Immigration is again back on the front burner. The fate of the “Dreamers” is still uncertain as are a whole bunch of other issues like who gets into the U.S. and who gets locked up and/or thrown out.

Embry and I have close relationships with two immigrant families, each of whom lived for a time in the basement apartment of close friends of ours. The first family is the Dreamer family. The husband came here from Mexico when he was 15, spoke minimal English, and had only a third grade education. He managed to find a job in construction in Richmond, and moved to the Washington area to be with his now wife, who came to the U.S. about 15 years ago from Central America and is now one of Washington’s “super nannies.” By studying hard, he was able to get his GED, now speaks fluent English, and was awarded Dreamer status several years ago. Four years ago he started his own construction company, which rehabilitates and remodels old houses, and has done well enough to permit him to purchase and rennovate his new home, which now looks like something out of Architectural Digest. They have a six-year-old son. They are involved in their local community, love the United States, and remain very close friends with our friends and with us. They are like family.

And they are terrified that if their Dreamer status is removed they will be deported.

Think about what they have accomplished and how they have played the hand they were dealt. They are the quintessential American success story. Theirs is also the immigrant story. Of course, not all immigrant stories turn out like this one, but a lot do. Trump can say whatever he wants to about making America great again. Immigrants are what made America great in the first place and are still doing it.

The second family is the refugee family. They immigrated to the U.S. about a year ago as part of the U.N. refugee resettlement program. Their experience has given me a new understanding of what some people, especially refugees, go through to make it to the U.S. and what they do when they get here. The husband is from Afghanistan and fled the country when the Taliban was in charge. Because schools were closed, he never learned to read or write. He opposed the Taliban and to avoid being killed escaped to Iran where he met the woman whom he would later marry. His father-in-law did not approve of his daughter marrying an Afghan, and his constant threats resulted in husband and wife fleeing on foot with a toddler in tow across the mountains to Turkey. They struggled to survive in Turkey for five years where they became part of a large refugee population hoping to find permanent homes. They were finally granted U.N. refugee status and arrived in the U.S. with two daughters—a two-year-old and a six-year-old, no money, no possessions and no connections or friends in the U.S. When our friends offered their tiny basement apartment to be available for refugee resettlement, they moved in.

Embry and I each spend a day every week driving the mother to English classes and delivering the toddler to kindergarten along with numerous trips to the pharmacy, the social services office to try to straighten out problems associated with refugee support, and to take her and the children to various doctors. Despite some health issues, she is always cheerful, has a twinkle in her eye, and with her limited English lets us know how grateful she is.

When I think what it would have been like for Embry and me when we were young parents to flee to Afghanistan with no money, no job, no friends, and no ability to speak or write their language, I am in awe of this family.

What stands out most about the refugee family is their determination, energy, and grit. They will not take no for an answer. Within the first couple of months, the father managed to get a driver’s license, buy a cheap car from the imam at the local mosque where the father was a dishwasher, then land on his own a job as a welder paying $14 an hour. (He had been a welder in Afghanistan.)

I wondered how anyone who could not read in any language or speak English could possibly get a drivers license. I found out how this worked when last fall his wife directed me to take her to the Department of Motor Vehicles where she met for the first time a Farsi translator, whom she had paid $175 to assist her. The DMV test is oral, and the translator repeats in Farsi the questions asked by the public official and then translates in English the answers of the Farsi-speaking applicant. The translator had two other clients that day as well and was racing back and forth to do the translations. When the test was completed and I asked if the refugee had passed, the translator said, “ Of course she passed. All my clients do.” When I asked incredulously what the score was, she said she did not know because the results weren’t yet available. A few minutes later the results came in, and our refugee had a perfect score.

So in a few months this family was able to solve on their own the car challenge and the job challenge.

The next challenge was the housing situation. Their apartment was very small, only about 500 square feet, and cold in the winter. However, it was affordable at about $500/month  after taking into account in-kind housecleaning assistance. Despite their friendship with our friends’ family, they wanted something bigger and better. No way, I concluded. His income of $14/ hour ($28,000/year) would allow the family to afford a unit renting for $800-$850 a month. The cheapest two-bedroom in the working class neighborhood they lived in was about $1,500 a month. I had contacted many apartment complexes in the area months before for another refugee family, and the leasing agents all said the same thing: The applicant had to show proof of an income of $40,000 a year to qualify for a two-bedroom unit. No exceptions.

