When people hear that Eugene McCarthy moved to Virginia after his retirement from the Senate, they tend to think he lives just across the Potomac River from the District of Columbia, hence is still entangled in the coils of national politics.
Not so. McCarthy lives in rural Virginia, in Rappahannock County, in his words, "75 miles and 75 years away from Washington, D.C." This distance has helped McCarthy, who always kept some space between politics and his true self, to turn his attention to other matters, such as groundhogs and bluebirds, cemeteries and rural mailboxes, the habits of dogs and the habits of women who invade men's houses.From these latter concerns comes McCarthy's second collection of essays inspired by the sights, sounds and denizens of the hills and hollows of his adopted county. "The View from Rappahannock II" is a book handsomely turned out and greatly enjoyable to read.
McCarthy was never a conventional or typical politician, rather always a man with whom to spend a stimulating evening without politics entering the conversation.
In this book McCarthy shows his intense interest in nature, its joys and irritations, and in the people of the Virginia countryside, who seem not 75 miles but light-years away from Washington, D.C.
This is the McCarthy in his back yard practicing his "Lynch's Fool Proof Turkey Call, Model 101." Although he has mastered the "yelp, cluck, put, whine and cackle," final success is denied him, and he wonders if "fool proof" refers to "the caller or the callee" or whether "there are more turkey hens available and therefore there is no need for gobbling."
This is the McCarthy who notices with patience, "The house of a bachelor is almost always under attack," usually "from women, sisters and daughters especially," who want to improve a single man's habitat.
The McCarthy who is moved to poetry by the death of his Australian shepherd dog Mollie. Who reduces the volume of his trash by two-thirds simply by canceling his subscription to The Washington Post. Who reports for those with long memories the view of Rappahannock natives that "Nixon's use of Checkers in his own defense was dog-abuse." Who learned long ago that character is best tested by "cleaning out a chicken house after the first spring thaw."
We may think of McCarthy as the hero of 1968, as the man who unhorsed President Lyndon Johnson. If we go to Rappahannock County today, we can no doubt find him planning a merkle ("the morels of this area") hunt at lunch in the Corner Post Restaurant in Flint Hill, or in the morning at the W. and J. store on Route 231 near Sperryville, discussing the relation of sales of blueberry muffin mix to the county economy.
Gene, we've hardly known you.