The Life in My Years

March 15. 2025
It’s Saturday, noontime. Cora and I walking to the Tesla dealership in Walnut Creek, California.

Walnut Creek is a tony little town located at the northern end of the Tri-Valley, but isn’t really considered a part of Tri-Valley. That’s because Tri-Valley is stinking rich and Walnut Creek is only – tony. The long ridge known as the East Bay Hills separates Walnut Creek, and the Tri-Valley area from West Contra Costa County. It’s not just a physical divide, it’s a cultural and economic one.

Walnut Creek is Nordstrom, Chanel, Apple, Whole Foods and Lululemon. West County is Target, Lucky and, once you’re into Richmond and San Pablo, a lot of ethnic businesses; Black, Hispanic, and a spectrum of Asian. When you pause for a moment and think about it, West County is a hell of a lot more interesting than Tri-Valley.

West County’s only big shopping mall, Hilltop, was shut down years ago and sits as a sad, abandoned, decaying paean to the death of malls. It was a victim of apathy, a measure of crime, and the rampant plague of Jeff Bezos. The City of Richmond is trying to decide what to do with it. I’m betting on a fringe evangelical church taking over part of it.

The other way to view the divide is to visit the schools. West County schools get by, while some Tri-Valley and Walnut Creek high schools could be mistaken for JCs. America is supposed to be a nation of equal opportunity in education but that’s a myth. Both areas get funding from the tax base but that funding is much higher in affluent communities. In the more affluent communities funding shortfalls are made up for by donations and silent auctions that fetch big ticket items and equally large bids from families with big bank accounts. Many West County families, particularly in San Pablo, Richmond and El Sobrante are living paycheck to paycheck and you won’t find as much parent participation as you would in an affluent community because, well, there are only so many hours in a day. Of course the Trump administration’s slash and burn policies are moving towards a different kind of equality – “nobody gets nothing.” It’s clear which side of the East Bay Hills will suffer more.

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We’re walking from the parking garage of Broadway Plaza, past said Macy’s and Lululemon and Apple, to the Tesla dealership.

The previous week I’d hesitated – because, shame on me, I’d stereotyped. Given the economic and social makeup of Walnut Creek, I wondered how a protest would be received.

Quite well actually.

The protesters were local or, like Cora and I, from surrounding areas.

As we lined South Main Street, people driving rich people cars honked their horns in support – even those driving Teslas (who,about this time, are likely regretting their choice in cars).

The crowd is larger this week than last week. Last week’s crowd was estimated at 500+ at its peak. Today the demonstration hasn’t even started at it appears we’ve eclipsed 500 already. Four of this week’s new comers include my son, my daughter-in-law, and our grandchildren, ages 17 and 7 (I’m glad for their participation and even gladder that the two youngest are getting a first hand lesson in democracy).

This is going to become our weekly ritual. Tesla on Saturdays to protest Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Trump Administration in general. This week you could add Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer.

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Yesterday, Schumer and seven Democratic Senators blindsided the House Democrats and their constituents by voting to pass an unpalatable funding bill which, among other things:
Increases funding for the military by $12 billion dollars, gives Trump more authority on spending, increases funding for Trump’s mass deportation plan, and calls for a $1.2 billion cut in what is called non-defense discretionary spending. That includes spending that is not military spending, defense spending, or social security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Cuts will likely focus on housing, healthcare and programs that help the poor and the middle class; programs such as Headstart, community health centers, education, food safety, and cancer research.

The GOP bill also cuts one billion dollars from Washington D.C. for no discernible reason other than the fact that D.C. is viewed as the liberal home of “wokeness” and so-called “elites.” This will likely cause the nation’s capital to fire teachers, police officers and firefighters, not to mention making cuts to all manner of public services.

The nation’s capital, with its plethora of monuments and museums is a destination for tourists from around the world. But Republicans, especially those from more rural red states, have nothing but disdain for big cities; dirty, full of elites, enclaves of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and too damn “woke.”

How does a nation with any sense of pride and self respect allow its capital to decay?

The icing on this inedible cake of a bill is that it removes Congress’s ability to reject Trump’s tariffs. In normal times, Congress could call a vote on the tariffs, but this bill surrenders that check. The Republicans have literally renounced their duty under the Constitution.

The cost of rejecting the bill would have meant a probable government shutdown and the possible humiliation of the Democrats caving sometime after a shutdown. Still, rejecting the GOP bill would have at least shown the will to resist. It’s what the public has been begging for since January 20, Inauguration Day.

Could Schumer and the seven traitorous senators, Richard Durbin (Ill.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii), have been afraid of voter backlash a year and half away from the midterm election? Clearly voters have a short memory. Case in point, they reelected Donald Trump mere months after he officially became a convicted felon.

