There Has been a Great Disturbance in the Force

Women, we didn't pull off the blue tsunami. 

I don't know why.

And 58% of men looked at the rapist and said, "Hell yeah, That's my man."

I was on the planet when Hitler ran amuck over Europe. I remember the end of World War II when a Taxi driver sped down our street with his victory shirt flapping out the window.

I never thought I would live under a fascist regime.

I pray that will not happen.  

Is the United States an experiment that failed? Are all those liberties we fought so hard for being swept away? 

I went to bed the night of the election feeling that defeat was coming and awakened the following morning to the fact that it had.

 

When I was about ten, our Town of The Dalles, Oregon, had the worst snowstorm we had ever experienced. The Columbia River that flowed past our town had chunks of ice the size of Volkswagen busses. However, it was not snowing the night my Australian Shepherd/Cocker Spaniel dog Silver got sick.

It gave me a window of visibility when I went outside to check on him and saw tracks pressed into about two feet of snow leading down our long driveway.

As I trudged through the snow following his tracks, I feared the worst, that he was wandering away to die. I knew that sometimes dogs do that. I found him, picked him up and carried him home.  When I sat him on the kitchen floor his head was being pulled back, and he collapsed. My mother said, "He'll be dead by morning."

We placed him in the warm living room, and Mom sent me to bed. I prayed for my dog until I fell sleep. When I awakened in the morning, heart in my throat, I gingerly crept into the living room, fearing what I would find.

Silver was in a chair!

However, his hindquarters became paralyzed, and he lay helpless for days that spanned into weeks. My folks kept encouraging me to let them put him to sleep.   

Nope, Nada, No.

I spoon-fed him broth and water and cleaned up after him.  (We gave him castor oil, for he refused to eliminate it in the house.)

He lay helpless until, one day, his tail wagged. Mom and I were jubilant.

Silver recovered!

Silver lived to move to the farm with us, to run with the horse and me, to go camping with us, to protect me, to bond with the baby duck we hatched so that even as adults, they played together. Silver would catch errant chickens and hold them for us until we put them back in their yard. Silver lived to father a pup, that as a grown-up dog, saved a little boy's life.

For the rest of his life, Silvers's legs quivered after a run, and my dad got the message that you don't allow your kid to play with the dog in the house during the daytime, then put him outside at night during winter.

 

Right now, I am grieving like that little ten-year-old waiting through the dark night of the soul for her dog to live. My daughter is in the depths of despair. Almost 50% of us are suffering somehow. (People, support each other.)  Mary Trump, bless her heart, wrote her column "The Good in Us," where she told us over and over what sort of immoral man her uncle was. Few listened.

Mary Trump said that in the Trump family, cruelty was currency, that the man this country voted into the Presidency was a bully as a child, picking on his younger brother constantly.

It didn't matter.

We found out that he routinely visited the Epstine complex where they trafficked and used girls was young as 12 years old.

He assaulted a woman in a dressing room.

It didn't matter.

He grabbed women because he was a celebrity and because he could.

It didn't matter.

He had never read the U.S. Constitution that day he placed one hand on the Bible and the other in the air and responded "yes," to the vow to uphold it. We didn't know then, but we knew before this election.

Some say he wants to abolish that very Constitution, the cornerstone of the land he will again vow to uphold.

It doesn't matter.

He can wish a firing squad on someone, and it doesn't matter.

He can seek revenge on his opponents, and it doesn't matter.

Honor and decency don't matter.

Why didn't it matter?

Some want to diagnose why Kamala Harris lost. Better yet, why did Donald Trump win?

I can offer little hope to you except the belief in the goodness of people, and that they want change and are grasping at straws to get it. They and I see a different picture.

I hope it isn't as dire as it appears to me right now. Clearly, many people don't think so. Nobody in their right mind would vote themselves into a tyrant's grasp. Many would put down women and like to return to 1770s where once T. said he liked because they could deport Immigrants. Is that where he would place us to "Make America Great Again?"

