At some point in Memphis Earlene’s  long bluesy life ( she’s an extremely old soul) she got schooled by somebody’s mother  or maybe a  retired English teacher,someone who raised children, hers and others, not to be trash.

“Trash are the people who don’t pick up after themselves ,” says Memphis Earlene. “They expect you to clean up the mess they make or else they just don’t care.”

“So  Donald Trump is just trash?”

“Iignorant trash,” says. Memphis Earlene. “ Big fat baby in a business suit. Stupid on purpose trash. Worst kind of trash.”

The whole Republican ticket is trash.  All of them since Eisenhower.

“What about the Clintons?”I ask.

“Plain old trash, the pair of them,” says Memphis Earlene. “Trash with a sweet tooth, both of them, not the worst kind,” she adds,not to sound overly judgmental, but I still take issue with the appraisal.

“ Trash is white people who live in trailer parks and seem to be having more fun than me, unless they’re killing each other or cooking meth.  Hillary  can’t be  trash.  She went to Wellesley. They both went to Harvard Law, or was it Yale?,”

Memphis Earlene cracks up, laughing so hard that last swig on Southern Comfort spurts out her nose. Then she calls me an ignorant fool.

“ But I like Hillary. She stands up to bullies. She’s bossy but she’s not mean. She’s friends with dorks and nerds. She’s running for Student Counsel President again, and this time she’ll win,” I find myself saying.

With enthusiasm, even.

“Still trash,” says Memphis Earlene. “All them Clintons expect you to pick up after them because you have no other choice.  It’s them or the playground bullies. Clintons’ll always take advantage of you, and then tell you it’s for a good cause, like World Peace or curing some disease in Africa. ”

“ Hillary Clinton wasn’t raised to be trash, she learned that at Harvard Law,” I tell Memphis Earlene.”Or maybe it was Yale.”

Hillary Clinton, just like me,  was raised to make her bed because the cleaning woman is coming . “But that’s the cleaning woman’s job,” one of Hillary’s Harvard  friends explained.

I know this for a fact because I used to work for the man. Hillary spoke at his memorial service.  (Correction: Hillary knew Marty from when she was at Wellesley and he was at Harvard as an undergrad.  He was the one who went to Harvard Law.  She and Bill went to Yale.  ) 

She told the story as an example of his wit, his charm. How he taught her,  a hick from the sticks,  some East Coast folkways.  You were supposed to laugh a little.

We were her people, a room full of attorneys and civil servants.

I was raised to make my bed and tidy up the room when the cleaning woman came because my mother did not want Flora Fletcher, who cleaned our house once every two weeks,to think she ( my mother, that is) raised us to be slobs. She also was diligent about paying into Flora Fletcher’s social security.

“All the candidates are trash,” Memphis Earlene says firmly.

“Not Bernie Sanders, who’s the only one who pays his interns. $10 an hour, he pays them.

I read that on Facebook so it must be true.

( see http://www.snopes.com/bernie-sanders-unpaid-interns/)