Aerial photography and video legacy development are opportunities for artistic creation. It is even more so for writing. I have written columns for the newspaper for several years and spent years writing a novel series called the Sam Call Honor series of mystery thrillers. In the light of the political situation I have begun to focus my columns on the state of the Republic. Substack enables me to publish my columns to a wider audience and to offer my novels to the subscribing audience, I hope you enjoy both.
I used to be able to have my letters published in the local paper but that no longer happens. Our local small-town newspaper ended the submission of my letters with this, "...we do not allow letters that encourage people to vote for, or vote against, a specific candidate." In times like these, what letters are more important?
If one can’t make their point with facts and persuasion, those of a small mind resort to a “big voice.” Those with a big voice overpower the people with visceral verbal responses and drown out those who speak quietly, who rely on facts and good sense to be persuasive. If you can’t win them over with facts, then yell them into submission. Donald Trump has a big voice.
An older man was walking on a pier at the beach. There had been a storm the night before, and he wanted to see how the beach withstood the wind and surf. He stopped at a spot overlooking the beach, leaned on the railing, and there he saw thousands of starfish stranded on the beach. They had been brought onshore by the storm at high tide, and the retreating tide and surf stranded them there where they would surely die.
As I have written before, we are shaped by our life experiences. My past was soldiering, and it has certainly influenced my thinking.
I was on Main Street the other day, and an older man walked by me wearing his “I’m a Veteran” hat. Just in passing, I usually thank them for their service. This time was different; I noticed a pin on his collar, “Trump 2024.” It made me think. How can a military veteran be for Trump?
When I was a young boy, I was given a book to read on General Armstrong Custer, an American hero and a martyr who fell defending the frontier at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. I read the book, saw the movie – They Died With Their Boots On – an Earl Flynn classic, and I drank the Kool-aid. I was taught that the American Indians were savages who slaughtered American Soldiers and who should be despised and shunned.
I am over 70 now, and in an effort to stay healthy, and I admit somewhat vain about my appearance, I go to the gym every weekday morning and play basketball. I have always loved the game and when I was young, I played all the time. I wasn’t very good. I was skinny, wore thick glasses, and was not the poster child for the sport of basketball. Getting older, I got bigger and ditched the glasses via LASIK—OMG, an amazing new visual world—and I got a whole new game. But that is not the real subject.
I was recently walking in a park in New Orleans when I came across a group of 20 to 25 kindergarten children. They were with a teacher, and she gave them a short lesson as they sat together on the grass. Then they rose, took the hand of the next child, and all walked together in a line, holding hands, to the next area. The children were adorable; they were of all different races, all sitting and learning together. As I watched these innocent young children, I had a terrible thought:
There was a letter to the editor in my local paper, written by a local Baptist minister, entitled, “Is God guilty of hate speech," which shocked me on so many levels. The letter was railing against the local theater’s presentation of the “Rocky Horror Show. According to the author, there was a movement by the LGBT community and the theater to “…normalize(s) what God opposes,” that our community leaders promote “…aberrations of God’s word and nature itself,” and that God is the one guilty of “Hate speech.” In the author’s mind God “hates” this behavior and therefore God is Guilty of justified hate speech.
I have been and continue to be fascinated by the support that Donald Trump has. What is it that his followers love about this guy? I believe he is everything that a President is not supposed to be. But I have heard all kinds of rational why they like him, some of which are just too out there to even fathom. I just heard, “He kept us out of any war while in office.” That one got me, as I guess the man forgot about Afghanistan, which is not unlikely since most people had forgotten about it, and the soldiers stuck there for twenty years.
There has been so much negative activity as a result of the activities of Trump, but there have been good things that have come of it. Let me give you a few.
There is a renewed interest in the Republic: what it is, what it means to us, and the need to protect it. Americans are concerned, engaged, and involved.
I ran into a casual friend in our coffee shop the other day who said to me. "What's going on these days with Trump is mind-boggling." Thinking we were on the same page, I agreed. He followed up by saying, "They stole the election from him, and this Mar-a-Largo records thing is so bogus.” I was stunned; I never thought he was on that side of the aisle and had always thought of my friend as an informed person.
We all remember what happened on January 6, 2021, when a mob, a violent mob intent on stopping the certification process, attacked the U.S. Capitol building. In the process, seven people died, hundreds were injured, and the very future of the Republic was in the balance. Will it happen again?