I Meet A 'Community Organizer"

This tale almost had escaped me. It occurred over the recent Christmas holidays.

While at a holiday party, I met a young man whom I had not seen in about 10 years. His family is solidly upper middle class and politically conservative.

Yet, to my horror, when I asked what 'line of work' he was in, he responded with "community organizer."

Apparently he has spent the last few years doing this, although he didn't actually explain what it had accomplished. He is now hoping for a position in NYC with a global community organizing entity.

Later on, he and I sat only one person apart at dinner. Let me assure you, he nearly choked when I told his grandmother that I thought George W. Bush will be judged by history as one of our greater presidents for his decisive post-9/11 military actions.

Dear God help us! It was as if I had just met Patty Hearst on the way out of her latest SLA bank heist. Or some formerly straightarrow white American show up on camera for al Queda.

I hadn't seen this family for quite a few years, and was unwilling to behave inconsiderately at the party. But I was positively seething to ask,

"What the HELL happened! How could you have let your grand/son come to this? What ARE you planning to do about it?"

I'm dying to get more information on this at a later date. Perhaps over lunch with the father some time this spring. How did a young man raised in a conservative household, and went to a prep school, end up like this?

Frankly, I'm still in shock from the incident.