All It Takes Is A Little Love

Way back in 1989, there was an infamous investigation unfolding in New York City when a woman jogger was attacked, beaten and raped. Because crime was at a high point in that moment citizens demanded that the perpetrator or perpetrators be immediately found, arrested and sent to trial. In the hurry to make the streets safe again five young Black men were accused of the crime. They had been seen being rowdy in Central Park where the assault took place and even admitted that they had been there. After hours of being interviewed without their parents or an attorney the boys confessed one by one under pressure. Even though their stories did not match in many of the most important details they were arrested and tried and convicted.

The whole city of New York was in an uproar over the incident and one of its citizens, Donald Trump, took out ads in all four of the city’s newspapers under the headline, Bring Back the Death Penalty. Bring Our Police Back. His message to city leaders was clear: ”Many New York families – White, Black, Hispanic and Asian – have had to give up the pleasure of a leisurely stroll in the Park at dusk, the Saturday visit to the playground with their families, the bike ride at dawn, or just sitting on their stoops…. Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer … Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. … How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits? Criminals must be told that their Civil Liberties End When an Attack On Our Safety Begins!”

The five young men who became known as The Central Park Five spent years in prison and fortunately were not killed by the state for their purported crimes. Later another imprisoned man admitted that he had been the individual who had attacked and raped the woman. DNA proved that his story was true and all five who had been falsely imprisoned were released, but the damage had already been done to their lives. 

I keep thinking of this event as Trump promises to take over the city of Washington D.C. His claim that crime is out of control is as bogus as the conviction of the young Black men in 1989. The truth is that crime in D.C. is at an all time low and there is no need from such a dramatic show of force. It appears that one of the young DOGE members was attacked and beaten over the weekend. He reported that some very young black kids who appeared to be around thirteen to sixteen years old were the guilty parties. So without actually consulting with the D.C. mayor or Chief of Police Trump has declared that he is taking over the city to protect the citizens by bringing in the National Guard, a move that is overkill given the circumstances. It is a tactic that he has already used in Los Angeles. 

In a press conference Trump suggested that D.C. is riddled with crime.”Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people, and we’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re not going to take it,” In the same moment he also said that he was going to remove the homeless people from the city as well. 

While it might appear to some that Trump is simply attempting to insure law and order and the safety of both citizens and visitors to Washington D.C., his hasty decision reflects a much darker side of his personality. If he had had his way in New York City back in 1989 those five innocent young man would have been put to death. He has a habit of shooting first and considering the implications of what he is doing later. He is playing a dangerous game only to impress his MAGA supporters by making them think that he has no patience with crime. The irony of it all is that he himself is a convicted felon and without safety mechanisms that have allowed him to have a fair trial and even time to appeal, he would not be in the White House now. His 34 felonies would have made him ineligible. The convicted felon is asserting his power mostly to take off the heat that is reflected in his low poll numbers. 

Trump seems to be reaching for anything that will take the concern over his tariffs and the revelations of the Epstein files from public discourse. Such maneuvers have worked for him in the past so he is playing a game of deflection that never seems to grow old with his supporters even when it should be totally apparent that he is running scared while attempting to play the tough guy. In truth he does not want us to know what is in the Epstein files. He does not want us to understand that he is not holding a peace talk in Alaska at the end of the week. He is meeting with Putin to look like he is doing the whole world a favor when instead he will likely try to sell out Ukraine. He does not want us to see his actions as cruelty or vindictiveness even as they are. He is small minded man who is undoing two hundred fifty years of our democracy and freedoms. We should all be adamant that we want his dangerous controls to stop now!

There are some who suggest that the takeover in Washington D.C. is only a trial run for the future that Trump envisions in city after city. We may all soon witness armed soldiers patrolling the streets of America. Will Trump evade any culpability that he may have in the Epstein case by throwing crumbs at the American people that he thinks will make us look away? These are things that worry me and they should worry every citizen who loves this nation. We can’t look away!

Most of us have heard the story of little George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and then admitting his guilt because he was unable to tell a lie. That tale actually inspired me when I was little girl. Even after learning that it is probably just a folktale I would like to think that Washington was a man of integrity even without made up stories.

