Let The Eagle Fly

I have been dreading my voting experience for weeks now. Not the pitiful options, mind you, but rather the actual physical act of voting. I have been stubbornly holding out of the 2020 early voting craze. No, I would not slog down to the Courthouse and stand in line for an hour and a half to vote three weeks before Election Day. No, I would not place my ballot in an envelope and trust it to the United States Postal Service. I had been determined to not be hoodwinked into a panicked early vote. But honestly, the closer it got to Election Day, the more worried I have become over my stubborn refusal to adapt to 2020. So, there I was this morning at 9:50 am backing out of my parking space at the office to begin the four minute drive to Short Pump Elementary School, my polling place for the last 24 years. I was fully prepared to endure no matter how long the line or how long it took. In a scene worthy of a Frank Capra movie, as I pulled onto Church Road I happened to glance upward only to catch a glimpse of a magnificent bald eagle soaring a couple hundred feet above me. He followed me all the way to the corner of Church and Three Chopt. I attempted to take a picture of him but my cell phone camera wasn’t clear enough...

Trust me everyone...that’s a bald Eagle, and I took it as a positive sign.

First place I went was Publix to pick up some gift cards for the poll workers. Those people do the dirty work of democracy and I felt that this year especially they could use tangible evidence of our appreciation...

The first thing I noticed upon arrival was how empty the parking lot was. Normally I have to make a couple of laps before a space becomes available. Not this time. I parked and begin walking towards the school, under the breezeway in front, then around the corner to the side entrance of the gym. I saw zero voters. Another first. When I entered the gym I got in line. There were probably seven or eight people in front of me. There were easily two poll workers for every voter. The first worker I saw approached me to let me know the drill. I instantly recognized him as one of my neighbors from around the corner. I glanced to my right and saw what looked like at least 15 individual voting booths, each one having been throughly scrubbed down with germ-killing disinfectant by an earnest looking college student. In less than a minute I was being summoned forward by a serious looking black woman in her 60’s who verified my identity, squinting at my drivers license, then me, and mumbled with a smile, I guess that’s you! She then passed me on to a middle aged white man wearing bifocals who gave me my paper ballot and pointed me in the direction of the college student who was in the process of cleaning out my booth. She greeted me with a big smile and said, Here you go, sir.

Pam had pulled up a sample ballot online the night before, so I had already had time to get up to speed with the constitutional amendments on the ballot. Voted YES on both, the first one because anything that takes power away from politicians is fine with me and the second one because why isn’t it already the law?? How come people who serve in the military and suffer a complete and permanent disability are still being charged property taxes on their vehicles in the first place?? Geez. 

Moving on from those, I marked my ballot for my “preferred” candidates...but not before noticing something that made me smile and sigh at the same time. There has always been a soft spot in my heart for the Libertarian Party. On many issues important to me their positions and mine are virtually identical. There was a time when I hoped that perhaps one day the Party would become a viable third way, a party able to compete with the two big boys and provide people like me with...a choice not an echo. But, I looked down at their candidates and notice that the Libertarian Party actually ran someone for Vice President whose middle name was in quotation marks, “Spike”. Heaven help us.

Each of the five poll workers who I came into personal contact with got a gift card. Each of them were surprised and thanked me profusely. One was an immigrant, two were white men, one a black women, and one a female college student. Among the other workers I noticed scurrying around the place were middle aged women and men, one who looked like ex-military, another who looked like a farmer from the sticks, yet another an elderly woman who walked with a cane. As I walked outside the gym into the bright sunshine I thought to myself...Yep...That’s America. That right there is my country.

Now, we all wait for the results. Unlike most political television, I will actually watch the results for as long as my blood pressure, heart, and general mental health can withstand the thing. An adult beverage or two might be consumed. But, no matter what happens, it won’t take away the feeling I had inside that gymnasium, one of pride in and love of my country. May the eagle fly every Election Day.

