Four Years Later

Resistance

This “blog”, originally called “Trump World”, began just over four years ago.  It started at the  suggestion of my niece Leslie. We were talking about what to do about the new Trump Administration and how we could make our voices heard against the outrages we saw.  Leslie suggested I “write a blog”, something that seemed both interesting and alien to me.  Our family always discussed politics and world events, with even the youngest (that was me for a long time) not only expected to have a say, but listened to and respected.  Our discussions around the dinner table were legendary among my parents’ friends, but it all started with just us, just the family.

But conversations are two-way streets.  Essays are putting thoughts on paper. It’s difficult to know if what you’re thinking and writing and what people are reading is “the same”.  So I wasn’t sure if essays were the answer.  (By the way, I’ve discovered the same kind of problem with public “presentations” in our new COVID world.  “Zoom” lectures aren’t anywhere close to classroom presentations.  There’s no “feedback”, even rolled or closed eyes, to let you know how you’re doing.  Nothing like lecturing a blank computer screen to test your concentration.  Human contact, verbal or non-verbal, is vital).

A Blog

So Leslie thought I could replicate some of those “dinner discussions” in a “blog”. And as a retired guy, I had the time and the inclination to try it.  By the way, I’m not that fond of the word “blog”, I always feel like “blogging” is a stream of consciousness kind of thing:  “Dahlman’s Blog – MacBook Pro,  Star Date 74594.4 …”   I see myself as more of an essayist.  I need a structure, a beginning, middle and end that relate to each other.  As my college writing Professor, Tony Stoneburner, taught:  an essay either needs a skeleton or it needs a shell, but it needs something that pulls it all together.  I’ve always been a “shell” guy.  The essay may go a long way away in the middle, but returns to the beginning at the end – at least that’s the goal.

I bought a website (dahlman.online) and paid the fees (WordPress) and set out to try to explain the years of Donald Trump.  

It was going to be a once-a-week thing, for a few folks that we knew.  And if it had stayed that way, here four years later, there would be about two hundred fifty essays spanning the era.  But, just like our family dinner table discussions that would last for hours, the essays got “out of hand”. 

The more I wrote, the more I seemed to want to say.  The essays became a near-daily exercise, staring at the blank white page (screen) of my MacBook.  It even got to the point where several essays were written on my IPhone.  Essays were written in cars, classrooms, hospital rooms, and when I took a full-time online teaching job, in the very dark early hours before school started.  

So Many

So why all of this “process” talk about the essays?  Because this essay is the one thousandth on “Trump World”, now “Our America”.  And more than just the “few folks” are reading them.  There are still those “few folks” who get essays by e-mail.  Then there are the “Facebook” “participants” – where all the discussion and sometimes acrimonious debate, goes on.  That’s around a thousand people a month.  Then there are the over two thousand people who “subscribe” to the website itself –  “Our America”.  So the “project” has progressed.

The thousand essays contain around a million words, or in book form, two thousand pages.  That’s seven-hundred, twenty-five pages longer than War and Peace.  It’s a body of work, about the events of our time.  Sure the word “Trump” is probably the most used, but topics went from the horror of mass shootings and child separation, to the joy of watching a solar eclipse, to travelling around the country.  Some of the best essays were written on picnic tables as the sun rose over our camper.   

History and Dogs

Other recurring themes:  track teams, Boy Scouts, teaching kids, lots of history, and dogs, all the dogs.  We lost one of the best, Dash, our Yellow Lab early on.   But Buddy, our shepherd-mix miracle cancer survivor is still going strong.  And we’ve added a new Yellow Lab, Atticus, and an Australian Shepherd mix, Keelie, both, like Dash and Buddy, rescues. And just recently we’ve acquired Louisiana, the long-legged gentle rescue from Baton Rouge.  He was supposed to be a “foster” as he recovered from two broken legs and a broken hip – but he and Keelie are fast friends.  So we might end up having “four dog nights” instead of “three”.

And I’ve taken the opportunity to share some “stories”:  about my parents, my life, and our world.  That’s a lot like my classroom (or long rides in the back of the bus), where there would always be some “story” to highlight the lesson or the meet.  Sometimes it was history, and sometimes personal.  But there is a reason “story” is part of the word “history”, and I took full advantage of my opportunity to tell them.

Top Ten

There’s a list of the essays, and how many read them – here’s the top ten.

Small Town Problems – 918

Mom’s War – 560

Out My Window – Part 4 – 507

Don Dahlman – 168

Memories of Notre Dame – 147

Shanksville – 145

Lester Kahrig – 144

Flags and Shoes – 130

OK, Boomer – 124

Going to War – The Draft – 114.

What’s interesting about the list?  Direct essays about the Trump Administration aren’t in the top ten.  Instead they’re stories about people (Mom’s War, Don Dahlman, Lester Kahrig), history (Memories of Notre Dame, Shanksville, Going to War) and my small town, Pataskala (Small Town Problems, Out My Window – Part 4).  That leaves two more political essays – Flags and Shoes and OK, Boomer.

A Liberal in Trump Country

While any adult close to me knew my political values, as a school teacher in the same community for forty years I kept my “politics” out of the classroom.  So it came as a shock to some that “Mr. Dahlman” teacher, was a “fire-breathing liberal”.  For some of my former students that came as a welcome affirmation, but many felt I betrayed their values.  They seemed to be in search for some prior “sins” of indoctrination – but if that was so, I did a lousy job.  Forty years teaching in the school, and our community is still overwhelmingly “Trump Country”.  

So I’ve lost some “friends” along the way, some that don’t matter, and some that I really respected, outside of the realm of politics.  The one thing that Donald Trump symbolized to our country, is the loss of political civility.  He wasn’t the cause; we were already well down the road of “disagree with me and I hate you”, but he took us to a whole new level of vitriol.  I’ve learned things about folks I know – well – that I’d rather not known.  But that’s been our world, stoked on by Trumpism, and now magnified by the isolation of COVID.

Still Friends

And on the other hand I’ve found some “friends” as well.  Some have shared the verbal “combat” of our discussions online, and some have more gently commented in the “blog” itself.  And for some – it’s been even more subtle.  We live in “Trump Country”, but we put our politics on the front lawn.  It not only was an exercise in politics, it was a statement of our freedom of speech.  When our Biden signs were stolen, they just were replaced by bigger ones.  Happily, there were many in our community who spoke out against the theft, most of them with “Trump” signs in their front yards.

But the real mark of fellowship was the person who lived on a nearby street who stopped by after Biden was declared the winner.  Her neighbors were so volatile that she dared not put a Biden sign in her yard.  But she wanted to thank us, and handed us a bottle of champagne – bought to celebrate Hillary’s coming victory four years ago.  COVID world wouldn’t allow her to come in and share a drink (we asked), but she wanted to toast Biden’s win, at least vicariously.

Our America

Four years ago we were struggling to describe “Trump World”.  Now we aren’t sure we can get rid of it, even if we get rid of the “man” himself.  There will be a plenty more to discuss, and plenty of opportunity to argue.  Hopefully we can all recognize that, in our changing America, most of us want things to get better.  After all, it’s “Our America” now.