Here is how I see it: The GOP had eight years, eight years(!) to prepare for this. And what do we get? Donald Trump. Reality show host, real estate mogul, WWE stooge and daddy’s little boy. Principles and personalities aside, I have to think that someone’s very first elected office should not be, should never be, can not possibly be President of the United States. Defies tradition, logic and any other sensibility you want to include. His opponent, Mrs.Clinton? I truly have never been much of a fan. Her star is dimming, it seems, by the hour. Your rival spoon feeds you a “nasty” Internet meme and you lose ground(?) I am no political tactician, but it may be pretty basic stuff that you do not want your name mentioned in the same paragraph as Anthony Weiner ten days before the election. This guy makes Billy Bush look like Rob Petrie for crying out loud. Her biggest asset? That she is not him, which is not saying much.

So it is a mess. Hot, cold or room temperature. I feel we deserve better as a voting public. Most eligible citizens will not bother to vote, and there is a small part of me that does not blame them even a little. Ideally one would be informed on the local level, read up on ballot questions and referendums in your municipality, know and understand the players. But the top of the ballot it's such an unctuous disaster (and I mean that as bigly as I can) that people may stay away in droves. And that would be . . . “Wrong!” But it may be the most intelligent decision you can make.

Three Little Words

First of all – there is no winner and loser declared here. Neither candidate is going anywhere, both camps are claiming victory and the Undecideds do not have rallies or press conferences. So we can not really measure.

     But there were two separate points, late in the debate where Trump’s choice of words left me uneasy. (Now ‘bigly’ left me very uneasy because it is not a word, but maybe I misheard.) 

     First - Trump’s use of the word stamina was a huge look into his makeup, his identity. That is one of those masculine sounding descriptives that has been used to keep women down, to keep them employed at seventy cents on the dollar for generations. In Trump’s universe (and this goes for a cadre of like-thinkers) women are not equal to men. They are lacking, incomplete, less than. In this example, they lack stamina. How he would be so certain about her stamina levels is beyond me. Oddly enough her handlers had her prepared – her comeback was spot on and got a rare (Holt forbid) applause point.

     Second – when ‘your president’ rolled of his tongue so easily, I cringed. (Worth noting that he seemed preoccupied with President Obama and former President Clinton from the get go, to his disadvantage.) But to aver that Obama was her (and certainly not his) president shows a lack of both intelligence and patriotism. That is simply not how this electoral process works. Two parties select one candidate apiece and both candidates compete and vie for our support. It can get ugly, that is what we do. Votes are counted, a winner is declared and he, or maybe even she, becomes our President. Our. President. Reagan was my president. Bush and Bush II were my presidents. Nixon was (I just got a little chest pain, maybe gas . . .) my president. Get over it – it has been eight freaking years! You lost. You have almost singlehandedly guaranteed another eight years of the same. (You had help, I get that . . .)

He was woefully unprepared, carried himself like the mean-spirited bully that he is and did little, in my opinion, to further his cause.

1/31/1997

     My father was admitted to the hospital last night. Emergency Room, then room 4B20. And now he lies here with me. Vannessa has gone home to pick up some things and call his older brother Tom and his younger brother Jim. The last journal entry concerned the death (or at least my notification of the death) of Jerome Garcia. Named for Jerome Kern, American songwriter. Now - the impending death of Charles Carroll Carr, named for Charles Carroll, American patriot, looms large.

     Will I only write about death, dying, and the notification of same(?) Good question. At least I have the urge to put pen to paper and he would be proud. Is proud - too early for the past tense. 

     The journal began in an idyllic, innocent fashion - on vacation, the Stephen Taber, remember? Kept it up for a week after, then nothing. Jerry passed and my life changed in ways that now I can appreciate. They were family too me - The Dead, Deadheads. Family I lacked. Now a genuine family member, my Dad (remember?) lies here with me. Again I feel like writing.

     Cancer - radiation treatments that enclosed the holidays in an unusual gloom. They would end soon, he would get better - right? Wrong.

     If anything, they were the beginning of the end. (This is the end - right?) We endured, together, a forced cheerfulness, yet at least together. A routine evolved: pick up, park the car, treatment, breakfast and drop off. Talk of Jazz, politics and young James - his other son, my half-brother. (God - what an awkward term!)

     Once finished, my involvement anyway, (James was home, able to help) we drifted slightly apart. Christmas Day we spent together, the first one in a long time. The last I remember him being him (you know - My Dad).

     Then quickly, way too quickly, a downward spiral that landed us, together again, here. Punctuated, News Of The World style, by ominous bulletins - he was disoriented, he fell, six times, he fell into the English Muffin display at the supermarket. (Thomas’s? I didn’t ask . . .) Vannessa, poor Vannessa, let’s do something.

     She did, and here we are.

[Fragment of a Journal I can only vaguely remember. Typed verbatim 7/25/2016. Attempts to locate the Stephen Taber entries proceed.]