Like most of us I doubt that George never fudgeed a bit with the truth here and there but on the whole he seems to have been a man of high character. A truly great person like Washington can be trusted to lead with honor and integrity. We all feel comfortable when someone has demonstrated their commitment to being forthright. Trust is essential in both interpersonal relationships and in our government.

There is no worse feeling than learning that someone has betrayed us with lies. Dishonesty destroys marriages, ruins careers, hurts the victims in profound ways. Who among us has not had that sick feeling of realizing that someone that we trusted has lied and cheated behind our backs? Most of the time when we discover extreme dishonesty we have a difficult time ever again believing in that individual.

Since we are human each of us may have fudged in small ways here and there. Maybe we withheld disclosure of a disobedient act from a parent. Perhaps we acted as though we liked a dish that was served to us in order to spare the feelings of the cook. At times we may have said we were feeling sick as an excuse for skipping a situation that we did not wish to endure. These are the kind of small lies that can usually be forgiven as long as they do not become a habit. 

When someone is continually dishonest most of us reach a point of seeing them as unwilling to tell the truth. The old Aesop fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a wonderful example of what happens when lies become so commonplace that nothing the person says is ever again viewed as plausible. We tend to tune such folks out and more often than not and sometimes remove them from our list of friends. 

Because turning our backs on chronic liars is generally how we react, I have yet to understand why millions of people continue to believe the constant stream of lies that flow from the mouth of Donald Trump. It’s easy enough to fact check what he says and doing so reveals that he all too often makes up things on the spot. He boasts about successes that do not exist. He blames others for things that he has done. He sees the world through a lens of anger, greed, cruelty and vengeance so he tells untruths to support his own sick visions. 

Donals Trump surely knows that he did not win the 2020 presidential election and yet he still peddles that falsehood as though he is a victim of unfairness. He pretends that the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a travesty only imagined by people out to get him. He tells us that up is down and many believe him. He bullies the media when he does not like the facts that they present. He cloaks his every word in deep dark deception. 

I frankly will never comprehend why Donald Trump, a convicted felon, is not in prison. I do not understand how he was even allowed to run for president again after all of the lies that he has told. I am profoundly shocked that the Supreme Court would even consider giving such a dishonest person immunity for acts performed as part of his duties. Trump lied to us about Covid. He lied to us about his financial crimes. He lied to us about his sexual abuse of women. In spite of his dishonesty a significant number of voters saw him as being worthy of our trust by making him president one more time. Some of them even imagined that he was sent to us by God.

I weep for the Orwellian masking of truth that is rapidly making it more and more impossible to know what is really happening. Trump and his cult have gone so far beyond the traditional rails of honesty that he even fired a person who provided a true job report because he did not like the numbers. He wants to monitor CBS to make sure that they do not report anything about him that reveals truths that make him look bad. How did we get to this point and why are we not angry as hell and insisting that we are not going to take it anymore?

Richard Nixon was reviled and pressured to resign for far less dishonesty than Donald Trump inflicts on the American people every single day. Trump is a destroyer of worlds. He has turned the Oval Office into a mini throne room where he regularly insults good people seemingly for his personal enjoyment. He has torn out the lovely rose garden that was once designed by Jackie Kennedy and replaced it with a concrete slab that is symbolic of his coldness. Now he wants to build a ballroom that seems more compatible with Versailles than the People’s House. He lies when someone accuses him of wanting to be a king. His actions tell us the truth and that truth is a horror.   

I feel betrayed every single time Trump stands before a camera and makes up word salads that do not have an iota of truth. Mostly though I feel betrayed when most of the media goes along with him knowing that he is telling fib after fib. It’s way past time to hold him responsible every single time he utters a falsehood. We all have to have the courage to push for the truth. Ignoring him just gives him a wider berth. Fearing him insures that he will never be held accountable.  