You can imagine my surprise last week when the wife directed me to the same apartment complex a few blocks from our friends’ house, the one I had visited before and where the other refugee family now lived—but in their case the family’s church sponsors were paying the rent. She said she was going to pick up the key. “What on earth could she be thinking?” I asked myself.

To my astonishment we were greeted by a smiling leasing agent, who (after I paid the deposit) produced a signed lease and a key to a unit renting for $1,300 (discounted from the original asking price of $1,500). I could not help asking the agent if they had qualified financially. He nodded and produced documents showing pay stubs averaging $800/ week ($41,600/year). He added, “Yeah, I know the guy makes only $14/hour, but, hey, he works 60 hours a week. “

Naturally I wanted to see the apartment. Before we could enter the vacant unit, the wife said I had to take her home first, which I did. She scampered down the stairs to her basement apartment and returned moments later smiling and carrying a beautiful, leather-bound book in her hands. It was the Koran.

When we got to the apartment, she slowly opened the door while I stood in the doorway. She looked carefully around the bare living room and then gently placed the Koran in the center of a windowsill facing east. She stood silently in front of it for a brief moment and then motioned for me to enter. They had now solved the housing challenge.

All these obstacles they overcame on their own through uncompromising determination.

This is not to suggest that they are home free or that the Dreamer family is home free. Lots more challenges remain. Life is hard. For some it is much harder than for others.

But can you imagine yourself playing the cards that these two families have been dealt? Their stories are the immigrant story. They are what make America great.

 

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You may not be old or you may be old but don’t think of yourself as such, but it really does not matter. If you are lucky, you will be old someday. There is great news for those of us who are old, whether we like to think of ourselves as such or not.

(In fact some people are already old in their twenties or thirties. Others never see themselves as old. My friend, tennis icon, Allie Ritzenberg, just turned 99. He still drives, plays tennis, cooks his own (gourmet) meals, and lives in a house with breathtaking views of the Potomac River. He says he thought about moving into a retirement community but is “not ready yet.” At his 99^th birthday party he was complaining about getting “only” a seven year extension on his drivers license.)

Here is the great news for us “old folks”: We have a new name.

Remember how hard it used to be to come up with a name for us? There are so many names that have been used to describe us. Here are a few: “aged,” “retiree,” “senior” (or “senior citizen”), “elderly,” “oldster,” “septuagenarian” (or “octogenarian,” “nonagenarian” or “centenarian”), “old codger,” “geezer,” “old coot,” “old biddy,” “golden-ager,” “old-timer,” “old fogey,” “old bat,” “geriatric,” “pops,” and last but not least “old fart.”

I don’t know about you, but except for “geezer,” I never felt any of these names aptly applied to me.

As many of you know, my career was spent in the field of what is called “retirement housing” or “senior living,” and which I confess I have lovingly referred to from time to time as “geezer housing.” “Retirement Housing” and “Senior Living” aren’t all that bad as names but never seemed to get it just right. I kept thinking we should have better words for people who are in their (our) 70s and 80s.

Well, now there is one. We are “Perennials.” This appeared in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post a couple of days ago. How clever, I thought. It sounds a lot like “Millennials,” who are getting all the attention nowadays, and yet is so apt for us survivors. We who are in our 70s and 80s or more and who do survive from one year to the next just keep coming back like the daffodils and tulips every spring. We are in fact “perennials.” I do not know if the name will stick or if anyone will remember it a few days from now, but it sure beats “geezer.”

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Many who have suffered through the last 12 months thought it was a pretty bad year but eventful nonetheless. Perhaps historic. But 2017 will be nothing when compared to 2018. Here are my predictions:

• January. On January 2, Trump tweets that by executive order the capital of the United States will move from Washington, DC to Mar-a-Lago effective immediately. Republicans will be provided free room and board at the resort. Democrats will fend for themselves. The President states in his prepared remarks, “This is beautiful and incredible, and if I can change the capital of Israel, I surely can do it here!” Pence praises Trump as the greatest president to ever live. Nicki Haley announces the U.S. is pulling out of the U.N. and forming a new international body called the “United Alliance,” consisting of all of America’s allies and friends—Honduras, Guatemala, Togo, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Israel. She says all other nations are officially black listed. Trump praises Haley, saying the move is long overdue.

