No

We’re almost done with October. The days are getting shorter and after this weekend darkness will fall earlier, a sign of the approach of winter. My retirement looms, less than 60 days away. The closer it gets the greater the weight of expectation. What will it feel like? Adding to this growing sense of tension is next week’s Election Day. There was a time when the only question that accompanied this day was the identity of the winner. Those days are long gone. Now the larger question is—will the loser throw a petulant fit and call on half the country to deny the results? Will the loser accuse the winner of fraud and throw the country into the type of post-election chaos usually associated with banana republics? Your guess is as good as mine.

I recently received some blowback from my son on my decision to not cast a Presidential ballot. I always take his criticisms seriously because my boy is smart and often makes compelling points. Plus, this particular disagreement was done politely and with respect. He sent me a video clip of the latest example of Trump saying some outrageous thing on the Joe Rogan Podcast with the statement, “I’d like to think that this statement would be enough to persuade any libertarian-minded person to not sit on the sidelines, but to actively vote against this person.” I then pressed play and listened. It was Trump positively glowing with admiration for China’s Communist dictator and his “brilliance” for being able to rule over a billion people with such an iron fist. I agreed that it was outrageous, but no more outrageous than a dozen other inanities that have flown out of his mouth during this interminable campaign. What my son’s issue  is was this notion of why and how we vote—what exactly is our responsibility as citizens?

In America we have a two party system. Our choices on Election Day are confined to a Democrat and a Republican. Yes, there are occasionally other candidates on the ballot—Green Party, the Libertarians, but they are largely for decoration and have no impact on the outcome. So, what happens if you look at the two choices and think that neither should be allowed within a country mile of the Oval Office? Most people will say, “Well, you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, the one who will do the less harm.” The one issue voters out there essentially believe that as long as a candidate is sufficiently pro-life or Anti-gun or whatever their big issue is, they would vote for the devil himself. Still others will cast their vote because they are loyal party people…I’d vote for a rabid dog as long as he’a a democrat!

I take a different view. My personal opinion is that only one of the candidates in this race is dangerously unstable—Donald Trump. He has run for President three times now and I am proud of the fact that he has never once received my vote. However, voting for his opponent would mean I would be voting for someone with absolutely no qualifications to be President…of anything. This is a woman who a short four months ago was considered a drag on the Democratic ticket, a lightweight and accomplishment-free Vice-President who was an almost daily disappointment to Democrats every time she opened her mouth to speak. Then—suddenly—the day that Joe Biden pulled out of the race, the national media did the quickest and most dizzying about face in the history of politics. All of a sudden Kamala Harris became the reincarnation of Queen Elizabeth I. She was morphed over night from a cackling, word-salad spewing embarrassment into the Candidate of Joy. The non-stop fawning coverage felt Manchurian to this observer. While Donald Trump might be the candidate of the enraged right, Kamala Harris will owe her life to whatever group of party elites anointed her—an honest to God puppet of the Democratic Party ruling class— the same people who have ushered in so much of the current level of social issue foolishness plaguing the nation. Voting for her might be a repudiation of Trump, but it would also be a tacit acceptance of her and the process that produced her. 

When I enter a voting booth I am presented with often uninspired choices. This time I will be asked for my vote in several different races, President, Congress, Senate etc…In the past I have cast some votes with great conviction, convinced I was making a wise and informed choice. Other times I have held my nose and voted for the lesser disaster. No more. By voting for neither of the Presidential candidates I am exercising my right to vote No. NO. I refuse to accept that a nation of nearly 300 million people, a nation of such great goodness and accomplishment could possibly present us with so ridiculous a choice. It is simply unacceptable. I refuse to validate this state of affairs with anything other than a resounding…no.

Who to Vote For?

Yesterday morning I had just gotten back from a fast 5 mile walk and was trying to stretch out my sore back when I heard the doorbell ring. I was upstairs so I gazed down through the Palladian window at the top of the stairs and saw the earnest young woman loaded down with brochures. Lucy was doing her best to warn me of the grave, existential danger I was in because of this stranger’s presence on my front steps. I knew that there was no danger…just a pending awkward encounter with an eager political volunteer. Whenever this happens in the days leading up to an election I confront a mixed bag of emotions, parts annoyance and admiration. I quickly walked down the stairs and opened the door.

“Hello there,” my perky volunteer smiled. “May I speak with Kaitlin Dunnevant?”

It was at this point when my reply instantly formed in my head and forced its way through my lips without pausing, like some sort of hereditary involuntary impulse…

“You just missed her. She moved out 12 years ago!”

The perky volunteer blushed briefly while searching through her oversized cell phone to check, but recovered nicely with, “Well sir, are you planning to vote in the upcoming election?”

This was a question fraught with peril, since I had no interest in entering into a political debate with a total stranger, but I answered as honestly as I could.

“I won’t be voting for either Presidential candidate, but I will vote for a few of the other races, I suppose.”