I have been an over achiever for all of my life. I have a difficult time just sitting still. I grade my days according to how much I have managed to accomplish in each of them. I realized how attuned I am to constantly accomplishing goals when I recently had cataract surgery and my doctor insisted that all I should do for two weeks is read and watch television. In following her orders those fourteen days turned into hell for me. I literally felt like a slug of little worth until I finally kept to the routine by doubling the number of blogs that I wrote each day and reading every inch of print that I encountered. Nonetheless my efforts still felt insufficient as so many tasks were calling me and I could not do them. 

I actually envy those who are capable of total relaxation. They appear to be happy souls who are willing to let dust accumulate and dishes sit in the sink. Their lives are not ruled by tidiness like I must have to stay sane. They don’t grade their daily accomplishments and then feel sadness when they realize that they have missed the mark. I have tried to be like those who are able to relax all to no avail, even as I understand that as I get older I will have to release myself from many of the duties and routines that I now consider to be ironclad. 

One very positive thing happened during my two week sabbatical from the domination of a calendar filled with tasks to tick off from one moment to the next. The weeds in my flowerbeds went wild with all the rainy days that we had. Since my doctor specifically banned me from working in the dirt lest I get some in my eye I had to do something to keep from running outside with goggles to clean the areas that had become infested with weeds. I asked the man who mows my grass if he would take care of the problem if I paid him double for that day. He instantly agreed and I watched in total amazement as he freed my plants from the weeds that were trying to overtake them. I have since decided that I will get the yard guy to do this once a month from now on so that I may be freed from the tyranny of the weeds and he may get a bit more money on a regular basis. 

I suppose that I really am a bit too tightly wired to be a person whose body is making it more and more difficult to accomplish all of the tasks that I once did. I’ve never employed a maid even when I was working fifty to sixty hours a week. Somehow I always managed to keep up with all of the vacuuming and mopping and other tasks even if it meant doing those things late into the night. I have never needed much sleep so it did not bother me to keep moving even past midnight. Sadly that level of energy is slowly but surely evaporating from me. My body is telling me that I may one day have to surrender to the idea of getting help that I have never before needed. I waffle between admitting my limitations and insisting that I still have what it takes to nurture my type A personality. 

I have to admit to seeing the error of my arrogance. I had to battle with my mother when she became unable to drive and to care for herself independently. I am involved in the same war of wills with my father-in-law who seems to think that we should allow him to be totally independent when he can no longer do some of the most basic tasks that even a very young child is capable of accomplishing. Each time my husband and I lock horns with this man I tell myself that I will not be that way with my daughters when the day comes that I must be willing to curb my independence. So that’s why I am really trying hard to get over my own insistence on doing things that may no longer be appropriate, Mostly I know that I need to learn how to chill and like it. 

I have a cousin who is in her late eighties who is elegant in her approach to life. She hires out the cleaning, laundering and yard maintenance so that she has more time to enjoy whaterve time is left for her. She gave up driving once she turned eighty and is a regular customer of the Uber drivers in her area. She manages to play bridge and meet up with friends but she also has learned how to enjoy an afternoon of doing nothing. She is a wonderful role model for me even as I struggle with being like her. Perhaps if I throw myself into becoming a lovely older lady who makes life easier for the young folks I will still feel as though I am accomplishing something very important.

I have a friend who completes jigsaw puzzles by the dozens. Another reads a new book about every three days. Someone else I know does a great deal of cooking and preserving of fruits and vegetables. They have let go of the idea of always achieving the goals of daily rituals. They have mastered the art of relaxation and doing things that make them happy rather than fretting about tasks that can be left for tomorrow.They revel in watching the birds in their yards or just sitting around observing the world around them. They do not feel guilty when they are so relaxed and insist that neither must I. 

I am still a work in progress as I suppose everyone is. There is a season for everything and my time for being all things for all people is no longer necessary. I suppose that I will ease the anxieties of the young people in my life if I show them that I am willing to slow down and know my limitations. It’s time for me to enjoy the stillness and the mundane. It’s time to evolve.  

I’ve often spoken about invisible people and urged everyone to notice them. There are so many among us who work very hard each day for salaries so menial that they barely make ends meet. I often envision the mother of one of my students who worked two jobs for minimum age. She was an older woman who should have been able to retire and yet doing so would have meant having to sacrifice her home or perhaps the food she provided for her son. 