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The crowd in front of Tesla is large, vocal, and orderly. I’m glad to see that there are a number of veterans here as well as many more people of color this week. Those are the good aspects.

What is disappointing is that the crowd is made up largely of people who are on Social Security or will soon be considering retirement (unless the administration’s policies have them working into their eighties). There’s a dearth of people under forty – almost none actually.

During the Vietnam War people protested by the hundreds of thousands, most of them young. Well, of course, they were the ones with skin in the game. They didn’t want to get drafted and fight in an ill-advised war, and die in a steaming Southeast Asian jungle, or return physically and/or emotionally ravaged.

The people out here today are the elders, the object of popular criticism by every generation that’s followed. “Boomer” has become a pejorative, and yet here are the boomers carrying the freight. It was boomers who protested in 1969 (250,000 in one single protest in San Francisco) and boomers who are protesting today. So, I don’t want to hear the criticism anymore. We’re out here trying to save democracy. The others, most of them of the younger generations, are the ones walking past us carrying their Nordstrom shopping bags, looking at us like we’re a carnival attraction.

Democracy just isn’t sexy enough.You can’t taste it, you can’t wear it, you can’t feel it or fondle it. You don’t even know it’s there – until it’s gone. Then, and only then, do you realize the feeling of loss and recognize the arduous task of getting it back. In Trump’s America, everyone has skin in this game – unless you’re incredibly, obscenely wealthy.

I’ve been trying to encourage people to join protests and/or be vocal on social media. It’s fallen on deaf ears. I’ve begun to shift my tactic from “please join us,” to using the shame game, challenging people to show up at protests. Recently I posted, “Hello Facebook folk. If you aren’t protesting you’re the problem. You can’t win if you don’t play. I don’t want your likes. I want to know what you’re doing. Meanwhile, enjoy your latte.”

I suppose it’s going to cost me some Facebook friends. I don’t care. If they don’t care about what’s going on I don’t know if I need them in this stage of my life.

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There’s an acronym that’s been in popular usage these days, FAFO. It means Fuck Around and Find Out.

Democracy wasn’t sexy enough before and during the election. It was all about the pain of expensive eggs and whatever myths that the Trump campaign pushed. The egg pain is still here, but it’s been joined by some other pains that people didn’t expect. Pains that they didn’t expect! Donald Trump literally told the world exactly what he was going to do. It was all in writing, in a manifesto called Project 2025. It was a warning as clear as Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which Germans could have read and heeded. Just as the Germans failed to heed Hitler’s warning in the 1930s, Americans failed to heed Trump’s. Anyone with access to a computer could’ve download and read Trump’s warning. And still people Fucked Around and are just now starting to Find Out.

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Take the Venezuelan migrants living in South Florida under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) who, despite not being able to vote, were vocal supporters of Trump. They’re Finding Out. They’re now faced with the possibility of a life threatening deportation back to Venezuela, since the administration has revoked their Temporary Protected Status. These are not “undocumented immigrants”. The previous administration gave them lawful permission to remain because they feared for their lives in Venezuela. An American President made a promise. The new American President broke that promise. But that’s what this new American President does. He shamelessly breaks promises. It’s almost a hobby for this man.

To justify the Trump Administration’s move, Department of Homeland Security Secretary, and Trump adulator, Kristi Noem repeated Trump’s campaign lie, “Remember,” she said, “Venezuela purposely emptied out their prisons, emptied out their mental health facilities and sent them to the United States of America.”

Venezuelan-American citizens (the ones who can vote) are Finding Out and they’re outraged. They are protesting that the TPS immigrants are not only not criminals, they have become contributing members of their communities. Now the TPS immigrants have gone into hiding and Venezuelan-American citizens are doing what they can to help them.

As time passes and the administration outrages mount, the Finding Out will increase proportionately. Who are they, and what are they Finding Out?

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The crippling of the Department of Education has resulted in the blocking of online access to student loan repayment plans. To make matters worse, the people who would be able to answer the borrowers questions have been laid off. Student loan recipients are Finding Out.

The same DOE cuts will result in the closure of teacher training programs, which will lead to a shortage of teachers, counselors, social workers, behavior specialists. Students and parents will be Finding Out.

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The beneficiaries of a win-win program will be Finding Out. The U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed funding for a program that helped schools purchase food from local farms. American farmers selling healthy food to local schools. What a subversive thing.

