Ronald Reagan, a Pistol Packing Mama, and (maybe) the Raptor F-22 at Stanford
Sam T. Harper
April 15, 2006
Dear Stanford Alumni magazine editors:
I darn near dropped off my porch when Ah got my January/February Stanford alumni magazine back in the gray cold days of Tennessee's winter. There on the front cover was a nice picture of one of my heroes - Ronald Reagan. Thinking that there was no way in h*** that Stanford would put a good picture of President Reagan on the front of any of its publications, I shouted after Wanda, our mailman, "Hey, what is this? Some kind of new parody magazine?!" Wanda shouted out "Must be. Ain't no body at that communist school you went to out west that would do somethin' flattering about our Ronnie."
I ran past the screen door into the house to show the magazine to my wife, a UC Berkeley graduate (heck, a conservative one at that!), about how my school may finally be climbing down from its liberal high horse. She, with a much cooler Yankee eye, said "Honey, this is not an article about President Reagan. It's about Justice O'Connor."
Sure 'nuff, it was.
Shoot far, it took a Berkeley grad to bring me back down to reality.
Upon pondering it though, I realized that those Stanford alumni magazine employees could've easily found a whole bunch of pictures of Justice O'Connor that did not include Ronald Reagan. So my hope came back up: somewhere deep inside the Alumni Club is a closet conservative. He/she somehow slipped this picture in. Honey/buddy, I don't know who you is, but I shur nuff admire your guts.
Then, last week it was déjà vu all over again. Wanda screamed out from the road that I got another copy of that there parody magazine. "This time Stanford has a pistol on the front cover!"
I nearly tripped over the car in the front lawn as I ran out to get my March/April Stanford Alumni magazine. Danged if she wernt right. There on the front cover was a pistol. But wait! It was a dirty pistol. That wasn't a good sign. Daddy taught me when I was a youngun' that a dirty pistol is a dangerous pistol. So the article must be one of those "guns kill people", "gun control is the answer" articles.
But being a Stanford trained man, I said to myself "Read the article with an open mind." Once again, I was tickled like all git out. They's writing about the NRA president, Sandra Froman, Stanford alumna. (I opened my wallet and pulled out my NRA card to check the president's name on it to sure make they wernt atryin to fool me. And they wernt!)
And the article was truly "fair and balanced" about a wonderful lady. So I'm wondering if that closet conservative was at it again and might maybe even be converting a bunch of them other alumni magazine employees. More power to you, honey/buddy. Call me if you need any help.
Looking forward, I have some advice (knowing that being at Stanford you may not have many conservative mentors to learn from) for my Alumni Club. For the May/June edition of our Alumni magazine, notch up this ongoing conservative theme a bit more with a big picture of the new F-22 Raptor fighter plane!
(When Wanda sees that she'll darn near drive off into the ditch.)
That Raptor's a beauty and a reminder to my fellow alums that there are a whole bunch of pistol packing, rifle totin' boys and girls from my family and bunches of other families that I know who are out there 24 hours a day protecting the butts of those of us both there in Palo Alto and here in rural southern Tennessee!
Time for some target practice out back,
Sam T. Harper
MBA 82
Lifetime Member, Stanford Business School Alumni Association
