Y.A.R.
"You Ain't Right" is my favorite assessment, held by two great friends. They are right. I ain't. And I am proud of it.
My last ranting Substack elicited correspondence from two mental health professionals. The first, a psychologist, thought I was going too dark and suggested I think happy thoughts. “You control your mental health,” he said. “I will paraphrase Clint Eastwood: ‘Don't let the Donald in.’”
In truth, my mental health is better than that of any four psychologists. I know this because I watched the NCAA basketball final game with four psychologists, all PhDs, whose conversations were peppered with the phrase, “My therapist said…”
Moreover, I have been doing this for a long time. Since 1970, in fact. I see myself as a mirror for society, highlighting and reflecting issues others ignore. I am dark because the country is dark. I can think about Unicorns and rainbows all day, but life will still be dark.
Don’t let the Donald in? He let himself in, and now he owns the house. All I said was, “Don’t let the door slam you in the ass on your way out.”
The second guy is a psychiatrist. We’ve known each other since we were 18. We shared the same queensize bed for a summer on the Jersey shore, where we both worked as lifeguards in 1965. He still snores, I bet.
I asked him once if one had to be crazy to be a Shrink? His answer was unique: “You don’t have to be, but it helps.”
He was concerned that the FBI, the Secret Service, or even the CIA might come knocking on my door. The FBI is doing that, under the broadest interpretation of NSPM-7. Domestic terrorist arrests are up 300% in Patel’s FBI. But that is OK with me. I will not have to shop for an assisted living facility. (Why don’t we have equal access to assisted dying facilities? Makes more economic sense.)
So, thanks, guys. I appreciate your concern, but I actually know what I am doing. I am a warrior, and I am fighting the fight. And I agree, I ain’t right.
On Tuesday, I attended a retirement party for a lovely lady who has worked in my gym for 20-plus years. There were well-wishes and cupcakes, a fine combination, and I saw for the first time in months an acquaintance who has been fighting a series of respiratory ills. He is also a Vietnam combat vet, so we share that immutable bond. It is always good to see him.
Talk came around to our political morass, as it always does, and he revealed he feels exactly as I do—and maybe even more strongly. Then he gave me a glimpse into his remarkable past:
His father was German, and like all young men of his age, was pressed into the Hitler Youth. As the war shifted against Germany and more troops were needed on the front, his dad was conscripted and sent to fight for the Fatherland. He was captured by American troops, who concluded that his father was an involuntary conscript and could be useful to the American effort.
And so my friend grew to adolescence as the son of a German, working for Americans during the occupation of Germany.
Moving to America as a young teen, my pal grew up to run a successful business, with an office in Germany and New York.
His office was in the World Trade Center. That World Trade Center.
His story is somewhat like Forrest Gump’s: his life’s arc intersects every high and low point of history’s timeline.
Fortunately, he was out of town, and his employees evacuated before the towers collapsed.
Now, flash forward to 2016. My friend’s mom was still alive, and Trump was running for office against Hillary Clinton. His mom heard Trump speak on television. She stiffened and said, “That man sounds like Adolph Hitler.”
”And that’s all I have to say about that,” said Forrest Gump, a creation of the not-so-right mind of Winston Groom, a Vietnam Vet, who became a writer and wrote a wonderful book about Vietnam titled Better Times Than These.
See the symmetry?
Finally, I mentioned in that last piece that the husband of the nice lady who keeps our gym clean was picked up by ICE a couple of days ago. He is Hispanic, no surprise. He was taken to a holding facility named Purgatory, an ironic moniker for a jail.
There, DHS ran his records and discovered that in 2008, he had a traffic violation and failed to appear in court.
For that heinous crime, he was deported to Mexico.
If you would like to help his wife, a GoFundMe account has been set up HERE.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Except I ain’t right and Fight the Fight!