By LEE BALLARD

At the Wagon Wheel restaurant in Mars Hill one morning, as I sipped my coffee and waited for friends, four men sat at a table across the room.  I knew only one of them.  Suddenly one voice rose above the others:  “Don’t Republicans understand we aren’t ignorant anymore?” 

They left soon thereafter so I didn’t get to ask the obvious:  What was the man ranting about?  As I think about it now, possibilities flood my mind.

Was he talking about the ads attacking Obama on TV?

Or Republicans in the General Assembly who vote one way in Raleigh and then when they’re in their districts explain how they didn’t really do what they did.

Or maybe he was a conservative Christian who realized that Republican billionaires hoodwink churches with trinkets, like a constitutional amendment, so they’ll make tax cuts for rich people part of  their gospel.

Or maybe he was a Tea Party guy who happened to look at where the movement’s money comes from.

Or maybe he had just received a slick mailer telling how totally terrible the Democratic candidate in his district is, in vivid color and lurid detail ─ how the Democrat is salivating to raise taxes and spread favors to every crony in the county.

Or maybe the light came on as he washed his hands in the restroom, when he realized that all the money buying TV time and slick mailers comes from rich guys off somewhere hiding behind friendly names like “Real Jobs NC.”

Or maybe he put two and two together and understood that those hiding rich guys aren’t just generous benefactors, that they’re really buying a General Assembly friendly to hiding rich guys.

Or maybe he understood that Republicans slashing money for education aren’t slashing because of cash shortages, but rather they have a long-range plan to shrink public schools and grow charter schools that are not governed by elected school boards and, oh wow, how they plan to bring all those liberal state universities under the control of those hiding rich guys.

But alas, the moment has passed.  I didn’t ask my friend sitting with the man for an interpretation. So I had to speculate.

Now two things come to mind.  First, I note that the man’s questions is a rhetorical question ─ an apparent question that’s not asking a question.  He’s really saying, “Republicans should know that we’re not ignorant anymore.”

To that, I respond, Well, as long as their tactics work, they assume we ARE ignorant.

And second, I think of the scene in the movie, “When Harry Met Sally,” the one at the sidewalk cafe when Meg Ryan’s character goes into ecstatic shrieks ─ and a woman at the next table says to her friend, “I want what she had.”  I’d like to know what the man in the Wagon Wheel had to eat that morning.  I’d recommend it to everybody.    

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Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.