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The descendants of Major General Charles Calvin Rogers are Finding Out that he’s a DEI hero.
General Rogers, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor when he was a Lt. Colonel commanding a field artillery unit at a forward fire base during the Vietnam War. Rogers was wounded three times while rallying the men under his command. After receiving his first wound, Rogers led a counterattack against an enemy element that had penetrated U.S. howitzer positions. Roger’s citation reads in part, “Although painfully wounded a second time during the assault, Lt. Col. Rogers pressed the attack killing several of the enemy and driving the remainder from the positions. Refusing medical treatment, Lt. Col. Rogers reestablished and reinforced the defensive positions. As a second human wave attack was launched against another sector of the perimeter, Lt. Col. Rogers directed artillery fire on the assaulting enemy and led a second counterattack against the charging forces. His valorous example rallied the beleaguered defenders to repulse and defeat the enemy onslaught. Lt. Col. Rogers moved from position to position through the heavy enemy fire, giving encouragement and direction to his men. At dawn the determined enemy launched a third assault against the fire base in an attempt to overrun the position. Lt. Col. Rogers moved to the threatened area and directed lethal fire on the enemy forces. Seeing a howitzer inoperative due to casualties, Lt. Col. Rogers joined the surviving members of the crew to return the howitzer to action. While directing the position defense, Lt. Col. Rogers was seriously wounded by fragments from a heavy mortar round which exploded on the parapet of the gun position. Although too severely wounded to physically lead the defenders, Lt. Col. Rogers continued to give encouragement and direction to his men in the defeating and repelling of the enemy attack.”

General Rogers served his country from 1952 to 1984. He passed away in Munich, Germany after having served as a Baptist Minister to U.S Soldiers. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Rogers’ mention on the Department of Defense website links to the error message, 404 – Page Not Found: The page you are looking for might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable. Use our help center, browse our sitemap, or return to the homepage.

Rogers, a Black man who served his country with distinction, was not a casualty of war but a casualty of Trump’s (a Vietnam War draft dodger) paranoid DEI purge ramrodded by the Secretary of Defense, an unqualified Trump idolater named Pete Hegseth..

General Rogers isn’t the only brave contributor to the nation who’s been expunged from historical memory. The Arlington National Cemetery has erased pages about (among others):
General Colin Powell, the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first black military airmen.
Hector Santa Anna, a World War II bomber pilot and career military leader.

I’m not sure what this erasure from the archives has to do with the right wing boogie man, DEI. One is either a hero and a contributor or not. That women and people of color, whose accomplishments are deserving of being featured on government websites are being erased from history smacks not only of unrepentant bigotry, and a rewriting of history, but of a sick paranoia.

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A group of young musicians and their parents recently Found Out about the bigotry and cruelty that characterizes the paranoid DEI policies. The United States Marine Corps Band is 227 years old, nearly as old as the nation itself. One can only imagine the pride and excitement that thirty young musicians and their families felt when they were selected to play a concert with the Marine Corps Band. That excitement turned to disappointment (and I hope white hot anger as well) when the event was canceled due to Trump’s executive order against diversity programs. The musicians are Black, Hispanic, Indian and Asian.

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Anyone who voted for a cheaper plate of scrambled eggs is Finding Out. The high price of eggs became an election rallying cry, as Donald J. Trump and his team of gaslighters blamed the egg crisis on Joe Biden, even though they knew full well that the egg shortage and resulting high price was (and is) due to a rampant case of avian flu.

As expected, Donald J. Trump did not reduce the price of eggs on his first day in office as he’d promised but his Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who is by trade an attorney and has by all accounts never been within an arm’s length of a working combine, or milked a cow, or harvested corn, or touched an egg laying chicken, proposed a solution to the egg shortage – buy chickens. Live chickens – for the backyard.

I suppose that’s a great idea for those who actually have a backyard (too bad for urban dwellers who live in an apartment), don’t have a dog or a cat, and have the time and money to build a chicken coop, and possess the knowledge about how to raise egg laying chickens.

It isn’t as if the price of eggs will cripple most Americans, unless they’re bakers or restaurant owners. The more salient point to me is the whole notion that the government’s proposed solution to an egg shortage is for people to raise chickens. It’s just more damning proof that Trump’s promise of hiring a merit based administration is another example of playing voters for the suckers that they are. If Americans haven’t Found Out yet, they’ll discover, sooner or later, that Donald Trump’s so-called “meritocracy” based administration is a sham; a disreputable collection of grifters, incompetents, imbeciles and camp following sycophants. And sadly, some, the hopelessly brainwashed, will never, ever Find Out.

Trump’s Attorney General, Pamela Jo Bondi, a bootlicking election denier and conspiracy theorist, has been hard at work protecting the rights of, not the marginalized or people of color, because that would be contrary to the bigoted creed of the Trump regime, but the rights of plastic drinking straws. That’s right, Pamela Jo Bondi spent part of one day as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer going after, not the Ku Klux Klan, or Fentanyl traffickers, but paper drinking straws. She took valuable tax payer compensated time issuing a department memorandum ordering the immediate cessation of procuring paper drinking straws. Not only is Justice required to procure plastic straws, the DOJ has been directed to “take appropriate action to eliminate policies designed to disfavor plastic straws.” Because, damn it, plastic straws have feelings too.

