Current Events - by Robyn Hunt
“War, huh, yeah/What is it good for?/(Absolutely) nothing” -Edwin Starr
I have not seen this man for forty-five years, since high school in the ‘70s in the San Joaquin Valley of California. He has surfaced on my social media feed seemingly to taunt me, though he assures me it’s a friendly taunt. He wants the engagement. He is a retired deputy sheriff and lives today in Fresno. Looks a bit like Santa Claus in a muscle shirt wearing sunglasses. Arms crossed over his chest. I am a middle aged hippie living in New Mexico, writing grants to support immigrant families, children with battered mothers, and grandparents raising their grandchildren. I wear my brown leather Birkenstocks with honor, drink chai, and still listen to ‘80s rock on the radio in my car.
Jim, not his real name, told me pre-election when our exchanges were slightly less charged, that he has a son who was also a cop and was shot on the job and is now disabled, that he and his wife now care for their grown son. His story leads me to remember, again, that in my childhood a playmate gained access to his father’s police weapon and shot himself as I stood behind him on my grandparents’ porch. A brutal accident. I can still hear the ringing in my ears if I recall the afternoon with no good end. Confused adults coming in and out from the yard.
This Facebook friend is a Trump supporter and quick to mimic half of the USA’s suspicion about how votes are being collected and counted in the “too close to call” 2020 presidential election. I am guessing he has an American flag on his Harley Davidson, perhaps two four-inch flags like tiny children’s pinwheels such as adorned presidential motorcade limousines swooshing through town. I, in the meantime, cruising with my peace sign decal on the rear window of my RAV-4, beside the Buddhist Wheel sticker haloed with fire, the latter from the contemplative college my daughter attended. The wheel with eight spokes representing the path one must follow to end suffering. My “Ridin’ with Joe” yard sign holding down one corner of our front patch of gravel.
Last night Jim wrote to me: “The Dems, I fear, have sparked a fight, a war”. I startle at the use of this last word that holds so much force and unforgiveness. Where is the friendly in this, I wonder, and vacillate between responding to him with my version of the facts and recognizing that nothing that I say will shatter his white wall. Though I check the Caucasian box too, I wish to learn another’s language. I am trying to listen. Wounds worn so close to the surface for each of us. But. Huh (sung in baritone). War, what is it good for?