The young man often grieved for his mother. He spoke of how exhausted she was at the end of the work day. She would arrive home in the dark of night so tired that sometime she simply slumped over in the front seat of her car to sleep a few hours before it was time to leave for the first of her two jobs. When she did come inside her son would be waiting for her. He would notice how swollen her feet and ankles were and how she limped in pain. She would mostly collapse on the living room sofa and he would cover her with a blanket. It tore out his heart to see her that way.

He noted that his home was located near a city park that should have been a refuge for him and his mom, but instead it had become a hangout for drunks and drug dealers. He described how his mother had warned him to never go outside in his bare feet because needles littered the ground and she feared that he might come down with a dreaded disease if he stepped on one of them and punctured his skin. He and his mother had often reported what was going on but nobody ever came to chase away the rowdy residents of the park and no efforts were ever made to clean it and make it a safe place to be. 

The young man worked hard to graduate from high school so that he might enroll in a class to become certified to drive a forklift. He explained that with a job like that he might make enough to offset the low amount that his mother brought home in spite of working from six in the morning to eleven at night. His plan was to attend community college after work each day to learn how to maintain and repair airplane engines. 

The last that I heard he had achieved his goals but I still find myself wondering how his mom is doing these days. I knew that she was considerably older than I was when I taught this young man and must be well into her eighties now if she is still with us on this earth. She was a lovely woman whose job was to clean buildings, an oft overlooked but incredibly important task. I think of her whenever I see someone pushing a cart filled with cleaning supplies and I always make it a point to thank them for keeping things orderly and healthy. 

If I had my way such people would earn at least twenty or twenty five dollars an hour. Even with a forty hour week they would only make eight hundred dollars but that might actually be closer to being livable than the current minimum wage. Three thousand plus dollars a month is much closer to meeting the reality of existence than the $1200 a month that so many workers still make. Few of us would be able to maintain the rent on a house and purchase food with such a lowly amount of money. I should know because at the end of her life my mother was attempting to live on a bit less than a thousand dollars a month and it was so hard that she was often quite anxious. If not for her creativity and assistance from me and my brothers I don’t think she would have made it. 

We all too often act as though anyone doing jobs like cleaning are somehow inferior. Instead we should be incredibly thankful for their efforts. Those shining floors, clean toilets and dust free buildings are pleasurable just as places that are not up to par are disgusting. The person with the mop bucket who insures that a hospital room is free of germs is important in our recovery and yet he or she is often invisible and working for next to nothing.

I want to think that my former student has been able to enhance the life of his mother. She certainly worked hard to make his future more secure. He understood all too well the disparities of our economic system. There should be nothing wrong with creating and keeping programs that insure a modest level of existence for everyone. People should receive adequate wages for their efforts. Nobody should have to work seventeen hours a day seven days a week because the hourly pay is ridiculously low. It’s well past time to set the minimum wage at a more realistic amount given that inflation that continues to rise. Either that, or providing supplements without acting as though anyone receiving them must be lazy, would be helpful. 

I’d like to think that with the wealth of this nation those of us in the mid ranges of economic distribution would be willing to give a little more to insure that an older woman does not have to work herself to death. Even better would be to also require the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share. They don’t need fifty million dollar weddings but there are surely struggling people who really do require some help. When will we become generous enough to provide them with gratitude for what they do?

We’ve heard the phrase and seen the hats and other gear since 2016. So what is it that people want to “make America great again?” When was the ultimate era when they believe that America was truly great? Surely it could not be the Gilded Age at the end of the nineteenth century. While that was a a time of invention, innovation and great change most ordinary citizens struggled while the barons of the time became wealthy beyond dreams. 

Perhaps America was truly great during the nineteen forties and fifties. We won a war over fascism and when our young men came home there were tremendous opportunities for them to begin their lives in earnest. Still, what was it really like during those times? What was good and what was bad?