“Excellent,” she pivoted, “I am here to urge you to consider voting for Leslie Mehta for Congress.” This was a name I had never encountered until this moment, an indictment of either my poor citizenship or this candidate’s ineffective campaign.

She then handed me a small flyer and added the reason that I should do so—“She is a smart, reasonable woman who cares about improving the lives of her constituents.” There was no mention of her opponent, no listing of credentials or qualifications that Ms. Mehta brings to the table, no word about her race, or marital status. Just the decidedly boring…reasonable modifier. Then she thanked me for speaking with her and as she started down the steps turned back toward me and said—“I’m sorry to hear about your Presidential vote but honestly, I completely understand. I’ve heard that from so many other people. It’s really sad, isn’t it?” There was no attempt to change my mind, no follow up question to dig deeper into my reasoning. Just a knowing acknowledgment of the truth.

I will explain the reasoning of my “No Vote” in an upcoming blogpost next week. But for now my reply to the volunteer was, “Yes…it is sad.”

Trying to Write a Letter

One of my tasks for this week is to write my official retirement communication, to be sent out to every client. It’s essentially my last letter to the three hundred or so people who I have served for the past 42 years. As someone who has written hundreds of letters, nearly 3000 blog posts, twenty-six short stories, and am about to wrap up my fifth novel, you would think that one more letter would be a cinch. But I have set down to write it several times over the past two weeks and have come up with…nothing.

As my last day approaches I am having no second thoughts. I am making the right decision at the right time. But there is a finality looming and that is the thing  that brings all the feels. Do anything in life for 42 years, you develop a fondness for its routines and rhythms. It’s 8:35 on a Tuesday morning—you know where you’re supposed to be—pouring yourself a cup of coffee and teasing Kristin Reihl about something. You will miss the little things. You will miss that client who always calls complaining that I haven’t updated the away message on my phone. You will miss getting harassed by the client who whenever I don’t answer right away takes delight in accusing me of being on the golf course—even when it’s snowing outside. You will miss a great many small things.

My Latest Obsession

It is an extraordinarily inconvenient thing to write a book. Inspiration comes when it will, morning noon and night. When you should be focused on any number of other more pressing concerns all you can think about is the latest plot point that keeps dancing around in your head. If you’re wondering why my blogposts have been fewer and farther between lately, this is the reason. This latest flurry of inspiration began almost as soon as I arrived in Maine in mid-September and hasn’t stopped since.

I began writing this one in May of 2023. The first 12 chapters or so flowed quickly but then, as is often the case with me, the story went cold for a couple months. I wrote some more during the Spring of this year before another cold period. Although being in Maine is great on many levels, I’ve never done a ton of writing while I’m there. This fall was different. At Loon Landing there’s a loft room with a spectacular view of the lake and the most comfortable chair in the house. I would climb up there on the ladder and sit in the chair and almost immediately the words would come. They have continued to come ever since.

The story centers around a young man whose life is turned upside down by a massive inheritance from his wealthy and eccentric uncle who he hardly even knows. As the story unfolds we see how the sudden and unexpected fortune changes his life and his relationships. Hint: It’s not good! The more he learns about his Uncle the worse it gets. Eventually he begins to question everything he thought he knew about his life. The rest of the story is essentially a voyage of personal discovery that takes him to Wyoming, the Cayman Islands and eventually back home to the mountains of Smyth County, Virginia….or not, I haven’t finished it yet so I’m not entirely sure how it will end.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. The story has been living rent-free in my head for over a year now. I have included the first paragraph of the story below for your consideration:

Stanley Randle Clyde had been on his death bed for seven months, as obstinate and unpredictable in death as he had been in life. It had started as a stubborn cough, turned into pneumonia, then morphed into a months long bout with dysentery. A lesser man might have succumbed to the pneumonia, but Clyde was no lesser man. Despite raging diarrhea and dehydration, the man had never lost his mental acuity. Up until the very end he had been able to communicate his various instructions to the nurses unlucky enough to have tended him with amazing specificity, regularly requesting particular brands of Irish whiskey to help settle his stomach. He recognized every face that had visited him during his interminable passing, being especially careful to insult each of them by bringing up their most embarrassing failure. And still they came, an unending stream of family members, to pay their respects to the great shrinking giant, hoping against hope to make one last favorable impression. This level of respect and devotion towards the dying is always reserved for one of two sorts of people—the beloved or the ridiculously wealthy. Stanley Randle Clyde was not beloved.

The Greatest Commandment

Woke up to a 39 degree morning on the lake on this our last full packing-free day in Maine for 2024. It has been a wonderful ten weeks, six over the summer and now these four in the fall. I cannot possibly express how grateful I am for the privilege I have to do this every year. Like nothing else, it restores my soul.

