I was earlier today having a conversation with my Grandmother about the film Goodnight and Goodluck, and for just a moment she got Joe McCarthy mixed up with a different political figure who died sometime in the past two months.
Whoever it was she was thinking of, she thought when she read of his death:
“Wow, I can’t believe he was still alive. I woulda thought he had died years ago.”
It also may or may not be significant that she mixed him up with Joe McCarthy (who did in fact die quite a very long time ago).
That’s all I have to go on folks. An American political figure who you “woulda thought had died years ago” and who my Grandmother (perhaps randomly, perhaps significantly) mixed up with Joe McCarthy.
We’re going to go crazy if we don’t figure out whose death it was that she had read about. So please list every American political figure who has died in the last, oh say, three months.
Yeah, it almost certainly was Eugene McCarthy, Senator from Minnesota and presidential candidate (losing the nomination to Hubert Humphrey in the '68 Democratic convention).
I’m not allowed to call my Grandmother until after Jeopardy (ten more minutes!), but I’m certain you are both right!
Thanks!
I even said to her that the only major figure I could think of who died recently was “The guy who tried for the Democrat Presidential nomination in '68”, but I blanked on his name! She was convinced she couldn’t have been thinking of a Democrat, but now that I’m reminded that he was named McCarthy I’m sure it had to be him.
Joe McCarthy was a Senator from Wisconsin. Eugene McCarthy was from neighboring Minnesota. So even if Grandma was sure she wasn’t thinking of a Democrat, she could have gotten the Midwestern connection messed up.
Maybe grandma was confused about the politicans and reported death. Perhaps
she was thinking of two famous McCarthy dummies of the time, Joe and Charlie.
