The Eve of Destruction

 Beagles is still with us.  He liked my last fb art post as he does every week.  And I see where our short term buddy, Free Tim has begun his old blog.  Think I will give him a comment sometime after Halloween.

When I was writing about the trip to Gage Park I was thinking about Old Dog who I believe has always lived in the same hood except for when he was serving his country.  I wondered what that was like.  Are there people there who he has known boyhood who he runs into from time to time?  Can he turn a block and suddenly see 60 or 70 years back in time?

The blog began in 2012 and I think Beagles and I were exchanging emails for two years before that which would take us to midway in Obama's first term when hope was still fluttering in my liberal heart.  Beagles didn't like Obama.  If memory serves me well, which is not a sure thing, he thought Obama was a muslim, and I was able to point that out to him.  I believe that is the only thing in Beagles' mind that I ever changed.  

But even if Beagles did not like Obama he was more sanguine about the political situation than myself, a pretty rabid partisan when I was in the mood.  Sometimes he said something on the order of there will be another election in a couple years (Obama beat Romney who was rather a flip flopper, but I liked him for that, better to have someone who didn't have strong opinions than somebody who had passionate opinions that I loathed).  Sometimes Beagles' guy would win, sometimes Uncle Ken's would, it all sort of worked out, neither of us got all that we wanted, but then we never lost everything either.

2016 was different.  The rough beast came slouching to the white house and to the dread of my ilk and of myself made himself at home.  This was not the give and take which the country had become used to.  Then he was vanquished, and now he is coming back stronger than ever.  

I have read that both sides now believe this will be the last election if the other side wins.  I don't see how Kamala, a run of the mill liberal, will change the country that much, we have seen her likes before.  I guess if some crud like Ted Cruz was running I would despise him and all, but I would be thinking who would we be running in four years.

But Trump?

The votes of me and Old Dog don't mean a thing here in topaz blue Illinois,  Only Beagles has a vote that counts and last I remember hearing he is not voting for Trump and is even thinking of voting for Kamala.  I hope this is still true.