 

• February. In a long-anticipated move, Trump orders the firing of Robert Mueller, who is removed from his office in handcuffs. Assistant Attorney General Rosenstein objects and is fired immediately and jailed. Trump appoints Roy Moore to replace Rosenstein, and Moore immediately cancels the FBI investigation stating, “There never was a spec of evidence showing the Russians had anything to do with U.S. elections. Period.” Pence applauds the move, tweeting that Trump is the greatest president to ever live. Moore is promoted to attorney general replacing Jeff Sessions, who is hospitalized following an opioid overdose. Trump appoints David Duke, Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, to replace Moore as Deputy Attorney General, stating in a nationally televised address that Duke has been misunderstood and actually represents “the true values of America, the best we have.”

 

• March. Ginsburg retires from the Supreme Court. Trump nominates Moore, who is confirmed along party lines using the reconciliation process. David Duke is promoted to Attorney General to replace Moore. The stock market reaches one record high after another as the American public experiences the enormous tax savings to the middle class, about $200 a year average for those making under $60,000 a year. Pence tweets again that Trump is the greatest human being “to walk on the face of the Earth.”

 

• April. Trump achieves what some have described as his only foreign policy achievement by swapping the Atlanta Hawks (record 8-25) professional basketball team for Kim-jon-Un’s entire nuclear arsenal. Tillerson is fired and replaced by Dennis Rodman as Secretary of State. In an unrelated move, Putin purchases the Charlotte Panthers from owner Jerry Richardson, who is forced to sell the team because of allegations of sexual misconduct. Putin announces he is building a   new football stadium in Moscow, which he is calling Trump Stadium in honor of “ his close friend, the American President.” Pence tweets that Trump is a man “with Messianic qualities.”

 

• May. By executive order Trump declares that climate change is a hoax and that the EPA will be repositioned and rebranded as the “Environmental Production Agency.” All national parks will be sold immediately to corporations, which Trump says now have “money to burn because of so many beautiful and incredible tax savings.”

 

• June. Trump proposes a bill, which passes along party lines declaring the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and the New Yorker as fake new organizations and orders that all fake news organizations be closed and reporters of fake news be jailed. Joe Scarborough is arrested immediately. The law is upheld by the Supreme Court as being constitutional, and Roy Moore, who cast the decisive vote, praises Trump as the greatest man to ever live. Pence calls a press conference to say he loves the President more than Roy Moore does.

 

• July. With Trump’s support, Congress passes along party lines a “Total Entitlement Reform Act” which eliminates Medicaid, Social Security, the Affordable Care Act, and Medicare, and replaces them with a Trump Card. The act does not state what the Trump Card actually does. The CBO predicts that the act will eliminate the entire deficit in 25 years. Paul Ryan declares this the “greatest victory of all time” and immediately calls for more tax cuts to help the embattled one per centers, “who are unfairly stuck with footing the cost of government.” When Trump’s popularity sinks into the single digits, the President declares public opinion polls illegal and all opinion researchers are subject to arrest. Pence again weeps with joy in public when trying to express his love for the President.

 

• August. Trump tweets that all DACA recipients will be arrested and jailed immediately and be relocated into what formerly were Trump luxury hotels in “heavily Democratic big cities and in hostile countries around the world where occupancy has fallen off.” Trump proudly tweets that the hotels have been repositioned and rebranded as “penal resorts” and that the DACAs will love living there. He also announces the completion of the Border Wall, which has been secretly under construction since January using forced labor from all of the United States’ friends and allies– Honduras, Togo, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and political prisoners from Israel. The cost to the U.S. tax payer is described by newly appointed press secretary, Nancy Moore (wife of Roy Moore), as zero.

 

• September. Trump tweets that his policies have resulted in unemployment dropping to a “negative 10 percent,” which means that 110% percent of the American population willing and able to work are working in full time jobs.   The statistics are supplied by the new “Truth Agency,” created by the Trump Administration and criticized by Democrats as a “fake agency.” Trump tweets that this historically low unemployment is ” a beautiful, incredible success” and final proof that at long last he has made America truly great again. Elected and unelected rulers in Honduras, Togo, Guatemala, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Israel express their congratulations. 

