Southern Comfort (Latest in a Series)
Took a quick trip Down Home this weekend. Supposedly, it was to attend a funeral, but the relationshi was so distant and so obscure that even my first-cousin Kelvin who grew up there couldn't ecplain the relationship. Suffice it to say that everyone is relatad to everyone else doen there and that eery death diminishes the community in tangible ways. And, that was the point.
It also didn't hurt that Kelvin had just bought a massive recreational vehicle (RV) and offered to pick me up from the train station near Richmond in it and travel the rest of the 200 mile trip with me. The thing is about the size of a Grayhound bus and as his accountant opined when he went over the financials with him, "There is nothing practical about this." It was a purely emotional purchase meant, in part, to smooth things over with his wife who is still mad with him for deeding his parents' home to his out-of-wedlock eldest child. Incredibel as it may seem, poor Aretha has never acknowledged her step-daughter's existence even as Rhonda has grown into a mature football/socccer mom with kids of her own.
The stinging irony of it all is that if it weren't for Rhonda's growing brood (with help from husband, Greg), the family would barely be expanding at all. So, it made perfect sense in a weird way to make Rhonda's house the first stop on the RV's journey, even before we got home. It was a great way to meet the newest member of the family, Kalia, Rhonda's first grandchild. Yes, that makes Kelvin my generation's first great-grandfather.
Aretha remained a disembodied presence throughut the weekend as she stayed in touch with Kelvin by phone despite the fact that she had parallel plans to visit her own family's Homecoming just a few miles away, using her own car. That is, util the first pictures of our "RV party" hit the internet. After that, she mantained radio silence.
Another interesting thing that occurred while away this weekend was a FB discussion with Ninelegyak, who I have not had much contact at all in years until an impeachment article I pasted to my page prompted a spirited discussion. He is oe of the Tacoma friends I made fifteen years ago when we all first started blogging. It'sa weird relationship beaus eI feel as though I know all of them even though I've never set foot in Tacoma. Over the years, they have become my window on the Pacific Northwest, a unique blend of pioneer spirit, tolerance and defense of quirkiness.
Even within their small circle, they are almost evenly divided between gun-loving Trump supporters, LGBTQ sons and daughters and Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren supporters. Almost no one likes Biden. Almost all agree that the impeachment fight is a sideshow to what should be the main arena, a pitched battle over the future of the planet and economic justice for the working class.
I guess I would argue that Trump himself is an existential threat to the planet and even if impeachment doesn't actually remove him from office, it's imprtant to get every Republican office-holder on record stating whether they think a president is more like a king or more like any other elected official who proves his or her unfitness midway between his or her term. It'll be interesting.
It also didn't hurt that Kelvin had just bought a massive recreational vehicle (RV) and offered to pick me up from the train station near Richmond in it and travel the rest of the 200 mile trip with me. The thing is about the size of a Grayhound bus and as his accountant opined when he went over the financials with him, "There is nothing practical about this." It was a purely emotional purchase meant, in part, to smooth things over with his wife who is still mad with him for deeding his parents' home to his out-of-wedlock eldest child. Incredibel as it may seem, poor Aretha has never acknowledged her step-daughter's existence even as Rhonda has grown into a mature football/socccer mom with kids of her own.
The stinging irony of it all is that if it weren't for Rhonda's growing brood (with help from husband, Greg), the family would barely be expanding at all. So, it made perfect sense in a weird way to make Rhonda's house the first stop on the RV's journey, even before we got home. It was a great way to meet the newest member of the family, Kalia, Rhonda's first grandchild. Yes, that makes Kelvin my generation's first great-grandfather.
Aretha remained a disembodied presence throughut the weekend as she stayed in touch with Kelvin by phone despite the fact that she had parallel plans to visit her own family's Homecoming just a few miles away, using her own car. That is, util the first pictures of our "RV party" hit the internet. After that, she mantained radio silence.
Another interesting thing that occurred while away this weekend was a FB discussion with Ninelegyak, who I have not had much contact at all in years until an impeachment article I pasted to my page prompted a spirited discussion. He is oe of the Tacoma friends I made fifteen years ago when we all first started blogging. It'sa weird relationship beaus eI feel as though I know all of them even though I've never set foot in Tacoma. Over the years, they have become my window on the Pacific Northwest, a unique blend of pioneer spirit, tolerance and defense of quirkiness.
Even within their small circle, they are almost evenly divided between gun-loving Trump supporters, LGBTQ sons and daughters and Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren supporters. Almost no one likes Biden. Almost all agree that the impeachment fight is a sideshow to what should be the main arena, a pitched battle over the future of the planet and economic justice for the working class.
I guess I would argue that Trump himself is an existential threat to the planet and even if impeachment doesn't actually remove him from office, it's imprtant to get every Republican office-holder on record stating whether they think a president is more like a king or more like any other elected official who proves his or her unfitness midway between his or her term. It'll be interesting.