The Long Red Shadow

Mike Shotwell Has a Message for Millennial America

Mike Shotwell visited his stepfather Orville many times in the California nursing facility where he spent his final weeks. Although Orville and Mike's mother had been divorced for more than two decades, Mike had continued his relationship with this man whose persona had so heavily influenced his formative years. Orville's old Bible still lay on his nightstand, the one he always said he used "for historical reference," and on a few occasions, Mike read aloud from it at Orville's request. It was a curious request, though, as Orville Olson had been a sworn Communist and avowed atheist all his adult life, never visibly wavering from fealty to figures such as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao right up to...