 

• October.Trump unexpectedly resigns on the last day of the month. He has not been seen publicly for several weeks and tweets that since he has made America great again, there is nothing left to be done. He expresses confidence in his successor, Vice President Pence, who is sworn in at midnight. Trump immediately departs the capital of Mar-a-Lago on Air Force One with his family en route to Russia where he will reside in the new “Trump Palace” located next to the residence of Vladimir Putin.

 

• November. Pence becomes President. In a address to the nation he states that it will be almost impossible to follow someone so great, so good and so “Messianic” but that he is up to the job. He tweets, “I am not a lackey. I am not a lackey. I am not a lackey. And also I am not a lap dog.” Congressional elections are completed, and despite Russian intervention, Democrats win enough seats in both the House and the Senate to retake control of Congress.

 

• December-January. On New Year’s Eve fourteen #metoo women bring charges against Pence as a perpetual sex offender. Several days later he is forced to resign in disgrace, tweeting, “ I told you I was not a lackey.” The new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is sworn in as President. The new Congress repeals all the laws and regulations passed by Congress under Trump and votes to rejoin the UN. The capital moves back to Washington. Fake News reporters are released from prison. “Morning Joe” comes back on the air. In Russia Trump reveals his tax returns, tweeting that he has become the richest man on the planet. Putin is number two. The New York Times, now back in business for the first time since June, notes that that the tax returns also show that the year before he was elected, Trump did not even make the richest 1,000 list.

 

So it is on to 2019….The NBA team, Korean Hawks, starts the year in first place in the NBA. The Democratic-controlled Congress appointments a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to investigate how Trump made so much money during his  18 months as President. Democrats breathe a long sigh of relief. Republicans swear to oppose everything. Life goes on….

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On the way to the Metro this week I passed by three homeless people sitting on the sidewalk in front of the stores in the Cleveland Park shopping district with hands outstretched. When I arrived at the Metro, over a dozen fire, police and emergency vehicles were parked around the station. Two firemen emerged with an empty stretcher when the elevator door opened. When asked about what was happening, one of them responded, “Somebody jumped in front of a train.” Someone standing behind me grumbled, “Seems to happen every Christmas season. Someone is all the time jumping in front of a train. Why always at rush hour?”

I have since learned that suicide is not more common over the Christmas season though for many it seems so. (Spring is actually the preferred season for suicides.) What is true, however, is that for a lot of people this is a down time, not a happy one. It is a time of depression, not joy. This is attributed to a number of factors—“Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD “ is often cited since Christmas is close to the shortest day of the year with the least amount of light. SAD affects a lot of people including me. The holiday also tends to exacerbate loneliness and isolation for people who have no family or few friends or places to go and celebrate. I noted this week a large, hand-drawn sign on a McDonalds, “Open All Day Christmas.” For many a Big Mac will be their Christmas dinner. For others Christmas is a time of stress. There is too much activity and too much going on– buying presents, preparing food, just trying to make it through. Christmas is, as they say, a mixed bag.

This is especially so for people brought up in the Christian faith but who no longer feel part of any church or religious group, for whom the story of Christmas no longer resonates, and who themselves may be having a tough time in life—a divorce, loss of a spouse, poor health, broken relationships, a lost job. The list is long.

I count myself among the fortunate. Almost every year, Embry and I have been able to celebrate Christmas with the families of both of our children and being together (this year  at the home of our son, Andrew and our daughter-in-law, Karen,  in Maplewood, NJ) is both special and spiritual. Watching our four grandchildren ages 8-12 interact is by itself “worth the price of admission.” There is usually a Christmas pageant, carols, and various games and stories. So for us it is a blessing. But still I can’t help thinking about those who are having their Big Mac by themselves on Christmas Day.

