The Hardcastle
By 
Strike up the music, the band has begun! It’s LG&M Fundraising Day. A lot of people ask me: Elizabeth, do you think LG&M Fundraising Day should be a federal holiday?
To which I respond: who do I look like? A gray suited bureaucrat? I don’t enjoy getting into the weeds on this kind of thing. All I can do is share my story with you, and maybe it will encourage you to do the right thing.
Several years ago, I was drifting through life: a phased out phantom of sorts, not unhappy per se, but formless and confused. An idea of a person, more notional than actual. The slightest things caused me great befuddlement. Making change for a ten dollar bill was about the outside limits of my practical skill set.
During these times, I became acquainted with some of the seedier elements of bohemia. Not that I was a full participant in counterculture bacchanal, but I was, admittedly, “fascinated by the weird edge of town,” as Elvis Costello once put it. I happened, during one of my sluggish day crawls or spirited night sprints, into one of those coffee shops where beatniks gather to cogitate on revolutionary politics and listen to swing music. I ordered an espresso and sat back in a wooden chair which I presume to have been carved by a bearded artisan of some kind. I had no special plans for my life to change that day.
That’s when I saw them: the troika. Lemieux, Farley and Watkins. They were at the table next to me, conversing animatedly. They were debating, as far as I could make it out, the issues of the day. Lost as I was in the haze of my wanderlust, I had no idea what they were talking about. Court packing? Wildcat strikes? The theoretical repeal of the 14th amendment? I hadn’t seen a newspaper in months, and these terms meant no more than a biophysics lecture in Mandarin.
Nevertheless, something powerful compelled me to eavesdrop. I’ve never been very good at eavesdropping — my head inevitably tilts at extreme, tell-tale angles towards the object of my subterfuge — and this time was no different. They were able to suss out in minutes my uninvited surveillance, and Lemieux rose from his seat, with what I was certain was the intention to scold me. Imagine my surprise when something like the opposite happened: he asked me to join them.
You know, or at least some of you know, the rest. Watkins told me about LG&M, and their view of things, which was not monolithic but prismatic. Yes, they were interested in Constitutional Law, but also NFL Football and Warren Zevon. Farley informed me of the need for a house band, and asked if I could form one. I said I thought I could, and I would call it the Paranoid Style. We all laughed at that, albeit nervously. I told them I should get to work, and they told me a man named Loomis would be calling with more details, and to not be put off by him. “He’s hard charging, that’s true,” is what Lemeiux said about Loomis. Farley finished his thought: “But we’re past the point of half measures.”
That’s the story of how LG&M became an intrinsic part of my personal history, as it has remained every day since those fateful events. I am sure you too, dear reader, have a similar tale. See, LG&M is not just a news source. It’s not just a boundless reservoir of expert opinion. LG&M is a genuine community and an oasis of sanity in a world teeming with indecipherable madness. It is not my place to say what price tag you place on that, but I know for me the value proposition is robust. So — this is the one day a year where we hassle you and turn you upside down and shake you by the ankles to see what comes out of your pockets. We don’t love doing it, but it is necessary for all of this to continue. Please give what you can afford, and if that is nothing at this time, then please spread the good word as far and wide as you can.
Happy 19th Birthday, LG&M! Let’s make sure we meet back here next year to celebrate twenty. TWENTY!!!
Love,
Elizabeth