The 1770's was before all those freedoms we fought for had been put into effect. It was before The New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Separation of Church and State, Public Education, Birth Control, Civil Rights, and Roe vs Wade.

Why do some men hate women so?

Why would a woman vote for her own shackles?

Yesterday, I had errands to run, and that all seemed normal. People wished me a "Good day." I felt that a bomb had gone off, and no one had seen it or heard it.

Today, the sun came out. No one is sending flowers that our democracy has died; nobody is bringing casseroles. Nobody has flown the flag at half-mast.

 Am I all wet?

 

 

“The Resistance Starts Now”

From Robert Reich (Substack). Author, professor, Lawyer, political commentator, Rhodes scholar Graduated Dartmouth AB summa cum laude.

“I still have faith in America, but we must mobilize to protect those at risk if Trump achieves his worst impulses.”

Robert Reich

Nov 06, 2024

“How will we conduct this resistance?

“By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media.

‘We will ask other Americans to join us – left and right, progressive and conservative, white people and people of color. It will be the largest and most powerful resistance since the American revolution.

“But it will be peaceful. We will not succumb to violence, which would only give Trump and his regime an excuse to use organized violence against us.

“We will keep alive the flames of freedom and the common good, and we will preserve our democracy. We will fight for the same things Americans have fought for since the founding of our nation – rights enshrined in the constitution and Bill of Rights.

“We the people will resist tyranny. We will preserve the common good. We will protect our democracy.

“This will not be easy, but if the American experiment in self-government is to continue, it is essential.

“I know you’re scared and stressed. So am I.

“If you are grieving or frightened, you are not alone. Tens of millions of Americans feel the way you do.

“All I can say to reassure you is that time and again, Americans have opted for the common good. Time and again, we have come to each other’s aid. We have resisted cruelty.

“We supported one another during the Great Depression. We were victorious over Hitler’s fascism and Soviet communism. We survived Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunts, Richard Nixon’s crimes, Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war, the horrors of 9/11, and George W Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will resist Donald Trump’s tyranny.

“Although peaceful and non-violent, the resistance will nonetheless be committed and determined.

“It will encompass every community in America. It will endure as long as necessary.

“We will never give up on America.

“The resistance starts now.”

Launch Day

Today I am launching a new website.

Ta Da!!

It is Travels with Jo https://www.travelswithjo.com/

I’m excited to have fun again, to believe in magic again, and to believe the world is a beautiful place filled with kind, loving people. The site will contain a few subjects, books, posts, and perspectives I find fascinating, hoping to find others who resonate with me. After reading Auston Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist, I found a kindred spirit:

“You can cut off your passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you’ll start to feel phantom limb pain.”

My site will not appeal to everyone, but I’m not writing for everyone. I am writing for you.

Thanks for reading. Don’t forget https://www.wishonwhitehorses.com/

However, I would be tickled peacock colors if you would check into my new site and give me any input you feel would be of help.

 

https://www.travelswithjo.com/

 

P.S. I was offended by some ads—not approved by me—that came up on my Wish site, so I took them off. I apologize for their presence. 

And now for Chapter 53 of Your Story Matters.

Chapter 53

I named Him Gabriel

 

I figured a Rottweiler was a Guardian Angel.

 

Especially since we didn't find him., he found us.

 

We lived on Hendrick's Hill in Eugene, Oregon, when a gangly adolescent pup appeared at our door.

 

We weren't in the market for a dog, especially not a Rottweiler. So, at first, I tried to find a home for him. I put up signs and called a friend who wanted a dog but not a Rottweiler.

If someone dropped him off, they missed a good dog. But then, they had to leave him, for he became my dog. 

 

He was a mix but largely a Rottweiler, not a breed I would have chosen. 

 

In three days, he was my dog. I took down the signs and called the Vet for an appointment. I knew something was wrong with his skin for I itched when I hugged him. The Vet said he did have a skin condition from the stress of being lost, poor kid. He prescribed a medicated shampoo, and that fixed his problem.

