Runaway Trump Train

I was recently driving through New York State and saw something, which I imagine a lot of states are doing. They had set aside designated areas to pull off the road and text. We are all aware of the serious problem driving while texting creates on our highways.

Even more catastrophic are the train accidents and derailments we’ve read about that were caused by engineers texting, tweeting and do whatever they do on their gadgets when they’re supposed to be driving a train.

Then, there’s the Trump Train—not as spectacular or breathtaking as the Trump jet, but nevertheless the vehicle that was going to take America to that place called “Great Again.” The nations was going to ride this vehicle to that place where neither crime nor terrorism existed and everyone had a job. A place where everyone had health care that wasn’t Obamacare but was better than Obamacare. A place where everyone could grow up to become a billionaire or be president or even become a billionaire who become president. Oil, gas and coal would be back and would be cleaner and cheaper than ever. Guns would be in and newspapers would be out.

When this train finally reached its destination, foreign nations would again respect us . Our enemies would fear us. Our friends would love us and show their gratitude by showering us with money they've been stashing under their mattresses while we paid all the bills.

Poverty would be eliminated and education would be expanded and improved and made available to everyone. This train would take the country out of the dirty, congested cities back to the rural, picturesque America that trains used to ride through. Most of all, we could stop worrying about climate change and start enjoying the ever-increasing number of summer days suddenly appearing in January and February.

This was going to be the all-inclusive train taking everyone to the Promised Land—ALL ABOARD. Everyone except illegal immigrants who are probably murderers and rapist, refugees who are probably terrorists, and those of our own citizens who are too lazy to take care of themselves. Believe it.

Then something happened. Something no one saw coming—well some people saw it coming but no one paid attention to them. One group of citizens saw a candidate tweeting through the night and questioned his qualification to be president. “Who does that?” They asked. Certainly not the leader of the free world. Others said, sure, it’s not presidential but he isn’t president yet. Once he gets in office, once he gets that Trump Train started up and moving in the right directions, everything will be all right.

But everything isn’t all right.

For one thing, the train doesn’t have a crew—except for that crazy guy sitting with Trump in the engine car stoking the fires. No one seems to have given him a schedule so the train seems to be ambling along in all directions at once. At times, he seems to be speeding ahead and at other times, it appears the train has come to a complete halt. He flies through some stations like he couldn’t care less who was there waiting to get on.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all, he’s still tweeting. He’s tweeting when he’s supposed to be driving. People have told him to stop and like a teenager with a new license, he thinks he’s invincible. I suppose he will have to learn the hard way. So Sad.

 

 

When is enough, enough?

Non usque suus, quin eam fugiunt.*

Etiam non obscuram, sed eam attingit**

It is estimated that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old and still expanding. It could very well be nearing middle age and at some point, another billion years or so, it and we, could begin our long anticipated death spiral, eventually bringing an end to…I don’t know, a 30-billion-year, bigger-than-a-bread-box experiment in going nowhere .

The point is the universe is not going to be around forever, although never has forever seemed so long. The consensus of every single person living on Earth, backed by every religion trusted by those gentle souls, is that whether a God created the universe with a wave of His hand or did nothing more than jumpstart something that eventually was going to happen anyway, the appearance of man has always been the intended end game.

If everything simply fell into place on its own, man still has every right to be proud but he can’t really accept any credit. Being around when shit happens is no big deal even if we are the best shit in the universe—and we don’t even know if we are.

However, if a God is behind this, and I don’t mean in a sinister way; but if He is behind it, a logical question would be, why did it take so long to get to the main act? What was He expecting? Is He happy with what He got?

If we are the straw that stirs the drink, why are we only now entering at last call?

Say what you want about creationists but they put their money where their mouths are. They are certain God intended us to be special, so they have us entering the scene right in the first act. Unfortunately, according to them, that beginning was only a few weeks ago and to put it bluntly, the evidence proves otherwise.

If God intended all along for us to make a late appearance, all I can say is, you’ve got to admire His patience. Never has an individual—God or otherwise, put this much effort into a project and then waited so long to see the finished product.

