[PAA-Discuss] Naturally, Molly Ivins writes best remembrance of her friend, Ann Richards

[ChasMauch at aol.com]

REMEMBERING  ANN RICHARDS
By Molly  Ivins          AlterNet
September 15, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas --- She was so  generous with her responses to other people. If 
you told Ann Richards something  really funny, she wouldn't justt smile or 
laugh, she would stop and break up  completely. She taught us all so much --- 
she was a great campfire cook. Her wit  was a constant delight. One night on the 
river on a canoe trip, while we all  listenned to the next rapid, which 
sounded like certain death, Ann drawled, "It  sounds like every whore in El Paso 
just flushed her john."

She knew how to deal with  teenage egos: Instead of pointing out to a kid who 
was pouring charcoal lighter  on a live fire that he was idiot, Ann said, 
"Honey, if you keep doing that, the  fire is going to climb right back up to that 
can in your hand and explode and  give you horrible injuries, and it will 
just ruin my entire weekend."

She knew what it was like to  have four young children and to be so tired you 
cried while folding the laundry.  She knew and valued Wise Women like 
Virginia Whitten and Helen Hadley.

At a long-ago political do at  Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was 
anybody was there meetin' and  greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the 
tired feet and went to lean  our butts against a table at the back wall of the 
bar. Perched like birds in a  row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, 
moi, Charles Miles, the head of  Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann 
Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas  politics, knew every sorry, no good 
sumbitch in the entire state. Some old  racist judge from East Texas came up to him, 
"Bob, my boy, how are  you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like  you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins 
with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and  said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles  Miles, the head of my personnel department." 
Miles, who is black, stuck out his  hand, and the judge got an expression on 
his face as though he had just stepped  into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and 
touched Charlie's palm with one finger,  while turning eagerly to the pretty, 
blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is  this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am  Mrs. Miles."

One of the most moving memories  I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle 
with a group of prisoners. Ann and  Bullock had started a rehab program in 
prisons, the single most effective thing  that can be done to cut recidivism (George 
W. Bush later destroyed the program).  The governor of Texas looked at the 
cons and said, "My name is Ann, and I am an  alcoholic."

She devoted untold hours to  helping other alcoholics, and anyone who ever 
heard her speak at an AA  convention knows how close laughter and tears can be.

I have known two politicians who  completely reformed the bureaucracies they 
were elected to head. Bob Bullock did  it by kicking ass at the comptroller's 
until hell wouldn't have it. Fear was his  m.o. Ann Richards did it by working 
hard to gain the trust of the employees and  then listening to what they told 
her. No one knows what's wrong with a  bureaucracy better than the 
bureaucrats who work in it.

The 1990 race for governor was  one of the craziest I ever saw, with Ann 
representing "New Texas."

Republican nominee Claytie  Williams was a perfect foil, down to his boots, 
making comments that could be  construed as racist and sexist. Ann was the 
candidate of everybody else,  especially for women. She represented all of us who 
have lived with and learned  to handle good ol' boys, and she did it with 
laughter. 

The spirit of the crowd that set  off from the Congress Avenue Bridge up to 
the Capitol the day of Ann's  inauguration was so full of spirit and joy. I 
remember watching San Antonio  Mayor Henry Cisneros that day with tears running 
down his cheeks because  Chicanos were finally included.

Ann got handed a stinking mess:  Damn near every state function was under 
court order. The prisons were so  crowded, dangerous convicts were being let 
loose. She had a long, grinding four  years and wound up fixing all of it. She 
always said you could get a lot done in  politics if you didn't need to take 
credit.

But she disappointed many of her  fans because she was so busy fixing what 
was broken, she never got to change  much. The '94 election was a God, gays and 
guns deal. Annie had told the  legislature that if they passed a 
right-to-carry law, she would veto it. They  did, and she did. At the last minute, the NRA 
launched a big campaign to  convince the governor that we Texas women would 
feel ever so much safer if we  could just carry guns in our purses.

Said Annie, "Well, you know that  I am not a sexist, but there is not a woman 
in this state who could find a gun  in her handbag."

Molly Ivins  writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre  happenings.
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