And where exactly does Christianity fit into the picture? If there is one religious celebration that is more secular than sacred, this is it. But does a secular Christmas mean necessarily that it is not religious? Can Christmas actually be a sacred day for people who do not go to church or who do not call themselves Christians? Actually, I believe the answer is yes. In my advanced age, more and more I tend to see our experience here on this planet as a shared human experience. We humans are all born and we all die. We have a pretty short time allotted to us to make the best of the hand we have been dealt. We are all trying to make sense out of our lives, why we are here, and what it all means. We do not always admit this, and often these questions lurk under the surface, but I believe asking these questions is part of what it means to be human.

And this is where religion fits in. It is one way we humans try to connect with something mysterious and profound that we experience rarely but enough to let us know that it is real. Religion is what gives us a pathway for affirming that this planet and this vast universe around us are not the result of random chance and without meaning but are here for a purpose. We call this purpose and this force behind it the Divine or more common, “God.” There is, I believe, one Divine, one God. I also believe that no religion has an exclusive connection to the Devine. One destination. Many pathways.

One of these pathways is the Christian faith. What the Christmas story is all about is this: That God is not inaccessible and unreachable but is right under our noses. It is not about making money, being famous, or powerful. The Devine in the Christmas story is expressed in the form of a baby born to a poor, unmarried woman in the humblest of circumstances. It is about sacrificial suffering and about love and living a life for others. Perhaps most of all at the time of the Christmas season, it is about hope in a world where people throw themselves in front of trains, and eat a Big Mac alone on Christmas Day.

 

 

 

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Are the Dems on a roll? Alabama and Virginia are quite different–Alabama a hard core, deep red state and Virginia purple, trending blue– but the results show some common trends, which are all good news for Democrats. Here are my takeaways:

1. Yes, Trump is really bad, and a large majority of the country has pretty much figured it out. There is no question that a significant number of voters in both states (predominately women) cast their votes against what they see happening in the White House and in the Republican Party. The good news here is that people are realizing what a disaster the Republicans are creating. The word of caution is that registering a protest vote is not enough by itself to carry the Democrats to victory in 2018 or 2020. And it is also took a Roy Moore to move Alabama from red to (barely) blue. Democrats aren’t likely to get that lucky again.
2. Besides the I’ve-had-enough vote, there were four things that in my view made a big difference:

• In both states the Democrats ran a center-left candidate, without glamor or charisma, but with tangible decency. This I believe is really important in determining the kind of candidates that can win in purple and light red states and congressional districts.
• In both states—but especially Alabama– turnout from African Americans and other minorities made a huge difference. As many African Americans voted in 2017 in Alabama as they did in 2008 and 2012 when Obama was on the ballot. In Virginia they also played a big role. Voter turnout of minorities is important—especially in states and districts where the minority population is high. Democrats had a strong get-out-the-vote effort in Alabama targeting black voters, and it worked.
• We could well be entering what might be the political era of the woman. More women vote than men, and they are, frankly, more open minded, tolerant and repulsed by male chauvinism and sexual harassment (which unfortunately is not limited to Republicans). Many believe the #me too movement is ushering in a sea change. A huge percentage of women voted for Jones over Moore, including white women living in suburban neighborhoods that historically voted Republican. This also will be a factor in selecting candidates in 2018 and 2020. The number of women expressing an interest in running for office is skyrocketing.
• The other key voting group are the Millennials, people born between (roughly) 1980 and 2000. They are now the largest voting cohort in U.S. elections and lean Democratic. Again voter turnout of this Demographic group will be extremely important in 2018.

3. There has been much discussion over the revolt of the white working class in the 2016 presidential election. The results of the Virginia and Alabama elections suggest that the Democrats did not make any significant inroads with this voting block. In these two states, Trump’s hard core base seems to have stuck with the Republican candidate. What this shows is that the Democrats can win without this demographic group if the party nominates strong candidates not too far to the left, allowing Democrats to capture more of the huge suburban vote—especially moderate Republican woman voters and independents.

This does not mean that Democrats should write off the white working class vote . Democrats should have a message of reconciliation, job and wage growth and economic fairness and propose policies which benefit this group. The party does not have to and should not dumb down its message or pursue social policies which appeal more to them.

In summary, these two elections are reason for optimism for Democrats like me, but we have our work cut out for us. It is not clear how the tax act will fit into the picture, but I do not see how it can help the Republicans. The big takeaways from the two recent elections are strong, authentic candidates, not too far to the left, and voter turnout, voter turnout, and voter turnout.