The Words of Children

I’m not exactly sure what it is but the words of children are getting to me of late. Yesterday I posted a picture of a Thank You note delivered to my mailbox by the kids next door. I found out later that their mother had no idea they had written it and had been reduced to tears upon seeing it on Facebook. This morning I shared it with my friend in Buena Vista. Her response was to show me a note that her granddaughter had sent her after her COVID diagnosis had placed her grandmother in quarantine...

“Can we be together again becues I lov you and it fells like frever sins we herd the news The Cronuvirus and I miss you and love you.”

As a writer I love the way children express themselves on paper. There’s no embellishments, no unnecessary words or phrases. There’s no agenda, no hidden meaning. With phonetically correct spelling they just pour out exactly what is on their minds and when we read their words they cut us to the quick. What if all written communication was this crystal clear and honest?

A Fearful Week

I cant remember a time in my life when I have felt more apprehension to begin a week than I feel at this moment on November 2, 2020. All the ingredients are in place for what could be the most tumultuous week in our nation’s history in my lifetime. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time, this may sound strange coming from me. I am generally the guy who guards against over-statement. I’m usually the guy scolding people for overreacting, reminding everyone that things are never as bad as they appear. There is still a chance that this week won’t be the horror movie of my dreams. Hope springs eternal.

What is it that I’m so anxious about? It’s probably not what you think. Regular readers of this space know my opinion of the two candidates. I consider Donald Trump unfit for public office of any kind for a whole host of reasons. His opponent is too old, too feeble-minded and a lifelong government employee who after collecting his salary from the taxpayers for the past 47 years now says he’s just the guy to fix what’s wrong with government. Faced with so impossible a choice, I have made the decision to hold my sizable nose and pull the lever for the career politician over the career grifter, not exactly a shining moment for democracy. It is my opinion that Biden will win. Practically every pollster in the country tells me so. Yes, I am aware of the silent Trump voter theory. Trump could pull the upset. It is, after all, 2020. But who wins the election isn’t what’s keeping me up at night. It’s what happens afterwards. Here are a couple scenarios...

Biden Wins In A Landslide

This is the best case scenario. Why? Because the outcome will have been predicted and certain. The results will reflect accurately the polling data collected over the past six months. It will, for the vast majority of Americans be, believable. Trump supporters will be disappointed, but the outcome will not have come out of the blue.

Trump Wins In A Landslide

This is the second best case scenario. Why? Although the winner will be a surprise as it will have made all the pollsters look ridiculous again, The margin of victory will have been wide enough to make even a surprise victory believable. It will have been the second time that Trump has pulled a rabbit out of his hat on Election Day. 

Trump or Biden Win In An Agonizingly Close Election

This is the stuff of my dystopian nightmares, the worst of all outcomes. First of all, the sitting President has spent the last year claiming that the 2020 election would be rigged and illegitimate, hinting at some shadowy deep state conspiracy to rob him of his rightful reelection. Any close outcome will feed nicely into the conspiratorial mindset of his voters. Biden supporters will never accept any outcome other than a Biden landslide and will claim that an equally Byzantine conspiracy involving the Post Office, Russian Bots and Amy Coney Barrett has subverted the will of the people. What happens next will be the ultimate test of our fragile and increasingly strained democracy.

It’s hard to admit that your country has gotten to the place where a violent response to an election outcome is on the table for discussion. This is what happens in banana republics, not the most powerful nation in the world. But America feels at a precipice of some kind, teetering on a ledge, everyone on a hair trigger. COVID hasn’t helped...we have all had more time to consume news, more time to get mad, too much time for our anger to simmer and ferment. We have all seen the violent clashes between far right Proud Boys and the far left Antifa. We’ve watched it and thought, “just a bunch of radical goons in the street.” My fear is that a tight election outcome will result in an outbreak of violence not restricted to a few radical goons. When the stakes are this high, the rhetoric this hot, the divisions this deep, with social media serving as the fire-stoker, America could find itself in the middle of the greatest social unrest since the 1960’s.

