How Many Americas?

We live in too many Americas to count.

I reside in North Carolina in Wake County, which is part of what is commonly called The Research Triangle, an imaginary boundary that connects Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh. Toss in Hillsborough, and you have the Research Trapezoid. It is as blue as blue can be.

Heading east from Raleigh and venturing into Johnston County, a traveler leaves one America and soon discovers he is in another … and in another era … perhaps the early 1950s.

As a North Carolinian, I have often cringed while visiting blue regions and hear residents of those areas dismiss my home as if it were Alabama, one of the deepest, reddest states. I have been quick to reassure those yapping through wind-blown hats that there are "plenty" of blue people in North Carolina, that it is a swing state, a state that voted for Obama in 2008, and elected a Democratic governor in 2016.

In spite of knowing that even Texas boasts an oasis of thought in Austin, I admit that I forget that reasonable people live everywhere. That there were folks just as upset with the 2016 presidential election in red states as there were folks distressed in blue states. What we didn’t or couldn’t fathom was how many were livid in the heart of Republican control.

Last night in Alabama, we witnessed a glimmer of hope, that instead of wondering how many, we can say, “Enough.”

Enough people voted. 

Moore, who refused to concede, handled loss as about as well as North Carolina’s former governor, Pat McCory, who eventually went down in hubris flames.

According to a graphic in The New York Times:

Doug Jones received 49.9 percent of the vote —  670,551.

Roy Moore received 48.4 percent — 649,240.

Granted this was an election tainted with a remarkably bogus candidate in Moore, and in my view, a trashy echo of the presidential disaster in 2016. But this time, sanity prevailed.

Barely.

Perhaps Alabama is a microcosm of the question of How Many Americas? We would be foolish to assume Alabama is turning blue any more than it would be absurd to fail to grasp that Moore’s defeat had much more to do with Moore than it did Jones. Again in my view, Moore is a gun-toting, bible thumping nuisance, a vastly flawed candidate, even if one is thick skinned and Cro-Magnon enough to dismiss the sexual harassment claims. Like Trump, Moore is a serial liar, and his loss last night gave truth an unanticipated triumph.

In a state that breathes the expression “Roll Tide” …. Perhaps this is the first wave of what is to come — that more and more reasonable people will activate a resolute trudge into a voting booth.

I refuse to believe that those who support Trump, and to a certain extent Bannon, are the majority. I believe that hope has walked into the building, so to speak, simply by showing up to mark a ballot.

If Alabama can muster enough votes for a man with (D) beside his name to deprive a ludicrous candidate, great things can happen in states where elections have been more competitive.

Sweet Home Alabama, indeed.

Wild Man Be Careful

His name before adopted was Charleston. We renamed him Orson, as he gained so much weight that his empire expanded in a manner similar to how Orson Welles went from splinter to massive Redwood.

Ruth says there was a note about Orson, WILD MAN BE CAREFUL, that she shared with me.

I never heard it or perhaps didn't want to hear it.

Orson was a brilliant cat, relentless about getting more food, not one to suck up or even be friendly, unless it was on his terms. Orson came to us in April of 2005. He has been a source of conversation, and of his many "legends" ... the night he swallowed a lizard under our bed ranks high.

Today, we woke up to the horrible moment when we discovered Orson had died during the night.

Orson Stalvey will be missed.

Someone To Tell

Our wants shift

With the change,

That time brings.

One day

In the Bermuda Triangle

Of your past

While rummaging in the attic

You find a typewriter

That had once been a friend.

Nearby, a charger for the cordless phone system

You’d hooked up all over the house.

Stacks and stacks

Of clothes in various sizes

That no longer fit;

Each garment proof of a different you:

Sometimes thinner, sometimes wider,

Poignant evidence that 

Our empires shift horizontally,

And with age —

Vertically as well.

There’s a box in the corner

With actual photos taken

During a journey

From San Francisco to Seattle.

Long ago, and yet so immediate.

A thai restaurant in Berkley

That has yet to be beat.

Pad Thai of the gods.

A muffin the size of a softball in Eureka.

The winding road on the coast

Where a classic view happened

So often that it became tedious.

Driving the rental car,

A Cadillac,

Through a tree.

Parking in Portland

And learning that one can find

A coffee house every hundred yards

Or so it seemed.

Half a decade before the internet,

Before a staggering array of new wants arrived.

Such as

the house-shattering explosion

Of dial up ….

Shwassh, shwasssh, shwasssh,

screech, screech,

BONG, BONG, BONG …

Then the wait.

Something’s wrong.

No, it’s just taking forever.

Those first years traveling

And suddenly fast speed is an amenity, like HBO.
Not long before a friend suggests a wireless router.
And the world evolved. Again.

Flip phones.

Then the game changer of all game changers:

Smart phones.
Now we are truly stupid

Without our device.

Not long ago, when someone

Forgot their wallet, major panic.
Now when the phone is left behind

People feel nude in a public place.

Lately, there’s serious chatter

About cars that drive themselves.

Get your kicks on Route 66?

I suppose that that will be a convenience,

To sit back and leave the driving

To your new best robot friend.

It is SO 20^th century.
To sit behind the wheel

Of a vehicle with a stick shift

And a great sound system:

Then, get your motor running;

Head out on the highway;

Looking for adventure.

A robot can’t replace that urge.

Not for me.

Once upon a time

The romantic dipped a quill

And scratched his feelings on parchment

To send to his or her paramour.

There’s a 19^th century word.

Paramour.

But it’s also one “thing” that will never disappear.

We can high tech ourselves to boredom,

Take selfies,

Hook up with strangers,

Do a zillion things quicker and faster;

But we will never outrun or outfeel

Actual human nature.

We will always need to belong,

To share,

To know that someone else

Heard us, 

Saw us, 

Laughed with us.

It’s why we crave Facebook and Twitter:
To be seen,

Acknowledged,

Appreciated,

Accepted.

That’s a given.

None of us can thrive alone.

Isolation is the purest hell.

We will always need

Someone to tell.