Saw your first ship sink and drown

from rocking of the boat

and all that could not sink or swim

was just left there to float


I won't leave you drifting down

but whoa it makes me wild

with thirty years upon my head

to have you call me child


Ship of fools

on a cruel sea

Ship of fools

sail away from me... *

One had better develop a thick suit of psychic armor before entering the playing fields of politics, all the more so if one is an adult adoptee. Prepare to be called a child and worse, by provincial Babbitts aspiring to be Solomons. Remember that the primary task of legislatures is to divide tax revenues into gift packets of boodle targeted toward those person and interests who keep the legislators in office, as it were at the trough, and that "do-gooder" legislation like open records bills are viewed as a diversion of energies and time from the real business at hand. Be prepared to hear how "hard" the issue of sealed adoption records is for these poor politicians to parse, since most of them haven't even a rudimentary understanding of what the adoption laws of their state actually say or how adoption was historically or is currently practiced in their state. Be prepared to attempt to educate them on the history and contemporary practice of adoption, and then be prepared for them to toss your legisative packets overboard as excess baggage when they sense the waters are getting choppy. Be prepared to come to the understanding that in the matter of adoption law, legislatures are in the business of mythic preservation, not reform. Be prepared to be invited to board this ship of fools, but do so at your peril...

* "Ship of Fools", Grateful Dead 1974