Yes, this Texas democratic primary is certainly history in the making. Since it is illegal to play hooky, I cannot tell you that my son skipped school to go with me to Barack’s rally at Reunion last week. If we had arrived, hypothetically, say by 10:45 a.m., I could tell you that the line to get into the north entrance spanned more than a city block and then snaked up and then back down the multi-story parking garage — and that getting in was an impossibility, without cutting in line. Maybe our chances of getting inside were edged out by the Hockaday/St. Mark’s contingent. They seemed to have had the same school-skipping idea and fearlessly showed up in their school uniforms. The Obama volunteer people who were herding around us hypothetical people were careful to emphasize not just that we vote but that we caucus as well. And while on the subject of caucusing, did anyone see Gromer Jeffers’s column today — 02/27/08(in the Dallas Morning News, pg. 2B, Metro)? Great Balls of Fire. He made it sound like us caucus-goers could expect to find horse heads in our beds or, at the very least, Tony Soprano waiting to club us in the alley afterwards. Maybe that’s putting it a little strongly, but I don’t think so. That us novice caucus-goers will be out-maneuvered by devious politicos who know more than we do, would seem, per Mr. Jeffers, to be a fait-accompli. But Jeffers never told us what we really needed to know so that we can . . . you know . . . buck up agains this feta. For low these many few days, I’ve been thinking I would just show up at my local cozy fire station to glow in the warm embraces of my fellow neighbors, all in this for a good cause. Now I’m worried, and not a little bit scared. After Gromer’s article, it’s no wonder that this whole caucusing thing is daunting to the average Joe Starbucks. And I’m a far-below-average Starbucks Joe. I’m only slightly relieved to know that guns are banned from the polling places. At this point, us Democratic caucusers could really benefit from a place in the neighborhood prayer chain.

Karen E., you are my newest best heroine (”NBH,” I think the teenagers — the “young folks” — would call it). And you are right: thousands of parents agreed with you. At the rally we saw many, many children. On the topic of “gov’t vs. home schooling”: on the morning of the Obama rally, I received no less than two phone calls from the school, in rapid succession, inquiring as to my 6-year old’s whereabouts. I called them back and simply said he would not be in school that day. But they pressed on: “What’s going on? Why won’t he be in school today?” I said we had an appointment that would last the better part of the day and then politely but promptly hung up. Believe me, I have considered and continue to consider home schooling. Your vantage point may be evolution vs. creationism (although if you’re going to an Obama rally, I tend to think not) or you may share mine: I’m just tired of the government second-guessing us parents and interfering with our much more educational travel plans. What scholastic authority from on high can reasonably maintain that counting and then pasting coffee beans to construction paper is more worthwhile than hearing the probably-next-US-President speak in person, or visiting the Houston Space Center or Selma or Sanibel?