 

He was a resourceful dog, for he found us, not someone who would take him to the pound, plus he wooed and won us over. I invited him into our backyard, where he slept in the doghouse—at first—do you think I would leave a dog in a doghouse? We had the doghouse because it came with the property. The next step was to invite him inside the house with us.

 

It was around the time we had begun construction on our log home about 20 miles away. 

Gabe and I would travel to our forested land together and meet with the contractors. 

 

He was a gentle dog—he could pull the leash pretty hard, though, but rarely barked and was never aggressive. The neighbors liked for him to be in our backyard because he kept the deer from eating their rosebushes. We had him neutered, although it hurt me to do it. The Veterinary assistant said," It takes balls to neuter your dog." 

 

One day in the little town of Marcola, the address of our log home, we saw a dead dog lying beside the road. Gabe looked at me in abject bewilderment.

 

"It's sad, isn't it?"

 

Two species in communication. He seemed to understand my sympathy.

 

Together, Gabe and I drove—well, I drove; he stood and mentally pushed the vehicle. He never got in the front seat; he just stood behind the console with anticipation dripping like my friend Sylvia's St Bernard dog's drool. (Gabe didn't drool but left black hairs embedded in the car's headliner. One day, I put a scarf over his head to protect the headliner from his hair, but I soon gave that up, A Rottweiler in a babushka?

 

Gabe had concluded that every take-out window offered dog biscuits, as most did. He would wait patiently until he got one. But sometimes--terrible people that they were--they didn't give out biscuits, and Gabe would give them a piece of his mind--barking--as we drove away.

 

When D.D. lived in San Jose, California, and was called away on a business trip, Gabe and I traveled from Oregon, down that long state of California to her apartment to care for her critters.

I had a cold, Gabe was sick of traveling, I was coughing, Gabe was barking, and I couldn't find diddly squat in San Jose. Something about that area—the flat land, a bay where you don't know if you are going east or west, and the cars on the freeway are traveling 75 miles an hour. That doesn’t give a driver much time to look around.

 

I found her apartment and recovered well after resting for a day. However, taking her dog, Cherish, and Gabe for a walk was a testament to my courage. With a Rottweiler and a Great Dane, I felt I had a team of horses. Thank heavens they walked ahead of me, and both went in the same direction.

Gabe did get in trouble once, or rather, we did. When I opened the front door to a knock, I found a disgruntled neighbor who complained that Gabe had chased him on his motorcycle, and he had to outrun him. He feared for his little daughter.

 

I didn't know that had happened. I had been away for a while, and Neil had let Gabe out the front door instead of the back, where the yard was fenced. Well, you know dogs and moving objects and a motorcycle? Gabe must have thought he had a cougar by the tail. I told the man I trusted Gabe with my life.

 

I was afraid he might have us arrested or take Gabe away. I reassured him that I would keep Gabe on a leash.

 

Well, this man, I praise him. He told me later that he was a Navy Seal. Not only do I honor his profession, (do you know that Navy Seals in training must run 4 miles in 31 minutes and be deprived of sleep for 5 days during Hell Week? That's not human). That man is a hero in my eyes regarding his reaction to Gabe. When he came up the road—his road Y'ed at the corner of ours—plus it dipped down a hill, so you didn't see a vehicle until it was at the junction. 

 

When Gabe and I were out, the man would stop at the junction and call Gabe. One day, he kneeled on the road and let Gabe run to him. All ended well. They were friends.

 

One evening, as the sun was setting, Gabe and I were walking through a parking lot where most of the cars had left for the day. 

 

Two men walked past us. I heard one tell the other, "Not with that dog. I wouldn't." 

 

What did I hear? Did those men wish me harm? Was I at risk?

 

Gabe and I continued on as though nothing had happened, and I patted Gabe. "Gabriel, you are my Guardian Angel, aren't you?"

And Now.....