Letter from the Vineyard

My morning yesterday began with me flipping my laptop open and sitting down to write as a soft fog floated above the creek with sunlight glistening down through the leaves in the midst of changing color.

Just as I sat down to write, a mug of strong coffee at my side, the mother of a friend phoned and let me know her son was in the hospital and had been asking for me.  So I came and sat in his dim room, spelling his mother while she went home to shower and change into fresh clothes.

At two I had a conference call and then I made dinner for Lionel and his family.

The day unrolled in an unexpected way but that is life, unexpected.  It also made me think about how we have, in addition to our real families, families of choice.

My life, thankfully, is full of them.  Blessedly.  And for that I am grateful.

Since I have moved to Hudson, my friend’s family has been that way to me and I went to the hospital to perform the responsibilities of having made a choice.   Choices do come with responsibilities.

Out in the wide world, the cold open for last week’s Saturday Night Live was a send-up of the Trump/Clinton debate with Alec Baldwin doing a magnificent satire of Donald Trump.  It aired the night before the tax revelations.  Pundits wondered which was worse for him, the tax revelations or Alec Baldwin.  The video has gone viral.  If you haven’t seen it, look for it at the end of the post.

Thursday night, Lionel and I went to Coyote Flaco for dinner.  As usual, we sat at the bar.  Seated to my left was Tim and, as happens sometimes, we got talking.  After I had introduced myself, I introduced Lionel, joking he sounded funny because he was from Australia.

Tim, the man to my left, said, oh, I’ve never been there but am thinking of moving there if Hillary is elected.  Lionel retorted he was thinking of returning if Trump was elected.

It didn’t get ugly.  Tim said he couldn’t vote for her because she had done nothing but be in government service.  Not exactly true but close enough.

Asking him if he knew who FDR was, he said no.  So I said Franklin Delano Roosevelt and he said he didn’t know him because he was just little when he was in office.  He asked me if I’d been alive when he was in office and I said he’d died before I was born.

The poor man didn’t really know.  And, by the way, Tim is younger than I am.

After we left, I thought about it and realized most Presidents we have had have spent much of their lives in public service.  Let’s see…

FDR did spend most of his life in public service, seeing us through the Great Depression and WWII.  He was followed by Harry Truman who had worked in the private sector for a while but spent the majority of his career in public service, followed by Dwight Eisenhower who certainly spent his whole life in public service, followed by John Kennedy, who had done the same.

Lyndon B. Johnson owned some businesses but mostly was in public service his whole life, followed by Richard Nixon who, too, had spent most of his life in public service, followed by Gerald Ford, lots of public service there, followed by Jimmy Carter, who was a peanut farmer before his Presidency but he, too, gave a great deal of his life to public service.  Then came Ronald Reagan, who had made his living as an actor before he went into public service.

He was followed by Bush 1, who had spent much of his life in public service, followed by Clinton, who had done the same.  W had been in the private sector but then went on to be Governor and then President.  Obama has spent much of his life in public service.

Being in public service has become pejorative in this election and I am not sure why.

Then, yesterday, all Billy Bob broke out over a 2005 video of Trump saying all kinds of things I can’t and won’t repeat.  If you are interested, you can find them.

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, was “sickened” by them and disinvited Trump to a Republican gathering in his home state of Wisconsin.

A few Republican politicians have withdrawn their endorsements and it is rumored some Republican leaders are quietly gathering to see what is to be done about Trump.

It’s a little late; the ballots have been printed.