Prepare yourselves, because I'm attempting to weave a story together about my father, war, personal growth, a bus, and pussies.
My father passed away a month ago. He lived in a tiny town in Kansas, an hour or so away from the Westboro Baptist Church. He was legally blind, opinionated, and had been regular ARMY - including two tours of Vietnam.
So this morning when I woke up, I thought, "Damn, I wish Dad was alive so he could've witnessed the latest Trump debacle." You see, the best thing about my dad was that he became a bonafide liberal somewhere during the middle of his life. He could smell someone's entitled bullshit a mile away, and he loathed Trump. We'd get hopped up on our weekly phone calls at times, when he would get us going by saying things like, "I'm telling you GODDAMN Trump is on something! I can see it in his eyes!!!" "Dad, you're blind you can't see squat!" We would laugh together, but our conversations always ended with the notion that everybody's voice should be counted and that all deserve equal respect.
My father wasn't a perfect man. He was a country boy when he enlisted, a basic "b" (bumpkin), but with a keen eye for the ladies. As a young man he could barely write. He said outrageous things to my brother and me that weren't PC, and quite frankly I'm embarrassed to repeat. After one outburst directed at my brother and me as teens about our Mother, I turned to my brother. "You can't believe everything this asshole says." My dad sent me to my room, followed me in, closed the door, and proceeded to take off his belt. "Don't you ever contradict me in front of your brother again. As he raised his belt to whup me, I blurted, "You can go ahead and whup me, but you're going to have to whup me tomorrow, and on the tomorrow after that, and then again the tomorrow after that!" I braced myself for his onslaught. But then a peculiar thing happened. He slowly lowered the belt, hung his head, and quietly left the room.
As a grown woman now, other memories connect me to that particular one, and help me rationalize his outbursts, like being in the car when he was picked up at the Presidio in San Francisco after one of his tours in South East Asia. He stunk so bad, we had to pull over at a motel so he could shower. Not that it helped, as the filthy cocktail mix of Mekong River, agent Orange and fear had soaked him so deep to his core, it took months until the boils on his body went away and he smelled like my father again. Or the time we were at a McDonalds drive thru, and a car passed by that backfired, causing my Dad to jump out the car and scramble underneath. He drank, he caroused, he spun outrageous tales at parties, that could turn an enemy into a friend, and a loved one's foible into a punchline. And yet, at the latter part of his life, he absolutely owned up to his mistakes. He embraced others who were different than him and learned how to respectfully listen to and treat women. He had found his own grace around the same time in which Donald Trump had bragged to Billy Bush about grabbing pussies. They are of the same generation.
In so many ways I'm like my father, same jawline, hardcore liberal, and my love of making strangers laugh and smile - as I'm a comedian. In fact this morning before I even thought about my father I posted on Facebook, "Show your faces now Kellyanne Conway, Katrina Pierson, and Kayleigh Mcenany, ya big ol' pussies!" Not very clever or funny. But I just wanted to vent. In fact, my last text yesterday evening to someone was, "Trump is like one of those guys that tells everyone he's going to medical school, but in reality he's really working as a garbage man. Then after 7 years the jig is finally up, his family hates him, he has nowhere to turn but to take himself out. This will not end well." That's a pretty ugly thing to write and toss out into the universe. I almost regretted it.
I forgot to mention that I got up at 4 this morning, and I'm writing this on a bus. A Clinton, Nevada Together bus, and I'm on my way to play a small part in registering voters on the last day possible in Nevada. Earlier when I drove myself to the meeting place and was checking in, I actually had fantasies that the volunteers would be gloating, rubbing their hands together, cackling, and repeating in unison, "He grabbed pussies, and there's proof!" But the reality was that everybody spoke in hushed, thoughtful tones, and only wanted to pitch in and be helpful. Dare I tell you, the feeling that came over me was that of grace. I took out my phone and erased my ugly post about the Trump surrogates. And for a brief moment I felt a tad closer to my Dad, but still bummed that he's not here in this reality, because he for sure would've come up with a helluva better punchline.
Art by ibnelson
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