So yes...This week has me worried. If none of this turns out to be true, if each side accepts the outcome peacefully, no one will be more relieved to have been wrong than I will. 

This week, I pray for my Country, and hope against hope that this blog will sound ridiculous and overwrought a week from today.

Time For The Halloween Hustle

Halloween. Trick or Treat. It’s perhaps the most family oriented of all holidays, being based as it is on the concept of extortion of the old by the young. Throngs of toddlers and other miscreants roam the neighborhood cleverly disguising their identities, approaching house after house demanding that adults hand over candy under the threat of the disturbing yet undefined trick that will befall anyone who doesn’t pony up. This, of course, is the infamous protection racket made famous by the Cosa Nostra of the Old Country and the Mob in this country during the late 19th and early 20th century. Despite its roots in organized crime, Halloween still persists and in recent years has even grown in popularity as more and more adults have started getting into the spirit of the day. One can hardly walk into any public accommodation on Halloween these days without seeing full grown men and women decked out in all manner of outrageous outfits. From personal experience I can attest to the fact that it’s quite difficult to take seriously a dental hygienist dressed as a tube of toothpaste...

But, I suppose it is all harmless fun, especially in 2020 when we have all been living in a virtual Halloween for the past 8 months. So, tonight Pam and I will participate in our neighborhood’s new socially distant Halloween protocols. We will set up our candy station at the end of our driveway. All of the candy will be prepackaged in individual bags to prevent the little darlings from thrusting their filthy, germ-besotted mitts into a communal bowl of treats...

Pam and I will be seated at a safe distance behind the extortion table, where we can see their adorable little outfits without fear of contamination. Behind us I will have made a roaring fire in our Solo Stove. This serves two purposes, to keep us warm and also as a place where I can place my blinking sign pointing into the blazing fire...

...warning what will befall any age-inappropriate participants.

Of course, we have set aside special treats for the three darlings who live next door. We can’t help ourselves. They are the sweetest things you ever saw. I apologize in advance to their long suffering parents for how we consistently spoil them rotten at every opportunity...

A Cappella Summary | Pokémon Red & Blue

Ok, so for most of my readers, this video produced, arranged and performed by my talented son will not make a whole lot of sense. But to people of a certain age, this was part of the background soundtrack of life back in the 1990's. My son was and still is a huge gamer. I have often wished that I had had as profound an impact on him as these video games did! Now, he devotes time and energy to reimagine the video game tunes from 20 years ago as acapella music, then performs all the parts himself in his makeshift recording studio in his apartment. Even though I am unfamiliar with these songs, his versions of them blow me away. 

Hope you enjoy.

Voting in 2020

Everybody seems to be voting early. I see it all over Facebook, people posting photos of their little I Voted stickers. Nationwide we are being told that over 75 million of us have already cast our ballots. All of which means that if we discover over the next four or five days that one of these guys is in fact a serial killer...people who have already voted are basically screwed! But, far be it from me to criticize anyone for exercising the franchise at whatever time makes them happy. I have also heard several horror stories about five hour long lines and such. My son is particularly concerned about this, reasoning that the long lines will have the effect of disenfranchising many voters who won’t have the patience or can’t afford to miss time from work to stand in a five hour line to vote...so they will give up. Perhaps. I’m not convinced. I’ve seen Americans stand in line for days to buy everything from Springsteen tickets to the newest iPhone. 

Nevertheless, there seems to be incredible voter interest in the 2020 election and it looks like this might be the highest turnout in over a hundred years. For a variety of reasons this is either good or bad news for America. No matter the numbers I will be voting on Election Day, and not one second before. Part of it is simply old fashioned stubbornness. I have been voting on the designated Election Day in my country since 1976 when this newly minted high school graduate, freshly back from a wild adventure out west, walked into a voting booth, heart pounding, and pulled the lever for James Earl Carter for President of the United States. I had no idea what I was I was doing. My understanding of politics was severely limited by my lack of life experience and my still raging and interminable adolescence. Yet, the Constitution had granted me the right to vote on my 18th birthday, and I was determined to do my bit. I remember the feeling like it was yesterday. I walked out of that voting booth feeling like a man, proud of myself for some ill-defined reason. I also felt for the first time in my life like a...citizen.

