Energetic former Republican state Sen. John Kuhn of Charleston has got a new book, I Tell It Like It Is!, which highlights his California upbringing and commitment to family.
The self-published book, the first of three autobiographical works, also will be the focus of a 50-state tour that Kuhn plans for the fall. He is co-owner of Kuhn and Kuhn law firm in West Ashley, but no longer practices law.
The new book is filled with often entertaining stories, such as the time when he got excited about making one of his favorite sandwiches — of beef tongue — for his new bride, Shea, an estate planning lawyer. Beef tongue, he wrote, was a delicacy in agriculture communities of the southern California desert.
“Within two weeks of our coming home to Charleston from our honeymoon, and Shea was already back at her [then] paralegal job in the city, I decided to make my 22-year-old bride a wonderful beef tongue sandwich from scratch for lunch when she came home.”
A problem, though, was he didn’t know how. And he couldn’t find fresh beef tongue. So he called his father-in-law, who suggested checking out the then-open Meeting Street Piggly Wiggly. It was, as he relates, a different kind of shopping experience.
Then Kuhn, not a cook, had to figure out how to prepare the sandwich. This time, he turned to his parents’ housekeeper, who helped to raise him. She informed him that the tongue needed to boil with two bay leaves for two hours before being sliced for a sandwich.
Shea Kuhn’s reaction was priceless. She was tickled her new husband was preparing lunch until she pulled the lid off the pot. “What on God’s earth is that ugly thing?” she asked. “John! Look at it! It is disgusting! I would no more eat that than fly to the moon.”
Kuhn deadpanned, “Well, honey, looks like we will be going out for lunch.”
Shea: “John, that is the best idea you have had all day.”
Interspersed between anecdotes that range from funny to sometimes repetitive are occasional libertarian political reflections that marked Kuhn’s three-year tenure at the Statehouse that started after his December 2001 election.
It’s not long before you learn that Imperial Valley farmers hate rain. Or that Kuhn believes you must use the talents that God gave you. Or how swimming and hard work helped him beat asthma at an early age. He also waxes on about the fallacies of pasteurized milk and the later President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. He details hyperactivity and ADHD, novelist Ayn Rand, how churches should start using the King James version of the Bible, the ills of processed food and his budding fascination with rock ’n’ roll, including The Who and Fleetwood Mac. —Andy Brack
IF YOU WANT THE BOOK: Head to johnrkuhn.com.
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