I don’t want to make anyone real awful mad here, but I can’t tell you the name of one politician running for anything that I would want to go fishing with. The whole bunch of them seems a sorry lot to me. 
The ones who have won and the ones who didn’t win, I put them all in the same sack.   But then, what do I know about politics?  If I had caught any fish this past week I’d be writing about that!
I once shook Harry Truman’s hand, and I have to admit that I was impressed with him, even though I was only about 6 at the time.  I also liked Ronald Reagan a lot.
I can’t remember much about his presidency, as the hunting and fishing was extremely good back then and I was in the woods quite often, somewhat confused about current events.  But I really liked Ronald Reagan in those western movies he made after he got out of politics.
I have read some things about Teddy Roosevelt that makes me think he was a lot like me, since he liked to hunt and fish so much and float rivers, and did some outdoor writing. He and I looked very much alike too.
But of course my favorite president will always be Abe Lincoln, who had two things no president or even presidential candidate will ever have again … he was poor, and he was honest. 
Earlier in my life I too was poor and honest, and as a matter of fact I am still relatively poor, and I am being honest about that!
My favorite politician was Davy Crockett. He and I were so much alike that it is just amazing, except for the fact that he did get into politics and became a Tennessee Congressman.  My cousins and I watched him on Walt Disney when we were kids, and if you think I wasn’t influenced by him, you should know there is a big sycamore along the Big Piney river with the inscription carved in it.. “L. Dablemont kilt a groundhog here.”   
There were no bears in the Ozarks when I was a kid, which wound up being an unfortunate thing for that groundhog.
Crockett was loved by his constituents, just as I am loved by my readers, except for a few ladies who got mad about that recent article concerning female bass.  Crockett was for the downtrodden and forgotten poor country people he grew up amongst.  He sacrificed his political career to stand against legislation, which would take land away from the Indians the government had promised to them through treaties only a few years before.
That makes him a better man, in my mind, than anyone you will find in Congress today.  He was honest, and he thought of others before himself, and he would not put money above all else.  Those traits are not found in people in political office today.
Crockett said, “to heck with politics if it means I have to go back on my word”, and he rode off to Texas and into history where, as I understand it, he went down fighting a bunch of illegal immigrants from Mexico.   I would have loved to have fished and hunted with Davy Crockett, or Abe Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt, and would love to vote for someone today with just a whisker of their character.
I might ought to exclude Hillary Clinton from any derogatory comments about modern politicians, in light of the fact that several lady readers got so upset about that recent column about female bass, as I mentioned. 
And yes, it is true that I have a picture of me and Hillary Clinton, taken back when I lived in Arkansas, but it was her that wanted it took, not me.
She was one of those ladies that read my column and wanted to learn more about hunting and fishing.  There was nothing between us, and all those rumors are just nothing more than idle gossip. 
For those of you who want to see the picture, I will try to get it on my website soon and in the fall issue of my magazine, the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal. 
In the picture, I really did look a lot like Teddy Roosevelt, and she looked a little like Eleanor.
Being the grizzled old veteran outdoorsman that I am, I have never cottoned much to credit cards.  I got one last winter when Wal-Mart came up with a thing allowing you to get twenty dollars back on a purchase of a hundred dollars worth of sporting goods made with their credit card.  So I signed up for one and bought myself some fishing lures and shotgun shells and a brand new camouflaged jacket, eventually spending a hundred dollars.
It worked.  Within three or four months, and after going to the store manager twice, I finally got my twenty-dollar rebate.
That credit card, which I used two or three more times to buy hunting and fishing gear, was a slick thing.  Last spring, the bill from the credit card company didn’t arrive in the mail.  That happens often out here in the country where I live, sometimes the mail gets here late, and sometimes it doesn’t get here at all. Sometimes I get mail for neighbors who live down the road a ways, and they get mine.
 Anyhow, I finally got a bill and I paid it, but then I got a notice
they had received it late and they tacked on about 30 dollars in late charges, for a bill of less than a hundred dollars.  So that’s when I started calling them to try to get it straightened out, and I found out that you can’t call credit card people. They had me pushing buttons and waiting and waiting and listening to some of the awfullest music while I waited. 
So I just sent them back the credit card and told them in an eloquently written note just what I could imagine them doing with that late charge… and at times I have quite an imagination.
Well, by golly, one of those folks ended up calling me, as I suspicioned they might. She was a foreign lady with an accent difficult to understand.  I guess they have a hard time hiring folks who talk like we do here in the Ozarks.
 But I did my best to get her to understand the situation.  I explained how I had tried to call them and they kept putting me on hold and playing music for me, and she said…. in whatever language it was…. that I should have more patience. 
So I told her to wait a moment, I would go get me a cup of coffee and we could sample a little bit of HER patience. 
When I got back to the phone, she had hung up.  Anyway, without the credit card I figure I might not buy as many fishing lures and shotgun shells as was inclined to buy when I had it.
I may not have much patience, but I sure am thrifty when I am paying cash.
You can write to me or my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins, at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or e-mail us at lightninridge@alltel.net.  Or, if you have the patience, you can call Ms. Wiggins and ask her about how or where you can get one of my books or how you can subscribe to the Lightnin’ Ridge magazine. 417-777-5227.
On the Net:
www.larrydablemont.com