I’ve cast some dumb votes in my life, lazy, uninformed votes. All my fault. I’ve also cast votes that I have been very proud of, votes that were well-researched and enthusiastically cast. But in every case the feeling has been the same...pride and gratitude.

I used to think that if my guy didn’t win all would be lost. Such is the price of passionate devotion to politics. Now, I’m much less consumed by doomsday fears. Nothing in my 45 plus years of voting has ever turned out as bad as I thought it would. Indeed, on several occasions things turned out surprisingly well when the other guy won, bestowing on me a dose of much needed humility. But I will not here disparage those passionate people who are terrified at the prospect of victory or defeat. I understand. It’s ok. It’s not my job to tell anyone how they should feel. None of my business.

So, on Election Day, I’ll be there in my socially distant line to vote. If I end up wasting all day standing in line it will be the fault of my own stubbornness. If I breeze through in 30 minutes or less I will resist the urge to brag. Either way, I will be paying close attention to those around me. I will take in the vibe of the thing with attention to every detail. Then, you can rest assured I will write about my experience here. I will want to remember everything about what it was like to vote in 2020. My grandkids at some point will ask me.

Unbelievable

An update on my friend...

Ok, there are times in life when things happen that cause you to doubt even the existence of God, let alone his goodness. On the other hand, sometimes you feel so close to him, his presence so palpable that you can’t imagine why anyone would deny his existence. Such is the life of faith, some days are better than others. With Pam Cole over the past 14 months I’ve experienced a lot of both. There have been days when her optimism and faithfulness have been about the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen. But, then I will hear of some almost cruel turn in her condition, insults piled on top of injury, and it infuriates me. A few days ago I witnessed both the agony and the ecstasy of her journey in one fifteen minute text conversation.

She had been having a rough couple of weeks. Getting COVID had been a low point in a season of lows. It wiped her out physically while the isolation from her grandchildren had crushed her spirit. She had vented her frustration to me on several occasions. Since such venting has been extremely rare, I took note of it. So she wakes up one morning recently with a urinary tract infection, as if she needed one more damn thing to deal with. She tells me this very matter of factly, as if she thought it was totally the sort of thing she expected would happen to her, acting like it was no big deal. “What’s a little blood in the urine when you’re fighting cancer??” I said nothing, but in my heart a storm of anger was brewing. I’m thinking...Are you freaking kidding me, God?? I attempt to change the subject with, So, what do you have planned for today? Below, I paraphrase her answer...

“Nothing special...I’m gonna go to the store later to buy a couple of cards for some friends of mine who have cancer. There’s a lady who is a friend and client of mine who had cancer years ago and all of a sudden its come back, and a guy I went to high school with has lung and bone cancer. Both of them are gonna have trouble driving spouses all the way to Charlottesville and back for treatment so I was thinking I would send them some gas money...”

Then a bit later...

“Just trying to be a good steward. Feeling very annoyed today, Just getting over Covid and now a UTI. Never ending. So I really need to spread some cheer to some people today...I know the Lord loves me and that he cares for me. I know that he has a plan for all of this. Tired of being sick but it is what it is.”

Her last chemo treatment is this Friday. She will get to ring the bell at the treatment center up in Charlottesville. I would like to mark the occasion in a meaningful way. Many of you have been blessed by her story, by her lion hearted courage, good humor, and the power of her faith. If so, maybe you could send her a get well card, letting her know just how much of a blessing she has been. I will collect them at my office and then send them all to her in a box. Mail your cards to me at my office: 

Doug Dunnevant

3761 Westerre Parkway

Suite C

Richmond, Virginia 23233

Thank you in advance for your kindness.