Climate change or somebody's butt sucking air?

I watch very little news on the national level any more.  When Trump was elected I made up my mind that I would give the man a chance and let a business man handle the finances of my country.  I do still call it "my" country although my fore fathers came here only 119 years ago.  I still have pictures of the Haas family clearing land to farm.  They are very grainy pictures and were not taken on a cell phone, but they show the progress.

I am proud of my roots.  My grandfather was 9 years old then.  My great grandfather brought the whole family a little at a time.  They settled in the Reno County area, but have since spread out across the country.  They cleared river bottom land and began farming.  Back then, there were no King Soopers, or Walmart and mostly people depended on each other.  My great, great grandmother was a person who took care of people when they were sick.  Great, great grandfather raised turkeys and geese and did custom farming.  I forget what they grew, but it seems like it was sorghum and they made molasses out of it.

I diverse.  Back to the subject at hand, which is the environment.  For years steel mills belched black smoke and there was no concern for the air we breathed, but then the powers that be woke up to the fact that we were killing each other by not protecting the air we breathe.  Thus was born the EPA and it became a world wide concern that we were polluting our environment and we only have one world.  So we passed laws and then we held summits and passed rules for protecting our earth.  It became a global concern.

And then someone elected Donald Trump and his ilk.  He does not believe in Global Warming.  He sets in his air conditioned office, rides in an air conditioned car from one place to another.  And or storms get more violent and more frequent.  We keep cutting down our rain forests and not replacing the trees that clean our air.  We pull out of the global community that is trying to save our world and hide our heads in the sand.

I do not profess to being an intelligent woman.  I hide from things that scare me, like global warming, genocide and anything that upsets my little apple cart.  I do not watch the national news because I am standing over here with my head in the sand.  I can not abide with racism and ignorance.  There are no gun laws.  We just settle our differences with an AK-47.  For God's sake, people, we are sending our children to "active shooter training" in our schools.  Where are the day's of sand and shovels?

Last night I talked to a friend in New Zealand.  Telephones are our link to any where in the world.  But now cell phones have replaced communication in person.  Send me a text.  What happened to coffee klatches?  What happened to a walk in the park?  What happened to a moonlight stroll?  What happened to honesty?  Integrity?  What happened to helping an old lady across the street?  Where is our common decency when we could carry on a conversation with someone and not tell them to go back where they came from?

We play follow the leader here in America.  It is now right and just to lock people in cages because they want to escape genocide in their country.  We build walls when we should be building bridges.  I never dreamed two short years ago that our country could be so divided and that Republican and Democrat could be dirty words.  But here we are.

I am going to church in a few hours and pray for my country.  It is my country too, you know.  I will first post this and then read the comments to my thoughts on facebook.  My friends will be supportive, but there will also be the negative comments calling me "an effin liberal."  Such is life.  I am proud to be who I am and where I came from, but then God made us all and he made us in his image.....or did he?

My life after Trump

Anyone who knows me even slightly, knows I am a liberal.  I did not say Democrat, but I did say liberal.  And that should be in capital letters.  I was once called a flaming liberal by a man I cared about at the time.  Well, actually it was the "f" word, but not flaming.  My response was to walk away.  My mother always said to "call a spade, a spade."  She also said a "A lie by any other name is still a lie."  And "Be true to yourself because at the end of the day there is no one there, but you and your God."  So I have tried to mostly follow what my momma said, and that night was no different.  I must confess I felt a small tinge of sadness as I turned my back and walked away.  I knew I would miss the little guy, but it had to be done for me to live with myself.

Democrats and Republicans can live together, but not Conservatives and Liberals.  So I went off to my AIDS Walk and my Los Pobres and my Gay and Lesbian friends.  I went to my UCC church that my sister in law had called "a den of iniquity".  I frequented the soup kitchen and took water to the homeless.  And Sherman went his way.

For 5 months he did what ever it is big, tall, bigoted men do.  I heard not a word from nor about him.  I did kind of miss him sometimes, but life is never what we want as much as what we get.  I actually started dating a guy who, while he may not have approved of my Liberal stance, he accepted it.  That was about all I could hope for so I went with that. Damn!  I just realized that I can not remember his name!

Now those of you who know me, also know that I am a very simple minded woman and almost completely unable to lie.  I have been called many things in my life, but never a liar.  If I think something, I say it.  If I feel something, I do it.  This guy was not like that.  He fawned over me like I was some sort of goddess, but it was not in his eyes.  I did not see the acceptance and giving that needed to be there.  Oh, he was free enough with the old checkbook, but the smile on his lips never reached his eyes, and that is very important to me.  So when my phone rang that cold night right after Christmas and it was Sherman on the other end,  I could see hope for life again.  Intelligent conversation.  Eating at the greasy spoon on Northern.  And this time it was different.

He no longer watched Fox news 24/7.
He met with Sister Nancy at his home.
He carried my food up the stairs at the SCAP office when I held my lunches.

Those of you who know me know the story of Sherman and how he remained a Republican, but became a liberal.  You know how he died and you know he proposed on his deathbed and changed his will to leave me everything he had in life.  His clothes went to Los Pobres along with all the groceries he had rat holed.  When his will was probated he gave me $45,000 for me to use "as I saw fit for my causes."  And I did.

If you go back in this blog you can find a story called "Long Ago and Not Very Far Away."  He knew I liked to write and he wanted me to write our story.  So I did.  Or just email me and I will send it to you in pdf. fomat.  loumercer3@aol.com

So, back to my life after Trump.  I tell you about Sherman because he would have been a Trump supporter before he met me.  Now do not think for one moment that I am special.  I am not.  The only inference that sentence has is to make clear that I was the instrument that lead Sherman to explore the avenue that there were other beliefs out there and that the gays were actually human beings with human feelings.  He learned that there was a wider world where "wet backs" labored in the fields to feed him and that homeless people slept under bridges because they had no where else to go.  He learned that "soup kitchens"  feed hungry people and missions feed hungry souls.  He learned that a little kindness goes a long way and just because you think one way, does not mean everyone else does.

I hope we can "come together"  after Trump, but right now my soul is tattered by a man that hates gays, women, Obama, immigrants, and apparently everyone that is not him.  I did not make this up.  He said it.  He was very clear about the blacks.  I know the day is coming when he is going to have to tell his supporters that there is not going to be a wall built between us and Mexico and I fear civil unrest when that day comes.  What can we do?

It beats hell out of me!