Indulge me for a little while. I know there have been, and there will be, many tributes to Molly Ivins posted in diary form here on Kos. But I feel the need to add my own to the pile.
You see, I did know Molly a little bit. One cannot work and live in Austin, Texas and not know Molly a little. Or at least know of Molly. In my case, my contact with Molly came from the time I worked for Jim Hightower in the 1990s. And while I only came in contact with her once, Molly left an impression on me that I won't ever forget.
My only personal contact with Molly came shortly after I moved to Austin. She was conducting a book signing locally; of which book, I forget. I do remember it was the fall, as I was getting a signed copy of her book for my father as a birthday gift.
Molly had some sort of health problem at that time...she'd been out of commission for some time. It wasn't the cancer that eventually took her life, but I remember the person in front of me wishing her good health given her recent troubles, whatever they may have been. Molly thanked the person for the well-wishes, thought for a moment, and said:
Y'know, my doctors are telling me that everything will be better for me if I just stopped my drinking and my smoking. "Hard livin'," they call it.
But what would be the fun in quitting all that?
That was Molly in a nutshell. Uncompromising, and always speaking the truth.
I suppose what made Molly grand was that she wasn't an elitist. She didn't write or speak with a sort of grandiose tone of "I know better that you" that so many other liberals are accused of having. She cut her teeth exposing the downright absurdity of the Texas Lege and its occupants. Then she moved onto the bigger fish, and shined the klieg lights on them.
I actually remember when she trotted out the term "Shrub" to describe George W. Bush. It was on Hightower's radio show, actually, back in 1994 or so. Only Governor then, Molly said, "Well, his daddy will always be Bush to me. So I call him Shrub. He's not quite a bush, and he's the son, so I call him Shrub."
Hightower and Molly had a good laugh over that one. It was like reliving the time they had together at the Texas Observer back in the 1970s. The Observer staff would always head over to the local watering hole after work, down a few beers, and shoot the breeze. As Hightower is fond of saying, they would figure out their next targets, get the Big Chief tablet out, and work out the next Observer story at the local Chat 'n Chew.
Oh to be a fly on the wall on those discussions!
Molly was one of the "regular people." That's what made her special. You couldn't peg Molly as someone with an elite background, despite the fact she had a top-notch education. I suppose that's what infuriated her detractors so much. Her writing came from the heart, and it was directed at the soul of Texas and America.
And they listened.
Perhaps Molly's best obituary will be her own words, from her column in the Texas Observer from June 18, 1976, when she left Austin to test the waters in NYC for the New York Times:
I have a grandly dramatic vision of myself stalking through the canyons of the Big Apple in the rain and cold, dreaming about driving with the soft night air of East Texas rushing on my face while Willie Nelson sings softly on the radio, or about blasting through the Panhandle under a fierce sun and pale blue sky....I’ll remember, I’ll remember...sunsets, rivers, hills, plains, the Gulf, woods, a thousand beers in a thousand joints, and sunshine and laughter.
And people. Mostly I’ll remember people.
She will remember the people. We will always remember her.
We love you, Molly.