America’s “Greatest Generation” grew up during the Great Depression. It was a tough time to keep a roof overhead and food on the table. The era was so devastating that some people gave up and killed themselves. Others moved in search of work and a promised land. Many who remembered that part of their histories spoke with reverence of Franklin Roosevelt who seemed to be a savior for them. Still others worried that Roosevelt made too many changes too quickly. The quiet divisions tended to be forgotten over time but they were there. 

When Europe went to war most Americans wanted to stay neutral. The politics did not seem to involve them and they were still tired from the depression years. There was an America First movement that locked Roosevelt into inaction even as he seemed to realize the dangers of leaving Great Britain to fight alone. Horrifically there were even citizens who supported the fascist ideals of Adolf Hitler. An infamous rally was held in the Radio City Music Hall in New York City that included Nazi rhetoric and flags. The idea of going to war was far from being the universal gesture that it would ultimately appear to become. 

It took the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese to enrage Americans enough to support the idea of getting involved in the conflict. When Hitler also declared war on the Untied States the die was cast and the citizens of the United States threw themselves into the war effort. Young men dropped our of high school to enlist. Hollywood began instantly making films to keep the enthusiasm high. Women went to work in factories to produce the tools of war. It was a time of mostly national unity inspired by the idea of fighting an evil that had descended on the earth. 

After the war ended the United States itself was untouched by the destruction that had damaged most of Europe and much of Asia and Africa. Our nation was ready to help our allies rebuild. The economy was booming here and along with it the birth rate that brought babies like me into the mix. There were opportunities everywhere and many of them did not even require a high school diploma or a college degree. Homes were plentiful and made easier to purchase with the G.I. Bill that also paid for education. Life seemed perfect as we look back on those years but the Black citizens who were still struggling for equality would no doubt have a different point of view. Women who were still viewed as second class citizens might also agree. 

The perfection of those years was also marred by the fears that grew from the invention of the atomic bomb and the potential for worldwide destruction that changed our sense of security. The country began to worry about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We became involved in a war in North Korea. Fears of communism gave rise to the infamous McCarthy investigations in which people were blackballed and ruined by little more than innuendo that they were communists. There was an undercurrent even in the days when life appeared to be idyllic. 

In other words that has been no perfect imaginary time in our nation that we should aspire to embrace. Instead we should be looking to see what has been exceptionally good about our country and attempt to emulate those things. At the same time we must be careful to recall what was bad and why we attempted to change for the better. I suspect if we are honest and careful we will realize that we haven’t actually been so far off the mark. There is no reason that we must now destroy the work of decades in a misguided attempt to resurrect a moment in time that really never existed. 

It takes careful consideration to determine what we need to do to provide freedoms and opportunities for everyone, not just certain groups. First and foremost we must preserve the rights that have not always been available to all. We need to restore the strict division of our three branches of government with the understanding of how the Constitution describes their specific duties. We need to find the balance between those branches once again so that they might become independent entities working as our founders intended. All three should also remember that they are beholden to all Americans, not just those who voted in a particular way. Our government is broken and it is only when our elected officials and our judges leave their personal feelings at home and work for the good of the nation that we have been at our best. It’s time for the moneyed and powerful to have less impact on how the government works than the millions of individuals who represent a diversity of ideas. 

There was no perfect time to which we should all aspire but there have been perfect moments that we would do well to remember. It took time but we ultimately gave women the rights that they had deserved all along. It took even more time but we pushed hard to give the descendants of slaves the place in our society that always should have been theirs. It took time but we adjusted to the immigrants from around the world just as we should be doing with those currently coming to our nation. It took time but we eventually built an educational system that provided knowledge to more than just the wealthiest in our midst. It took time but we used our inventiveness to build rockets that went to moon. We created a system of research and cooperation to defeat diseases and keep our population well. We even managed to send our largess to places struggling to fight hunger and disease. These are the things good about us that are great. This is the kind of thing we must continue to do. 

Right now we are just tearing things down including our relationships with the rest of the world. This is not greatness. It is the worst of us. Somehow we must find our way back to the what we do best and no actions we adopt should involve bullying or persecution. There is goodness and even greatness in our history that has tried to help as many Americans as possible. Those are the ideas to which we should ascribe.