Cars come off assembly lines a few hours after entering them—Cadillacs slightly longer, Ford Fiestas slightly quicker.  I know producing a highly intelligent human being is an entirely different ballgame because each one is “unique,” but we’re only “unique” because we keep saying we’re “unique.” If those Cadillacs could speak…I’m just saying.

I’m also saying 13.8 billion years is a long time to get to where we are today if the original purpose was to get to where we are today.

Childhood Memories of Buying a Christmas Tree

This is a revised version of a story that appeared in the Virginia Beach Sun on December 1, 1988.     

      Men measures their progression through time in many ways. As young boys, we cut our neighbors grass and as adolescents, we deliver their newspapers. As adults, we bring them their mail and sell them their cars and as old men we exaggerate how well we accomplished all of these tasks.

      For me, the one sure measure of time and my own journey through it has been the Christmas tree—or more precisely, how I have gone about getting one each year.

      I remember as a child, in Rochester, how my father and I would walk up the street to the City Service gas station where the man would have all his trees leaning on one side of the building. They would be stacked up in a giant heap making it impossible to compare them but nevertheless my father would hold up one after another, and ask my opinion.

     “What do you think of this one?”

  “How do you like this one?”

  “How about this one?”

  “Do you like this one?”

  Until finally he found one that he liked.

  “This one looks pretty good. I think we’ll get it.” My father would then pay the man what I suppose was a couple of bucks and then we would carry it back home. Not even the freezing cold could dampen my excitement.

When is Enough, Enough?

*nec dominam usque canit adipe

**Etiam non obscuram, sed eam attingit

It is estimated that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old and still expanding. It could very well be nearing middle age and at some point, another billion years or so, it and we, could begin our long anticipated death spiral, eventually bringing an end to…I don’t know, a 30-billion-year, bigger-than-a-bread-box experiment in going nowhere .

The point is the universe is not going to be around forever, although never has forever seemed so long. The consensus of every single person living on Earth, backed by every religion trusted by those gentle souls, is that whether a God created the universe with a wave of His hand or did nothing more than jumpstart something that eventually was going to happen anyway, the appearance of man has always been the intended end game.

If everything simply fell into place on its own, man still has every right to be proud but he can’t really accept any credit. Being around when shit happens is no big deal even if we are the best shit in the universe—and we don’t know for sure that we are.

However, if a God is behind this, and I don’t mean in a sinister way; but if He is behind it, a logical question would be, why did it take so long to get to the main act? What was He expecting? Is He happy with what He got?

If we are the straw that stirs the drink, why are we only now entering at last call?

The Ice Hill

     I had just gotten off the phone with my buddy Joe who lives up in the Detroit area. We’ve known each other for almost 60 years but probably don’t talk as often as we should. With the Winter Olympics entering their fifth day of round-the-clock coverage, the two of us were probably bored to the gills and took the opportunity to call.

Talking so infrequently has gotten both of us out of practice in the art of meaningful small talk. We talk about what we’re doing but, the truth is, we don’t do much—at least nothing worth talking about.

The grandkids come up, as does our ailments and the high cost of treating those ailments. Politics surface occasionally but neither of us has a real personal stake. We’ll both survive whatever Congress can throw at us.

Our lives resemble more of a holding pattern and fortunately, we won’t have to hold on forever. Detroit’s terrible professional sports teams continue to haunt Joe just as Virginia Beach’s lack of sports teams irks me but, again, neither of us really care.

There was a time when not having anything to talk about didn’t make any difference. Like those long summer afternoons when it was too hot to play baseball—too hot even to play catch. Neither of us had a problem with lying on the grass and watching the clouds pass overhead.

Now, it’s like the clouds really have passed us by.

“We’re going camping, this weekend,” Joe said, matter-of-factly. “We’re pretty excited about it,” he added, predictably.

Sounds exciting,” I said, as my elbow slipped and my head dropped. Our conversation was fizzling out faster than a 3 a. m. campfire and then Joe provided the spark.