But as our time here draws to a close all of the troubles of the world that I have blocked out of my mind resurface— the devastation and suffering in North Carolina, the impending storm about to ravage central Florida, and the ongoing dysfunction and disinformation rampant in our politics. There are times up here where I can’t help feeling a bit guilty for my good fortune. When I consider the combination of comfort and contentment on display in this picture, it stands in sharp contrast to the catastrophic loss and suffering of so many.

But I have to remind myself that life is not a zero sum game. There isn’t a finite amount of sorrow or joy in the world where if I am joyful it means that there is less joy for others. It is quite possible to marvel at the beauty of a sunset while somewhere else in the world there are people looking at that same sun setting while hungry and besieged. The trick is retaining the empathy that allows you to look beyond your own blessings, to see the suffering of others and be moved to action. I have a cousin who has done just that. She’s a nurse who couldn’t bring herself to sit around reading about her brothers and sisters in western North Carolina without doing something. So, now she’s in the midst of the battle at an adhoc triage station somewhere in the mountains distributing supplies with a half dozen others nurses from all over the place. She and I don’t always agree on politics. We both have Dixon blood coursing through our veins, making us both impossibly opinionated. But Jennifer is by her actions putting into practice our Lord’s command to care for the least of these. When they asked Jesus which was the greatest of the Commandments his answer was beautiful in its simplicity…Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind…and your neighbor as yourself. Beautiful words, for sure, but devilishly hard to put into practice.

When I get back to Short Pump there will be a lot on my plate. I have less than three months left in my business life, my forty-two year career is coming to a close. But no matter how hectic things get, I will have to find a way to contribute something to the ongoing effort to rebuild the lives torn apart by the storms. My church has already organized relief efforts. That’s where I will start.

Selective Clairvoyance

There’s a restaurant in Camden called Franny’s. The place is always packed and it gets rave reviews, but in all of our years here we had never eaten there…until last night, although it took a 5:00 reservation to pull it off and we had to eat in the outdoor tent. Our meal was wonderful…

I bring this up because several years ago I wrote a book called Saving Jack, and one of the scenes in the story takes place in this restaurant, even though I had never actually been inside the place at the time I wrote the book. The weird thing was—the inside of the place was exactly like I had imagined it in my mind. Strange.

Of course, this sort of thing has happened before with me, especially when we are watching baseball up here. I can’t tell you the number of times I have made a comment like, “This pitcher is going to throw this ball a foot outside in the dirt and this knucklehead is going to swing at it!” And then it happens. Take the Mets-Brewers game the other night. When they announced that Gary Sanchez was going to be the catcher for the Brewers I said, “That’s a mistake. He will make at least one error in this game.” Two innings in he lets a pitch through all the way to the back stop for a passed ball. In the 8th inning with one out and Pete Alonso coming to the plate for the Mets with two runners on base and the Mets behind 2-0 I announced my view that the Brewers should put him on base, set up the double play ball since Alonso was due to hit one out.” What happens? They choose to pitch to the guy, he clobbers a ball to right field for a three run homer. Then the next batter hits a ground ball to second base!!

It’s not like it’s an isolated case. On our way to town the other day we got behind a sewer pump truck on one of the ubiquitous two lane back roads almost ten miles from Camden. I made the following observation: “What do y'all want to bet that this guy is headed the same place we are?” When he finally made a different turn than us I thought I was wrong. But, ten miles later we pull into the Merry Spring Nature Center for a hike and there he is. 

Unfortunately this clairvoyance of mine does not extend to anything useful like picking lottery numbers. And if clairvoyance is the ability to perceive the future before it happens, what do you call the ability to forget important things from the past almost as soon as they happen? While I can tell you the starting lineup of the New York Mets in game five of the 1969 World Series, I can’t remember anything about the time I had shingles. I can quote a line of poetry I memorized in the 8th grade but can’t remember the name of our waitress even after she tells me the second time. I could drive from Loon Landing to any place I have ever been at least once without the aid of a GPS…but I cannot for the life of me remember where I left my keys… or my parent’s birthdays…or to take that one medicine I’m supposed to take every night. So, it’s very much a selective clairvoyance.

But the inside of that restaurant was strange—even for me!

Nothing Worse

The kids flew home today without incident. We throughly enjoyed our time with them. The weather has been wonderful. We ate marvelous food, had fun on the lake. Hated to see them leave. But now we have new guests—Ron and Paula Roop—and we are doing exactly what we always do in October here in Maine…

Playoff Baseball. It matters not who is playing. Everything is based on rooting for anything and everything that might conspire to eliminate the Yankees and/or Dodgers from advancing.

Meanwhile, Quantabacook’s mayor happens to be this guy…

He knows nothing of baseball. He only knows that his wings need some drying, and sometimes he needs to keep a sharp eye out for a certain sketchy southern fisherman who sometimes appears on his waters.

Of course, after yesterday’s performance I’m almost certain I heard the mayor snickering at my incompetence. “Is that the best you can do??” I heard him squawk. There’s nothing worse than a trash-talking eagle.