THE ROVE I KNEW

It’s funny how people come into your life. If you live long enough and pay attention to the world around you, you might realize that old saying that each of us is only six degrees from one another. Those connections are like haze on a mirror after a shower, but wipe the surface, dig into it and you will clearly see everything around you but probably not the glue that holds it all together.

Louie was gay; nothing unusual about that. He had retired to Palm Springs after a career as a geologist for Getty Oil and owned a comfortable house off Farrell Street, on Santa Ynez Way. His home was chock full with mementos, pictures of his kids, grandkids, art he had gathered on his travels; a library full of books, all kinds of videos, a fantastic classical CD collection – it was a place I felt at home. Like a lot of people in Palm Springs, he kept a spare room for visitors.

His compact back yard had the obligatory Palm Springs turquoise colored pool and water-tolerant plants. Pea-sized gravel surrounded fruit trees that served as a feeding area for birds. Louie was an amateur birder and each day he would throw out seed for the various kinds of finch that lived in the tall, tightly cropped oleander bushes round the yard that provide privacy.

And it was by the pool in the shade of the patio, on the floor in the library, driving off to Sunday brunch or birding at Salton Sea that I heard the tales of his journeys, saw the pictures of people in it, and got a glimpse of a man who had lived a full life. He was twenty years older and Louie intrigued me.

All of this is not to say I viewed him as a perfect man; I thought he drank and smoked too much, was temperamental and never watched his diet. He held a grudge beyond reason and could be insulting … we lost touch because of his drinking. I just did not know what to do with people I might call moody drunks. But for a long time I just enjoyed my Palm Springs weeks, lazy days by the pool, laughter and story telling.

And then on a Sunday brunch with the guys at Cedar Creek on Palm Canyon Drive, his best friend Joe Koons turned to me and sort of whispered, “You DO know who his son is don’t you?” “No!” “He’s the chief of staff for the Governor of Texas.” Looking back I realize there was something more in that whisper but at the time it passed by me.

His son -- all I knew about his kids was what Louie told me as I looked at their pictures in the living room. He had adopted them. Other than that I was mostly bothered by their visits to Palm Springs or his to Santa Fe, because that meant the house was closed for other over night visitors. And his wife; Louie told me he had come out and so they divorced. But when I saw the family photographs I just saw the usual grouping of people and smiling portraitures.

As I watched the news this week I saw a “Rove” standing beside the President, his voice cracking, talking about his love for the President and his country but over that “noise” I heard the memory of Joe Koons whispering in my ear. “You do know who his son is?”

Oh My God! Louie Rove; Karl Rove.

I started to wonder then if the son ever cried for the man who raised him and watched him grow up as he did for President Bush. Would Karl talk about his gay father, with the emotion he was showing then? I told a Texas based reporter that none of us knew where he is buried.

He replied that the service was private. I can respect a family’s intentions but it is so typical for families who want to "hide" a person’s sexual orientation to keep a funeral private, away from long-time friends. Gay deaths are cluttered with "private" family services.

There is a part of me that wonders why Karl did NOT "distance himself from his father.” Instead such things are reported like Karl having a picture of his father in his White House office; that they were “close”.

Were they close as you or I might think "close" is? I do not nor can I claim to know. But Louie was gay; people knew it; his son knew it. And as Louie was dying in Palm Springs, Karl was developing and implementing a successful political strategy based on inflaming an anti-gay political base through wedge issues like gay marriage in very specific key battle ground states in the general election.

My question is: How could a son do such a thing, and call it love – either of his father, or of his country?