 

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In just over three months I will turn 76. That is a fairly long time for a human life on this small, blue planet. I have been blessed by so many things—a strong marriage to a strong woman, a loving family and inspiring children, four extraordinary grandchildren, great friends, pretty good health, a fulfilling career, and never having been in a situation where I have had to worry about having enough money to get by. I have been affirmed and supported by others. In short, though I have had my ups and downs like all us humans and have made my share of mistakes, I am deeply grateful and have nothing on a personal level worthy of even a whimper.

Yet I am worried.

I am worried because I feel in my bones that we as a nation and as a planet are entering a perilous time. Sure, we have been through tough times before— a civil war, two world wars, the threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. Certainly we have a sordid history in the U.S. with slavery, Jim Crow, racial discrimination, and class and social inequities. Human suffering is as much a part of the human experience as is our living and breathing. Life has never been easy or fair.

But somehow the times we are in today seem different.

So here is what frightens me as we end 2017.

1. We have a President totally unfit to lead us through the challenging times facing us. Much has been written about him, and many know the picture—borderline illiterate, questionable intelligence, incessant TV watcher addicted to right wing talk shows, narcissist, dictator tendencies, unstable, and possibly mentally ill. His main obsession appears to be to erase everything that could be considered an Obama legacy. I believe that he is far more dangerous than we can even contemplate.
2. We are closer to a nuclear war right now than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we do not have John Kennedy at the helm. We are told that North Korea probably has around 50 nuclear weapons, and we learned this week that Kim Jong-un is well along in developing chemical and biological weapons. He falls into the category of a Stalin, Hitler or Mao; and if he is pushed against a wall, many experts believe he will use the weapons he has. If he thinks he is going to be destroyed, he will take a lot of others down with him. He has nothing to lose. And here we are talking millions of “others.”

There was a very interesting piece in Sunday’s Washington Post about how a nuclear war could start by accident such as a South Korean commercial airplane accidently drifting into North Korean airspace and mistaken for a U.S. bomber. It would not be the first time that a major war started by accident or false information. Think World War I and Iraq War 2.

3. The climate issue is a ticking, time bomb. The 2017 massive hurricanes and the California wild fires are just a taste of what is to come, we are told by experts. Just wait until we get a three foot rise in sea levels. There is some good news on this front as the world is waking up to this threat and beginning to take positive action. But not the U.S. Donald Trump and many of his advisors are climate change deniers and are rolling back the climate initiatives put in place under Obama.
4. Unrest continues throughout the planet. As I write this, there are uprisings in Palestine and a terrorist bombing in New York City. War continues in the Middle East. We have made progress fighting ISIS, but trouble still simmers.
5. Our country is more divided than at any time since the beginning of the Civil War. Virtually no major legislation passes on a bipartisan basis, and the two political parties agree on very little. You hear “man on the street” interviews bemoaning that both parties are equally to blame. Being a loyal Democrat and committed progressive, I disagree. But some would say that I am just another example of the problem.
6. Huge domestic issues face the U.S. We have decaying infrastructure. Public schools and public education are struggling. For many housing is unaffordable, and we are just about to see 13 million people lose health insurance. When the tax bill becomes law, we are likely to see the income disparities increase with the rich getting richer and the poor poorer. Racial inequities continue, and hardly a week goes by when you don’t read about a white cop shooting an unarmed black man—often a teenager. Confidence in public institutions is at an all time low, and major institutions like mainline Protestant churches are on the decline.

 

This is why I am fearful. (And you could probably add a number of other fearful things to the list.) I am not so fearful for myself as for my children and my grandchildren. Our generation is leaving them with a ton of challenges.

But I do not totally despair and to a certain extent I am hopeful. Younger people seem to get it and are more likely to address these issues better than my generation has done. And I keep reminding myself, we actually have made extraordinary progress on some issues—especially on issues related to sexuality. Embry and I attended a gay wedding last week and it seemed as routine and natural and joyful as any conventional wedding ever was. This would surely not have been the case a decade ago. The “Silence Breakers” and “#metoo” movement is a long overdue happening and could be a sea change in the U.S. and even world culture. Despite resistance from the Trump Administration and die-hards, U.S. culture is becoming more diverse and inclusive. And we did elect an African American President not too long ago, and he turned out to be one of our best presidents ever. Good people are on the front lines working on improving education, health care, affordable housing and are helping people in so many ways. 

