Was it ever cool to be conservative?

I'm native Northern Californian - East Bay native in fact. This is not so common around here and  I'm proud of it. What I'm not so proud about is that I've always felt I was in the proverbial political closet living here.

As a child, I couldn't give a care about what was going on out 'there'. For me, it was all about hopscotch and sleep overs. It all changed as I became a teenager and started to really have my own opinions. My earliest recollection of not fitting in was New Year's Eve 1979. My best friends wanted to listen to Deep Purple and all I wanted to hear was disco - but I bit my tongue and said nothing. It wasn't cool to like disco anymore. Here in the Bay Area, you had to like heavy metal.

This went all all throughout my high school and college days. Friends would want to people watch at the airport and I wanted to grab and bite and watch a movie. The analogies could go on and on. But I was smart enough to know that in my circles, I was the minority and unless I wanted to stick out like a sore thumb, I should just shut up and go with the flow. So I did. Little follower I was.

Until one day, I realized that my parents, who never foisted upon me their political belief system, were kinda smart people. My dad grew up dirt poor in Pennsylvania (my Mom's side of the family is where I get my deep bay area roots). He joined the Navy, landed in SF at some point, met and married my Mom and immediately started a family. Dad became a salesman for blind and handicapped products door to door. Then got a more stable job as a meat cutter at Safeway. Worked his butt off to get a 2-year degree so he could join the Fire Dept. Which he did. And he also started a side business doing small landscape projects. So between the fire dept, the meat cutting job and his own small landscape business, he was able to provide a pretty decent middle class home for his wife and 3 kids. God bless him and his desire to be the best he could be - no excuses and no handouts.

So one day I wake up and realize he's been the inspiration behind my hard work ethic. I thank him and we dialog as adults. It helped me to realize that all along, I knew the path I would always take and always wanted to take was perhaps the less popular. See, here in the East Bay of SF, it's very popular to be liberal. And if you're not, you better not say a word. In fact, you better just shup up and go with the flow. But I won't. And I haven't.

This election year, I did something I am still nervous about. I've been sporting a McCain-Palin bumper sticker. I keep waiting to get into a verbal altercation or see my car keyed. So far so good, but I do back my car into stalls to be safe.

So folks, I know I'm not alone - and I know it seems so much more popular to be liberal, and that I cannot recall a time in my hometown where being conservative was the cool thing, but when exactly did it become a requirement by so many to conform to the homogenous ways of your local society?