This letter is not addressed to Trump supporters, even those of you who voted for him once you got into the booth and couldn’t bring yourself to vote for Hillary. By now,  you know how I feel about you and your support of a man that by many  accounts is a disaster for this country and any semblance of Democracy left within its borders.
 
No, this is for those folks who voted for Hillary even if we didn’t agree with everything she stood for, because we acknowledged what the alternative was. This is for all those who have posted on my Facebook page about how we can’t be obstructionist, should give the man a chance,  how we need to come together now, how you hope he’ll be a different leader than he was a candidate.  Listening to you, I understand your feelings of  reconciliation. The politicians still running the show are pleading for us to come together, and I get that sentiment – I would feel it myself if we had elected almost any other candidate. But not this one.
 
When I listen to such arguments, I feel I am in a bubble of short-term amnesia. Who remembers what the dialogue was two weeks ago among liberals and many high-profile Republicans? Never Trump. America, don’t elect him! He is awful. Awful as a candidate, as a potential leader, as a human being. Several well-respected folks have called him a fascist and compared him to Hitler or Mussolini. And it’s those accusations I want to address here.
 
Do you really think he is any different now that he’s President-elect? What evidence do you have to illustrate your belief? I’m thinking that you are in the act of burying your head deep in the sand. We are better than this has been proven a lie. America is no longer the beacon on the hill we thought it was. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m going to quote Sarah Palin, soon to be (if the reports are accurate) our next Secretary of the Interior: How’s that Hopey-Changey thing workin’ out for ya?  Stick your head deeper, sing Lalalalala so you can’t hear the hate speech already filling the air, and believe away. Donald Trump is STILL Donald Trump. And we are in big trouble.
 
The way to mitigate what is about to happen is NOT to cooperate with him or his surrogates, hoping he’ll turn out to be tolerable. The only way past this is to resist what he stands for with more than our pathetic votes… the ones that WON the popular count, not that it matters. We need to continue to resist in every way possible: demonstrate, scream, yell, post, petition, support the politicians who fight back, support to the marginalized, and NOT go back to our lives, pretending things will be normal again, relying on the politicians to make things better or right. We need to be present and voice our outrage at every turn – and there will be lots of reasons to be vocal in the next four years. Resist. Demonstrate. Stand with Standing Rock. Join the Million Women March on inauguration day. Wear your safety pins. Resist.
 
My wife, the woman I love and have lived with for 40+ years, lost most of her family to Nazi Germany’s journey down this road. Both her brothers, ages 5 and 2, were murdered. Her parents were imprisoned in Auschwitz and somehow lived through that nightmare to survive and emigrate to the USA, then a place of hope and sanity. The election of Donald Trump and all his rhetoric, ideas and beliefs has put us on a merging lane with the Third Reich. I will not forget who he is, what he stands for, who supports him. I will never advocate cooperation or compromise with him. To do so is to accept what is about to happen. To do so is suicide.

​I Just Pissed Myself
 
You know what pisses me off?
Me.
 
I’m pissed I’m angry,
that I’m so intolerant
I can’t accept what my fellow
countrymen and women have done.
I’m pissed that I can get so pissed.
I want to punch walls, take out my gun
(yes, I own one), shoot every Trump
sign still hanging on my neighbors’
houses. Throw eggs at their windows,
confront them with their own ignorance.
 
I am pissed I am convinced I’m right
about the future. It makes me  irate to confront
my own worst fears come to pass. The man
we just elected to lead the country is evil.
I’m pissed that I live in a land where this can
and has happened. I’m furious at the millions
who feel they’ve done the right thing. I get
nauseous thinking of four years of him and his hate
in all our faces – being the face, the mouth of this country.
I am pissed I bought into the lie that we are better than that.
 
I am fuming at myself for not having the awareness
that people of color, LGBTQ folks and women have
had all along, and not just with him now, but all their lives
all the time, with anyone. I am pissed that hate crimes
are on the rise. I am upset that I feel outnumbered,
powerless to stop time, turn away from this dark future.
 
I am angry that I don’t have the self-control,
the gentleness of nature, the kindness to give
him half a chance… no, wait. That pisses me off more,
that I would consider such a thing – who can be
reasonable in the face of unreason?
 
All that leads me here: this is what I’ve come to? Ending up
an angry, bitter old man? I don’t want to be that guy –
for me, for my wife, my sons, my granddaughter.  
But I don’t see much alternative, which is why
I’m so pissed…at me.

So this is my first post on my new web home, powered by Weebly. I have to say it's been easy to set up with this company. They aren't too expensive, and give you a lot of bang for the buck. My only complaint is that they do seem to charge a lot for e-commerce. I suppose that's to be expected, but I don't like it much. Ok. Enough whining.

Much of what I have written for some time has centered around my fishing days in Alaska. After going to a poetry reading in Seattle last fall, I realized there was a lot more during those 20 years that I did besides fish. I spent time canoeing the rivers and woods, hiking the trails and skiing the hills around the Kenai Peninsula. I saw, photographed and enjoyed moose, bears, bald eagles, sandhill cranes and migratory snow geese. I was surrounded by a pod of Beluga whales on my boat late one night on a calm sea (ok, that's a fishing experience). There's much, much more to my life in Alaska, even though I wasn't a hunter, guide or bush pilot. And I intend on writing about those experiences soon. Best intentions, right? Well let's see who's listening out there? What stories tickle your interest? What should I write first? Leave a comment and I'll know if anyone is even listening out there.

At the same time, if you wouldn't mind, please let me know what you think of the new site. How does the format work for you? Comments are welcomed and appreciated...