On the whole we are a generous nation. Also our country is remarkably resilient. We continue to lead the world in technology and innovation.

The pendulum swings back and forth. We are in a dark time now. We will come out of it. I certainly hope and pray that that will be the case. But it won’t happen in a vacuum. Each of us has a responsibility to do what we can in our own way to make the world a safer and better place. The stakes have never been higher.

So this is my take on where we stand as we enter the season of peace and hope when we Christians celebrate the birth of Christ.

The future is very scary, but this is also a time for hope and for action. I thank God for all my blessings and pray for us humans and for our small at-risk planet.

 

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The following meeting occurred in a conference room in the U.S. Capitol on Monday, December 4. One of our reporters was there, disguised as a waiter, and here is his story.

By-invitation-only, a celebratory reception took place on Monday in the U.S. Capitol  where several dozen Republican members of Congress were present. Even though the conference committee has not come out with a bill to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the tax “reform” act, there was euphoria among those present, which included Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and others in leadership positions. Following congratulatory remarks and toasts to the President for what was described as his inspiring leadership and the fine moral example he is setting for the country, the world, and our nation’s children, the conversation focused on the tax reform victory and the next steps.

Here is a verbatim transcript secretly taken by our reporter:

 

Mr Ryan: Well we did it, Mitch, we showed ‘em. At last tax relief for those who contribute so much to our economy and have suffered so much under Obama.

Mr. McConnell: You are right, Paul. The Fake Press gives the one percenters a hard time, but let’s face it, were it not for them, we would not be the country we are today. They are the job creators. They make our country great. They pay so much in taxes, and it is a shame and disgrace that almost half the U.S. tax payers get off with paying little or nothing. This is a national scandal, and the bill, when it becomes law, will start to level that playing field.

Mr. Graham: And let’s be honest. If we could not deliver, our party would be toast. The Koch Brothers would be pulling out, and we would lose most of our big donors. We delivered for them, and the payoff to us will be beyond anything we have ever dreamed of. We should have so much more money than the Democrats, we will dominate the Congress  from now on. The Democrats won’t have a chance.

Cheers from those gathered.

Ms. Collins: You are right, gentlemen, but do you think the bill when it is reconciled will do much for the poor, the working class, and those less fortunate?

Mr. McConnell: Suzie, you just don’t get it, do you? Trump’s base will vote for him under any conditions. He could kill someone on Fifth Avenue like he said and they would not change. They love him. They love his tweets, and he is the darling of the Evangelical Christians. Many see him as the Second Jesus Christ. First, they are too dumb to know that they are being screwed, and, second, as long as Trump keeps fighting Muslims, immigrants, minorities and bleeding heart Democrats they will be just fine. As for the others? So what? In the end the poor, the working class and the less fortunate mean diddly.

Ms. Collins: Even if they lose their health care?

Mr. Ryan: Enough of that. Now that we have been victorious we must move on to our next agenda item—fiscal responsibility. As I have said all along throughout my entire career: the deficit is killing us and that the number one goal of the Republican Party, the party of prudence, is to get our house in financial order.

Mr. Corker: How can we claim to be the responsible party when we just added what is likely to be two trillion dollars to the deficit?

Mr. McConnell: Who let Corker into the room?

Mr Corker is forcefully removed by security guards.

Mr. Ryan: So I am proud to announce the plan that many of us have been working on in secret while the tax reform bill was being written. “The Fiscal Responsibility Act To Make America Fair Again.” Mitch, why don’t you introduce the committee report?

Mr. McConnell: We Republicans all agree that there should not be any deficits, and to prevent that from happening we are going to repeal virtually all the giveaway programs, which started in the New Deal and have been growing by leaps and bounds every time we get a Democrat in the White House. This will be like the tax reform we have just completed. Just like our beloved president and moral leader has said, it will be big and beautiful and incredible. In a word, we will phase out Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all forms of welfare, Housing Vouchers, food stamps, child heath care and virtually all other subsidies aimed at helping people who do not want to help themselves. These people tend to be lazy, have no ambition and frankly it is about time they have to be made to fend for themselves rather than beg for government handouts. It is about time that that they learn that being irresponsible has consequences.

