Yesterday, March 27, was my wife's birthday and I also had an appointment for an annual follow up with a dermatologist in Lexington so we got up early; drove to Lexington; stopped for breakfast at McDonald's in Stanton, Kentucky, as we often do; went to my medical appointment; and then went to Richmond, Kentucky, for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Masala; and, then came back home by about 6pm. To say the least, it was a long and interesting day. When we got to McDonald's in Stanton, Candice waited in the van while I went inside to order our food and use the restroom as she usually does when we are on the road to further away. My order took longer than usual and I struck up a conversation with a man who it happened was passing through on his way to Virginia from Michigan. He was a self-employed African American man driving a truck and trailer doing contract hauling after having had an injury which now prevents him from doing self-employed lawn and tree work as he had previously. I would say he was about 30-40, neatly dressed, clearly intelligent, and highly verbal. We talked at first about our travels around North America and happened to leave the restaurant in the same direction across the parking lot. During our walk, the subject of the recent accident at the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore came up and I said it appeared to me that the ship captain had done literally everything he could to mitigate the effects of the disaster. At this point, my new acquaintance went into a repetition of some conspiracy theory he must have heard on a right wing radical "news" source that the captain was from outside the USA and the accident was terrorism. I reminded him that the police agencies involved in the investigation had stated they had no reason to believe it was anything other than an accident. Then as he was walking to his truck away from me in an adjacent parking lot, he informed me that he intended to vote for TRAITOR Trump and I said "I think you ought to go home and look in the mirror and ask yourself why you want to do that". He replied "because I'm a Christian and I don't like homosexuals". I suggested to him, as I always do to such people, that he follow a little reading assignment for self-professed "Christians" which I have written about on this blog previously. We were both getting in our vehicles to leave and I never got to carry the conversation on any further. But I did manage to suggest that he take out his Bible and a "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance" and read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts followed by the first 12-14 chapters of Revelation and every time he encountered one of the directives for Christians in those books to ask himself if TRAITOR Trump had ever done any of those things which is the gist of the reading assignment. I never got his name and he never got mine but if he actually follows that reading assignment I believe he would realize he is dead wrong to support TRAITOR Trump.
I always carry a book with me when I am headed into situations where I am likely to need to wait for any serious time length and I happened to be reading "Enough" by Cassidy Hutchinson and wearing the baseball cap in the photo at the top of this blog post which I have written about previously on this blog. As I usually do in a medical exam room, I placed my book with the spine turned toward the area the doctor will occupy and, in this case, I also placed my baseball cap on top of the book. On at least two other such occasions, I have gotten into some very positive conversations with a surgeon and a cardiologist whom I also see once a year. In those two instances, I was reading "The Room Where It Happened" by John Bolton just prior to the 2020 presidential election. Yesterday, when the doctor came into the room, she noticed the cap and book and said, "Making America Great Again reminds me of Trump. Who is Jack Smith?" I said, "Special Prosecutor" and she actually asked "Is he on Trump's side?" and I explained who Jack Smith is and went on to say, as I often do to supporters of TRAITOR Trump that "If he doesn't die in a federal prison cell, it will be the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the world." She seemed a bit surprised by that statement and, in the interest of keeping the conversation brief in support of her busy schedule I just went on to say, "Trump's a TRAITOR. When you step into public beside Putin and deny evidence from all 17 US intelligence agencies, you are a TRAITOR." I don't think any of it did a thing to change her mind and I firmly believe she is a TRAITOR Trump supporter. What is sad about that is that this woman is a doctor who spent her internship at the Mayo Clinic, owns a fairly large private practice, and was forced to relocate that practice to a less expensive setting during the Covid pandemic. I did not attempt to take the time to ask her anything about her opinion of the unmitigated disaster which TRAITOR Trump created by denying the seriousness of Covid and doing nothing about it in early 2020 after he was told by the US intelligence and scientific communities that Covid was coming and could destroy the country. I also have never told her that I have spent many days at the National Institutes of Health during the 1990's and am not naive about science or medicine. I am not scheduled to see her again for two years but I suspect I will have that conversation with her the next time I see her no matter when it is and no matter what the further outcomes of TRAITOR Trump's TREASON prove to be. I sincerely hope by the next time I see this woman that he is actually in federal prison on his well deserved life sentence and I can look at her and say "I told you so!"
We left the medical appointment and drove to Masala in Richmond which is a fine Indian Restaurant and celebrated Candice's birthday. She created her own version of an Indian buffet at our table by ordering several of her favorite items from their menu. Then we left the restaurant and drove to Natural Bridge State Park where I hiked for an hour before coming the rest of the way home. I have also written about several state parks on this blog in the past but somehow have neglected writing about Natural Bridge and one of my favorite hiking trails.
My final thoughts about yesterdays trip are 1) that I will always continue to confront the ignorance in anyone which allows them to support TRAITOR Trump despite his obvious damage to this country; 2) I will always attempt to engage medical providers and other educated people in political conversations; 3) it is the most important election in American History this year and President Biden must be reelected if Democracy is to survive in America; 4) TRAITOR Trump must be convicted in his criminal trials and must be sentenced to life in federal prison for his TREASON.