“Remember Camp Cutler?”

Winning at all cost can cost a pretty penny

Donald Trump is the single most unqualified individual to ever come this close to winning the presidency. This is scary, but the scariest reality by far is that some Republicans, while agreeing he is unqualified are nevertheless admitting that they will vote for him.

Why?

Because they cannot possibly, under any circumstances, bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton. Hillary is a politician in a year when no one is hated more than politicians.

In fact, she is not hated within the Democratic Party as much as she is hated within the Republican Party who have hated the Clintons even before hating the Clintons was cool. In her favor, she is not hated within the Democratic Party as much as Trump is hated with the Republican Party.

It would seem that the Republican Party has cornered the hate market. I could be wrong. If so, tell me.

Who do they love?

The Republican Party has worked harder than anyone in the past eight years to foster a hatred of government, threatening to shut it down regularly and shutting it down on one occasion.

Then, in the height of arrogance, they have run on a platform that government isn’t working.

Winning is so important to Republicans—and losing, so distasteful—that they are willing to put the country at risk if it means salvaging a win.

To be sure, many Republicans cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump and will actually vote for Hillary because they realize what the stakes are.

Unfortunately, there are far more who while they cannot vote for him, will not vote for her. If this results in Trump winning the election, so be it. That’s the price, they will tell you, for living in a democracy.

Then, there are those who support Trump one hundred percent. They are behind him come hell or high water—and it will come because it always comes when you leave the gates open.

These folks like him because—

He is not politically correct.

He talks like them, says what they want to hear.

He is as angry as they are, even though like him, they don’t have that much to be angry about—upset with, maybe, but angry? Come on.

He is a smart businessman who has made billions.

Apparently, they also like him when they learn he is a businessman who has lost billions but smart enough to channel that loss into avoiding taxes for a couple of decades.

They like him because we’ve become a country that caters too much to the have-nots that he disparages at every opportunity he gets. It’s time, his supporters will tell you, that we start paying attention to them—many of them also have-nots, but have-nots in a good way, the American way.

I don’t blame Trump for his political success. I find much of his business success questionable and possibly abhorrent and don’t understand why more people don’t feel this way, but I never really understood the appeal of The Apprentice, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge.

He’s not the first person with an obnoxiously high opinion of himself.

I do blame those who support him despite never hearing a single proposal that made sense and a lot of stuff that makes no sense.

He wants to increase government spending, lower taxes and balance the budget. This alone should make Republicans want to look around and scream, “Next?”

The words out of his mouth are divisive, insulting, abrasive innuendos, easily disproven lies, and worst of all for a man who wants to be our spokesman to the world—incoherent.

I do not understand how winning could be so important to people that they would be willing to accept a Trump presidency. They have looked at all his negatives and decided he is better than someone who has worked for American citizens all her adult life, served honorably as a United States Senator, created a successful charitable foundation with her husband, served as Secretary of State during a difficult time that offered no easy solutions but plenty of opportunity for partisan criticism. In short, they are choosing a nincompoop over a politician because now, being a nincompoop seems more attractive than being a politician.

If Trump were to win, succeed in shaking the government up and it turns out badly, I think the consolation for many of his supporters would be, well, at least we won the election.

A not-so-famous man once said, “Winning isn’t everything. It is the only thing.” A famous man is credited with saying it but fact-checking, like politicians, are passé this year.

The point is, it wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.  

Trump supporters had better come to their senses, because the matter rests largely in their hands. The next autopsy might be for the country and not just the Republican Party.

Reflections in the Middle of the Night

My grandfather and I lived four hundred miles apart for the first 17years of my life. However, we saw each other at least once and often more times each and every one of those years.

In 1964, I was beginning my first year of college in the city where my mom grew up and my grandfather still lived. This turned out to be a very good thing because when I arrived at the dorm to check in, I learned I didn’t have a room waiting for me. My grandfather was the first person I called.

