A Little Bit About Respect

So, the Idiot Jerk in the White House threw a party for himself and Republicans yesterday at the taxpayers expense.  Who showed up?  White Americans with MAGA hats, and signs, and posters for the 2020 election.  Donors to his campaign got VIP seating.  When those who write checks for the purpose of your re-election get special privileges, that's politicizing a National Holiday.  When the only ones who received tickets to sit close to the Idiot Jerk were members of the Republican Party, that's politicizing a National Holiday.  Don't let these lying sacks of shit try and fool you.  This was a campaign rally celebrating the Moral Degenerate in the White House.  If you think this is bad now, it will only get worse.  Republicans don't care how badly they damage the United States as long as they are in charge.  They stupidly ignore their failures, sweeping them under the rug.  They never step back and try and learn from their mistakes, instead treating then like water over the dam; for them ignorance is bliss.
Anyway, I'm off tomorrow.  Time to get back on the bike.  I've eaten way too much, as always over a holiday.  Too many wieners, and burgers, and brownies... deep, dark, and calorie rich brownies.  I won't step on the scale until Sunday.  To do otherwise would probably bring me to tears.
I didn't watch any fireworks yesterday, but I could hear them.  I'm am surrounded by communities which shoot them off.  Luckily, the dogs pretty much ignore them.  Mostly, I talked to my friend Betsy on the phone.  And I spent some time on The Body in the Well.  Here's the little bit where Eli and Max climb the stairs at Greely's Smithy and Tack Shop.

The door to the Tack Shop was in the stall on the right side.  Next to the door was a small, black metal sign noting the store’s hours.  If I had been expecting dark and dingy, I was pleasantly mistaken.  Inside, a wide wooden stairway led up to where the lofts had been used for storing bales of hay.  We passed old photo after old photo as we climbed upwards, pictures of the Rattler’s Den silver mine, of miners standing in front of carts, and hitching posts, and store fronts, bright smiles shining through dirty faces as they had stood patiently waiting for a photographer with a black cloth draped over his head to tell them it was once again safe to move.  There were framed newspaper articles talking about the mine, the town, and the townspeople of Rattler’s Den, tiny history lessons of what life had been like so many decades ago, a vibrant age when miners, and shopkeepers, and saloon girls, rubbed shoulders with gunslingers.  And I suddenly felt the sense pride these people still must have, pride in themselves, and pride in their history, and pride that they had survived while those ghost towns surrounding them had faded into forgotten memories.

Max touched my elbow.  “They were hard working men.”

“Yes,” I nodded, “they deserve our respect.” 

This is just a rough draft, so there will probably be a change or two before the book gets published.