The Sunday Memory Drawer - Election Day and Veteran's Day All Wrapped Up In One Toilet

Last Tuesday was Election Day.  Veteran's Day was yesterday.   I never thought about this before, but those two days are so intertwined in our culture.  I mean, we get to do one (vote) because of the other (those who fought).

Even more than we think.

Now, on Election Day, we experienced on a small scale in America some phenomenon called a "blue wave."  Anti-Trumpism in full regalia and you can hardly blame people.   But we're all caught in this wild pendulum swing from one extreme political POV to another.   This is not healthy for the country and needs to stop.

I followed one election back in my home state and county closely this year.  Mainly, I did so because I used to know one of the candidates pretty darn well from both my hometown of Mount Vernon, New York and also my alma mater of Fordham University.   Years later, he is running for the biggest job in my home county of Westchester.

So, I followed it all from the start on social media.  At first, I was impressed.  This candidate, definitely from the blue side of things, was talking about uniting the parties/colors and approaching government from a bi-partisan stance.  I'm a registered independent and this I like.

But, as this campaign wore on, the rhetoric got uglier and uglier on both sides.  And my friend the candidate started to approach this from the typical "GOP/Trump/Conservatives suck" point of view.   I lost total respect for the guy very quickly.   At the end of the day, he is no different than all the other clowns in political office today.   And certainly not a moderate that I could get behind.

FYI, he won the gig with 56% of the vote and now will govern not realizing that he needs to listen to 100% of the population.

And then I thought about Veteran's Day and the reason why 100% of the population can vote.   And I considered one veteran I got to meet for a bit about a decade ago. 

Tom the Handyman was a guy who worked for the owner of the condo apartment that I lived in downstairs from my current unit.  When we first moved into the place downstairs, there were a lot of issues that needed repair and we were instructed to call Tom who usually showed up pretty quickly, even in light of the fact that he recently started a new job as a medical attendant at the local Veterans Administration hospital.

Such was the case when we suddenly needed both toilet tanks to be completely rebuilt. A job that stretched over two days, but that's okay because Tom was a pretty neat guy to talk to. Then in his 60s, Tom was a former Vietnam vet, and somebody who had done a lot of "book learning" as Jed Clampett might say. 

Tom was amazingly unbiased in an increasingly biased world and I always appreciated hearing his take on issues because of his incredible and innate ability to be non-judgmental.

So, mid-toilet tank repair, I'm standing nearby to lend an extra hand if needed  And the round table discussion began with a rather ominous question from Mr. Fix-It.  This was probably around the end of 2009.

"So, tell me. What do you think of Obama?"

Ummmmmmm.

Because diverse opinions can often prompt dirty looks and even worse, I wanted to choose my answer carefully. Usually, I prefer not to discuss politics in public. I took a deep breathe before speaking.

"Well, so far, I'm not a huge fan."

I think I'm in a safe zone here. Giving my true feelings but with a little fence straddling at the same time. I braced for Tom's response.

"Well, I voted for him..."

Len cues a big gulp.

"...and I think the guy's a disaster."

Whew.

Okay, what might be surprising to you all is that my view of Obama was pretty much the same opinion I have of most political leaders. They all suck. Most spend all their time either getting the job in the first place and then figuring out how to keep it. Very little care and attention is paid to their constituencies. Their fans and/or enemies, those either on the far left or the far right, pull and pull the rest of us as if we're the last piece of Turkish Taffy the day after Halloween. Nobody wins. Everybody loses. And style trumps substance every day and in every way. But style seems to be all we are concerned with and people/voters spend a lot less time thinking about world and American history than they do about the most inconsequential of trivia. Like what some First Lady is going to wear on her trip abroad.

But, after talking to Tom the Handyman over the toilet tank that day, I cared a lot more about the important stuff. Because, in that one conversation, he opened my eyes to issues I've only considered in passing. 

Here's a guy who is beating himself up for making a voting mistake last Election Day. Because, as a veteran who served his country in that debacle called the Vietnam Conflict, he was already reeling from the benefits that have been taken away from him since Inauguration Day. Because, as a health care technician, he was already seeing and hearing from people who are petrified about their future ability to care for themselves. Because, as an American who's been in combat, he fully knew all the ramifications of a passive international stance.

I listened to him for an hour as he alternated between wisdom and a faulty fill valve in my toilet tank. To test the mechanism, he flushed. And made a point.

"That's what I did with my vote last November."

For all the pundits and commentators and bloggers on the national scene, Tom the Handyman made the most salient points of all. Because his pain is real.

"Len, do you know the story about the Pied Piper of Hamelin?"

I know it. The kids blindly following sweet music to their ultimate doom.

Tom the Handyman was making his final point. And flushed one more time.

And just like my friend who won last week mainly because he started to attack from an extreme POV, we're all ultimately misled.  

And, ironically, the two days that often fall in the same week provide us with the most extreme ends of public service.   The politician and the veteran.  

Dinner last night:  Pizza at Vito's.