Still Aging In Place

 Increasingly, I have begun feeling like I am somehow “outside” of wherever it is I am in. Even if I am sitting within a family group, with, say, kids and/or grandkids I have begun feeling as though I am sitting somewhere else, but still observing them.  Sometimes, I am almost startled when one of them actually addresses me directly by asking me a question, or commenting on something about me.  And then that state of being (or maybe non-being) is enhanced when I am reading the news, or a news e-mail, or listening/watching the news on TV or radio.  Why? Well, inevitably the reporter or the article begins discussing one of our republican friends, and then I feel like I have just arrived from outer space, and they are discussing something I simply do not understand. The other day, for example, I sat and watched the Governor of North Dakota address the NRA at their convention. And she told us that she had made sure to arm her two-year old grandchild with both a rifle and a shotgun. I mean, you just never know when another two-year old brat is going to do something threatening, and her grandkid might have to shoot that other kid. Well, sort of like that dude who answered his door, gun in hand (don’t we all answer our doorbell with a gun in hand?) and then when he saw a young Black kid, he began firing his gun.  I mean, clearly that young Black kid was going to harm him, so he was simply protecting himself. Right?? Or that other dude who saw three young ladies enter his driveway in their car, and then began to back away, but he of course had to open fire on them.  Obviously, the girls meant him harm, even if they were backing away.

And then there is that whole set of characters who profess to represent the Republican Party. Take Marjory Taylor Greene. She actually said that the California wildfires were caused by Jewish Space Lasers. And then she failed to back away and laugh.

Oh and that January 6^th thing at the Capitol? They are now portrayed of course as simple tourists who wanted to visit the Capitol, but were being denied their proper tourist rights.  Now, as you watch that event taking place, don’t you begin to feel as though you have just arrived from Mars and you really don’t understand what you are witnessing? I sometimes think I am actually in 1936 Germany and I am wondering when Adolph is going to show up (Oh, that’s Ron DeSantis, not Adolph Hitler approaching the podium?)

See, it isn’t a specific person, oh like Donald Trump. It’s that there seem to be so many of them. An entire political party has actually entered the realm of 1936 Nazi Germany, or maybe just 2023 Crazy America. But how did that happen, and will it (and I) ever return to something approaching normalcy? I’m 88 for Christ sake, and I can’t take much more of this.

And worse, it seems to be the case that Americans in very large numbers have joined this Crazy Party, yet how could that have happened. See, I still remember voting for Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for President in 1952. Can you even imagine what Ike would be thinking were he present at some rally where Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis were rambling on about one of their latest thoughts concerning America? Would that Ike not also begin wondering whether he had somehow been transmitted to a Foreign Land on Mars? Surely this could not be Florida within the US of A.

And I listen to/watch the commentary and they tear that bunch apart, but nothing actually happens to them.  Americans, actual Americans keep on listening to them and, whenever they can, still voting for them.  That is the part I fail to understand and why I feel like I am floating somewhere in outer space. How could this be? How is it possible that Americans in any number beyond a few hundred (ok even a few thousand) could possibly go to a polling place and mark the ballots to elect such people—Trump, DeSantis, Greene, Hawley, Cawthorne, McConnell, McCarthy? Really, America . . . you actually approve of such manic pseudohumans?  And you are going to refuse to control guns, while facing the largest collection of mass shootings in our history? And you also refuse to allow people to have medical abortions, or even to buy and consume abortion pills, regardless of the later effects on the lives of the women involved.  So, you’re not actually “Pro-Life” as much as you are Anti-sex, or maybe “Pro-Foetus”. Yeah, once those foetuses become actual humans, it’s ok to shoot them, right?

And so, I have begun drifting off into some outer space existence. I am no longer a full-time resident of America, maybe even of Earth, I am still technically alive, I know, cuz I can still watch Stephen Colbert or John Oliver, but I no longer recognize what I observe going on around me.

Maybe I am actually in a dream-state and I will awaken to re-enter our world and it will still be 1975, or maybe even 2010 and that dude Barack Obama is still president. Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Oh shit, go back to sleep Richard. That ain’t gonna happen.