When John McCain ran against Barak Obama, I was stunned at the poor choice conservatives had been given. McCain was a RINO and did not have the popularity in the Republican Party to generate enough excitement among the base to win. It was dismal election and I was not the least bit surprised to see the man who promised to fundamentally change our country become elected. Then, for the next 8 years, he proceeded to do as he had promised, without the help of the Congress. I felt an aching hollowness in my gut for those 8 long years. I did not protest his election, pledge resistance or practice civil disobedience; I just waited for the next opportunity.

With 13 Republican candidates to choose from in 2016, I hardly expected Donald Trump to be the winning candidate, but it finally became obvious that he was really the only candidate that could actually win against the Democrat machine. Despite Hillary Clinton’s obvious flaws, it now appears that she not only had the press in her pocket, the machine on her side even before the primary was over, and apparently the CIA, the FBI, the justice department, the unions, and the rest of the Deep State apparatus on her side.

Despite his personal failings, Donald Trump generated excitement from the forgotten masses to go to the polls and was fairly elected by the system laid out in the Constitution. His promises rang true because they were what the conservative underclass wanted to hear: Stop Illegal immigration, build the wall, lower taxes, restore balance to the Supreme Court, end the rampant racism stoked by Obama, improve employment prospects for working Americans, etc.

While there has been the unfailingly negative coverage of everything he has done by the press, the unceasing sabotage from the Democrat party, and the endless partisan investigations, he has achieved several of his noteworthy objectives. Until today.

I was stunned to see the Republicans support a budget that was clearly against their stated interests so that each member of Congress could take home his own bit of pork. But what really disheartened me was that the President knuckled under and signed the spending bill that specifically disallowed the promises that his supporters expected to be fulfilled, i.e….the wall, and the funding of Planned Parenthood, to name but a few.

The empty hollowness has returned, and the excitement that the Republicans need to win the midterms has been dissipated. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have both declared a victory, despite the Republicans being in control of both the Presidency and the Congress. It is an embarrassment and a travesty…..hardly The Art Of The Deal.

Some Of The Important Things We Learned In School........

Close to 60 years ago, I began my official education at Washington Elementary School in Phoenix. One of the most important things I learned was how to make mud cups. On the far side of the playground, we boys would scrape together enough soft dirt to make a small pile. Then, we would run to the drinking fountain clear across the field and fill our mouths with water. After racing back to the mound of dirt, we would stick our elbow in to make an indentation and then spit the water into the concavity and watch the water soak into the dry dirt, maybe half an inch. Another trip across the playground for another load of water gave us the capacity to fill the cup again and, after it had soaked in, we would dig away the loose dirt surrounding the mud cup. It was an art form of the finest precision; digging away the dirt too soon or without the proper finesse caused the cup to break into pieces. But, with the proper patience and careful touch, we would hold in our hands a useless piece of cup-shaped mud that we could put in a safe spot in the sun to dry to perfection.

Think of the first grade lessons we learned from that exercise; perseverance, a light touch, how to run without breathing through your mouth, patience, hope. We could imagine ourselves like the Indians who made pottery hundreds of years before, in possibly the same spot. Strangely, I don’t remember Mrs. Williams ever congratulating us on our achievement. In fact, it’s likely she never knew.

Washington Elementary was an old school, even way back then. We had just moved in to our new home about a mile away, but a brand new school was under construction and the kids in our neighborhood would be changing schools the next September to be the first students at Palo Verde Elementary. Somehow, the art of mud-cup making didn’t transcend the boundary between the schools. 

The new playground for the first through 3^rd grades sported Monkey Bars, and a slide of infinite height and length attached to the end of monstrous swing set. All of the playground equipment was galvanized steel and, in Phoenix’s late summer, reached temperatures hot enough to melt the flesh right off the bones of the average 2^nd Grader. Fortunately, we were not average children; we had grown up in Phoenix and had learned all of the tricks to keep bare skin unburnt. We boys wore pants, but the girls were at a particular disadvantage. This was in the dark ages when girls were required to wear dresses, and they became quite adept at sliding down the slide with their legs in the air to avoid skin contact.

The lines to climb the ladder to the top of the slide were endless, and in time, the metal gave up enough of its heat to the bottoms passing by that it was tolerable to sit on. The Monkey Bars had the same problem. You could climb only until your hands could no longer grip the pipe, and then while balancing without holding on, allow your hands to cool enough to proceed to the top.

The playground equipment was nearly indestructible, but after a few decades, the Powers That Be determined that it was a safety hazard and it was all replaced with smaller, plastic-coated versions.