insisted that she would never withdraw an invitation and that he was to be polite and hospitable to the couple - period. The two couples got together and it was tense at first. But they had a couple of glasses of wine and a good dinner and before she knew it, the two Senators had gone into another room. An hour later they came out with their arms linked and announced to their wives that they had resolved their political issue.
Maybe we can restore some political civility and sensibilities by making Democrats live with Republicans and having dinner together more often.

The column, "Musings" comes from the pen of Sam Chauncey who moved to and resides at Wake Robin. His background includes a Yale education, a career in hospital and education administration, and inner city redevelopment. His goal in writing "Musings" is to offer "out of the box" ideas to generate thought and conversation.