Together, we scoured the Lowell Sun for apartments to rent, drove around to check them out, and finally discovered the one that would become my first home away from home.

Pa Toohey relaxing at the camp

That wasn’t our first shared experience. Not by a long shot.

In the late fifties, he was adding a second room to “the camp”—the small cabin located near Cobbetts Pond in Windham, New Hampshire. I was his assistant doing what young assistant’s do—which was try not to make the job any more difficult than it already was. When we were done, we’d go down to the lake where I would swim and he would just relax after a hard day of having me for an assistant.

Still, this wasn’t even our first experience at the camp.

In previous years, he’d taught me the fundamentals of horseshoes—how to hold them, how to throw them and how to determine the winners. On other occasions, he’d shown me where the best blueberries could be found or how to use a rope tied to a tree to keep the hammock swaying back and forth. Best of all was when he’d let me roll his cigarettes in his Top Cigarette Tobacco Roller.

But we went back further than that.

Early on, he’d introduced me to the pigeons—showed me how to hold them, round them up and load them into his car. Together, we’d take them for long rides, release them and then race them home. I still have the picture of the one he let me pick for my own.

A few days ago, I was doing something that caused me to recall an even earlier event, an event I don’t remember but am certain must have happened.

My grandsons, Brayden and his ten-month old brother Ethan were staying with us for a few days. It was four o-clock in the morning and I had gotten up to feed Ethan his nightly bottle.

As we sat in total silence and almost total darkness, our eyes met. Thoughts of events, yet unseen or even imagined became as real as the bottle we were both gazing over. We were both, in our own way, enjoying the moment when suddenly I was caught off guard by this memory of what likely could be the earliest shared experience between my grandfather and me. I couldn’t have seen it coming because I didn’t remember it ever taking place. Yet, there it was unfolding in my mind, just as clear as day, as if it were happening right at that moment.

It was a time, when I was very young—too young to do anything for myself. The best way to describe something you don’t remember happening but know must have happened because of everything else that happened after it, is that it was the start of something big.

The scene unfolds this way. Sometime in late 1946 or early 1947—we were visiting at my grandfather’s big house or he might have come to my little house.

My mom, having bathed and fed me, was putting me to bed.

“I hope he sleeps through the night,” she might have casually said as she passed me around the room for my good-night kisses. “Today has really been a long one.”

“Look,” I imagine my grandfather saying, “We’re all going to hear him when he wakes up but there’s no need for you to get up. I can feed the little stinker if he starts crying.” My grandfather talked a tough game but was a real softie at heart.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t you think I know what to do?”

“Pa...”

“Okay, it’s settled.”

Of course, at some point, I did wake up and began to wail like there was no tomorrow, which is usually the case when a baby wakes up in the middle of the night. I’m sure everyone did hear me but everyone except my grandfather turned over and went back to sleep. He had the situation under control.

There, in the early morning darkness, he and I stared across the ridge of my bottle into each other’s eyes. Neither one of us spoke because he was a man of few words and I was a baby of no words. He wasn’t a singer so there probably wasn’t a sound to be heard. That didn’t mean something wasn’t going on.

He may have been thinking about all the good times we’d eventually share at the camp or maybe the pigeons. I’m sure hunting for my college apartment didn’t cross his mind. I probably thought, in whatever manner a baby does his thinking, that I was a very lucky boy.

Now baby feedings are a common enough occurrence. Everybody does them. But those that happen at 4 a.m. are different. Maybe the hour causes them to seem more like a dream. Likewise, bonding experiences are nothing new either, but each one is different. This one was certainly getting crowded as I held Ethan in my arms, while imagining my grandfather holding me in his arms.

Everyone was in the room—my grandfather, me as a baby, me as a grandfather, and of course, Ethan, whose eyes were darting back and forth and looked to be telling everyone in the now-crowded room, “This is my bottle, so don’t even think about making a move on it.”

Any way I looked at it, I was the middle link in a five-generation bonding experience. As his brother Brayden has been fond of saying in the past few months, “I didn’t seen that coming.”