It's rare for me to hold back on how I feel about politics and current events. But right now, there are many other people on many other sites who are saying what needs to be said and saying it better than I ever can. So, I've decided to just talk about a few things that have been on my mind a lot lately.
The first time I traveled across America was in 2007, the second time was in 2009, and last month I did it twice in the span of two weeks. From 2009 to 2017 a lot of things have changed. Many of them have changed for the better. We have, at least as of right now, marriage equality as the law of the land.
I have a cousin who is married to another man. The husband is a person who has never been anything but rude to me, but, I keep quiet and try my best to be nice to him whenever I see them in public. He makes my cousin happy, and that's what matters most to me.
We also have, for the time being at least, have net neutrality as established regulation. If I were to let my manners slip a little, I could say some not so nice things about those who oppose it. Let's just say I'm all in favor of the current F.C.C. regulations and hope to see them not be weakened or eliminated.
I was admitted to the hospital for the first and so far, only time in my life in May of 1977. I had a stomach virus that was really bad. I mean, I could have died from this thing. Several doctors who had patients in my age range with similar symptoms literally compared notes and determined we had all attended the same concert. Once they figured out what one of us had and how to treat it, they were able to treat all of us.
I've been mentally compiling a list of the nicest people I've ever met, and the weird thing is, the list keeps changing based on a few things. To say that someone is a nice person can cover a lot of territory. How polite someone is, how pleasant a person they are, and how they behave under pressure are just a few of the things that go into the overall mix. I've known people who in normal situations are a joy to be around but when things get bad, you can almost see them turning into someone you just don't want to be involved with at all.
I'm thinking of someone who I like a lot. I trust this person a great deal. I have often asked her advice regarding matters both personal and professional. But one time, about a year and a half ago, she went on a rampage. She ripped into us so badly that she literally left many of her students, of which I was one at that time, in tears.
The man to whom she answers, to put it quite bluntly, read her the riot act about an hour before a regularly scheduled meeting of our club. I wasn't in the room, and to the best of my knowledge, neither of them has ever repeated even a single word of what was said. I and several others were setting up for our weekly on campus fundraiser when word came down to shut things down.
What happened next still upsets me. She called all of us into an emergency meeting.
Don't get me wrong, please. Much of what we were on the hook for, as it were, included
legitimate concerns. But a lot of it also included things that were beyond our control. Things we knew needed to be fixed that we neither had the means nor the authority to fix.
That was bad enough. But when the personal attacks started, that was crossing a line that never should have been crossed. That's when I actually started to stand up to leave the room, fully aware that doing so would end my involvement in the club for good. Looking back, I realize now that I should have walked out, and walked away.
Not because of how I had been attacked personally, which I was dealing with fairly well until someone else blindsided me with something I never saw coming. I should have walked out because it was the right thing to do. I was told by several other people after the meeting that if I had done so, they would have joined me. We were the ones who were always there when called upon, and without us, the club almost certainly would have died that day.
I write all this knowing there's a small but very real chance that the person of whom I speak may read this. Ms. M, I'm so sorry, but that's just the way I see things.
So, is she on my list for all the good things, or is she not on it for the one really bad mistake she made?
I don't know, right now.
Wishing you a good weekend, dear reader.
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