Each of the candidates running for office in this election year, whether it’s for mayor or president, will try hard to convince a watchful public that his or her beliefs and practices are consistent with those of the majority. It is generally assumed by political strategists who advise candidates that citizens are keenly interested in their practice of religion and sex. Fifty years ago John F. Kennedy had to convince Protestants that a Catholic president wouldn’t install a hotline from the presidential bedroom to the Pope’s bedroom in the Vatican. Mitt Romney must convince voters who are not Latter Day Saints that a Mormon president won’t care what fashion or brand of undergarments American’s wear. Although Newt Gingrich’s reportable income last year was $3.5 million dollars, he is trying to convince voters that he, unlike the fabulously rich Romney, is just another ordinary man on the streets, a man just like the rest of us. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum also have their work cut out for them. To be viable candidates , all the Republicans hoping to be their party’s candidate in the presidential elections must state that they are absolutely against marriage for same-sex couples, and they must state unequivocally that they will take away a woman’s right to an abortion regardless of the conditions of her pregnancy. In San Diego two of the people running for mayor are gay. Both are registered Republicans. Gay candidates in any election face an even more daunting problem. Voters are told by many religious leaders that God doesn’t endorse homosexuals whatever kinds of undies they wear or whatever they do or don’t do when they take them off.

People running for office must promise to take us back to a time when things were the way they are supposed to be. I like a mural on the side of a building on Adams Avenue in San Diego. That mural is a reminder, without judgement, of the way some things were at a time which no longer exists. Whatever we think about the way things were, we can’t go back there.

Thanks to photography we can spend time with images from the past. One of my favorite photographs is one that was taken sometime during the Second World War. I know it was during that time because my Uncle Ed in the picture was still wearing his army uniform. My Grandparents, Amanda and Abraham had nine sons, no daughters. Sitting, from left to right: Uncle Calvin, Uncle Floyd, Uncle Walter, and Uncle Alvin. Standing, from left to right: Uncle Billy, Uncle Woodruff, Uncle Ed, Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Jim, and my Father, Luke. They are all dead now. So are the times of their lives. It's interesting for me to see the picture and know that my Grandfather standing there with his wife and his nine sons was the same age then that I am now.