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There are thousands of now former federal employees who are Finding Out. They were fired and most of them were told that the reason they were fired was due to poor performance, despite the fact that many had recently been given positive performance reviews. They each received a form letter telling them that they’d failed at their jobs. Some are being rehired. Others are Finding Out that being terminated for poor job performance disqualifies them from getting unemployment benefits. They will also Find Out that a termination based on “poor performance” will follow them wherever and whenever they look for a new job. This is all part of the indiscriminate scorched earth policy of Elon Musk’s DOGE, and anyone with even the smallest measure of reason is Finding Out just how cruel, negligent and impulsive Musk and his plunderers can be.

As time goes on more and more people will be Finding Out. It might be the parents of children who come down with measles, or the elderly and the immunocompromised who, come fall and winter, contract the flu because the Secretary of Health and Human Services is a conspiracy spewing lunatic.

The poor and the people who live in minority communities will Find Out when their asthma and respiratory distress gets worse because Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has shuttered the Offices of Environmental Justice. The responsibility of Environmental Justice is to address the high levels of pollution that disproportionately affects poor neighborhoods and communities of color. Because nobody is going to build a pollution belching factory or refinery in the Tri-Valley or any other affluent community.

Every time that I publish one of these posts or attend a protest I wonder if I’m going to one day Find Out just how repressive Trump’s regime is going to get. He has two ideological maniacs running the FBI. The Director is Kash Patel a low grade lawyer, profligate liar and paranoiac who published an enemies list. Second in command is Dan Bongino, a blustering podcaster, radio host and longtime professional Trump sycophant who has a hair trigger temper and little tolerance for anyone who sits politically to the left of Adolf Hitler. I wonder if the Patel/Bongino FBI will add to Patel’s enemies list and prosecute and persecute from the top (MSNBC and CNN) down (protesters and bloggers).

There’s going to be four long years of Finding Out. Let’s hope enough people Find Out before it’s too late.

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The protest is done and I’m in the parking garage elevator, headed back to the car to stash my protest signs before joining my family for lunch. A well dressed woman gets on at the next level down and both of us, alone on the elevator, are uncomfortable. I notice her handbag, black leather, with gold lettering – Prada. She looks at my signs, and then scrutinizes me, head to toe, toe to head, and then focuses on my t-shirt that says Anti-Trump AF. She looks off to the side, an expression of indignation written on her face. She might Find Out but I’m guessing she’s going to be one of the last to get onboard – if she ever does.

At lunch my daughter-in-law who is well aware of my disdain for the people sitting it out, voices a sympathetic opinion. As I stare down at my pizza she says, “Some people just feel like protesting doesn’t do any good.” Florence has had time to absorb the apathy. She’s been fighting for the Palestinian cause for a year and a half now. Fighting on social media and at protests and in general discussions. She’s a veteran at dealing with the frustration. She’s also the most compassionate, empathetic person I’ve ever known. It’s why she offers the apathetic an out.

In that regard, Florence and I are different. I’ve lost my patience with the fence sitters, all of them. I believe they’re going to deserve what they get for their apathy – and I don’t know that I’ll pity them when it happens. But it’s those who are close to me, who remain steadfast in their silence that trouble me the most. I’m disappointed in them to the point of feeling betrayed. Why are they willing to let me shoulder their moral load?

We’re giving up afternoons at protests because other people Fucked Around over the price of eggs. In normal times we would be doing something enjoyable. On any given Saturday I’d be attending my 15 year-old grandson’s basketball games.

People Fucked Around and I’ve Found Out that my blog site, which used to be dedicated to life stories, travel and photography, has been irrevocably turned into a political site. I’ve lost an entire segment of readers and followers who I’ll never get back, either because they don’t agree with my politics or they just don’t want to deal with political blogs of any sort. There’s no turning back on it now. I suppose that I could start a new site that’s devoted to travel and photography but I don’t have the time.

Saving democracy occupies most of my time now. I’ve given up relearning Italian and much of my photography and all of the other things I was doing before 47. And I resent the apathetic.

Daily life is now consumed with doing what I can to help stop the unraveling of my country. And it isn’t necessarily for me. I’m seventy-one and I could conceivably sit it out and survive comfortably – or I could sell everything and relocate. But I have children and grandchildren to consider. And I have all of the people who don’t have my advantages to consider.

I guess it beats watching daytime game shows and day drinking.

Banner photo courtesy of Sides Imagery