Ms. Collins: That sounds cruel to me.

Mr. Ryan: Don’t worry, Suzie, we won’t pitch it that way. We won’t say anything bad about these pathetic, working stiffs who can’t make it on their own. The case we will make is that while we love everybody, we just can’t afford to keep paying out all this money and that we must maintain our legacy as the party of fiscal responsibility. We have to do it for the sake of the country. If we don’t get our financial house in order we will no longer be great as a country. The President we so love and respect so much has said this better than anyone—Make America Great Again!

Cheers throughout the room.

Mr. Ryan: This is not the time to go into details on how the phase out will work, but the basic idea is to replace virtually all government handout programs with individual savings accounts for health care, retirement, education, food and nutrition, you name it. The Democrats will be pitching Medicare-for-All. Our mantra will be 401Ks-for-all.

Mr. Flake: Do you think this will resonate with the middle class?

Mr. McConnell: Who let Flake in?

Mr. Flake is forcefully removed by security guards.

Mr. McCain: Certainly you guys can’t be serious.

Mr. Ryan: Not only are we serious, we are virtually guaranteed success. Remember who will have all the campaign money. We will, and we will use it wisely. With the Big Boys behind us even more than in the past, we will control Congress and the White House forever as far as I can tell.

Unidentified Senator from the back of the room: And if we need it, we will get all the extra help from the Russians!

Senator is forcefully removed, screaming “lock her up, lock her up.” Reception  is concluded with cheers and applause.

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Much has been made of the significance of the white working class vote in the 2016 presidential election. Since the New Deal the Democrats have been able to rely on this voting block—especially in the Industrial Midwest. Up to Election Day it still appeared that Hillary would carry their vote in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania as Obama and practically every other Democratic presidential candidate had done. The vote was close, but close is not a win; and though there are a whole lot of other reasons why Trump won, the failure to deliver this voting block is listed at or near the top by most pundits.

So Democrats are now dealing with what happened and why. How do we respond going forward? Do we write these folks off as a lost cause or do we try to change our message and our tactics to reclaim them and bring them back into the fold? My belief is that we lost the traditional-Democratic, white, working class vote for a lot of understandable reasons, that it would be wrong to write them off, and that we can get them back. Here is my take on what happened and what we can do about it.

Who Are “Those People”?

The white, working class population is actually quite diverse depending on what part of the country they are from, their religion, what kind of jobs and education they have, and how they feel about the issue of race. I wrote a book called Hard Living on Clay Street , published in 1973 and still in print today, (with a new 2017 edition with an endorsement by Joan Williams on the cover, “Want to understand why Trump won the election? Read this book.”). The blue collar families I wrote about were largely rural migrants to the Washington, DC, area, fiercely independent, and somewhat alienated from main stream politics. They struggled with making ends meet, alcohol addiction, various health issues, personal relationships, and simply getting by in an increasingly complex world. They were also proud, brutally honest and aware that the deck was pretty much stacked against them. Though they lacked much, if any, education beyond high school, they were smart, had good survival skills, and were remarkably resilient. Though race was clearly an issue, I would not call them racists per se. As the saying goes, they were nuanced.

There is no doubt in my mind that almost everyone we got to know well, if they were still alive today (and no one is), would have voted for Trump in 2016. The reason is simple. They would be sending a message that they were not happy with how their lives were going and knew the hand they had been dealt was weak. The Clay Street people worked mainly in construction and service jobs, but the life struggles they encountered were not all that different from what the workers in the Industrial Midwest and in a lot of other places are encountering now. Vast numbers of traditional Democratic, blue collar voters have lost stable, good paying factory jobs. Besides losing jobs that provided security, many lost their homes in the meltdown of the Great Recession. Some lost their health insurance and other benefits like pensions. The replacement jobs they have now, if they are lucky, pay half of what they were getting before with few of the benefits. The stress associated with seeing your life savings disappear and your life style affected so profoundly took its toll on many, resulting in family dissolution, domestic violence and declining physical health. These factors contributed to the opioid epidemic and the needless loss of lives of loved ones. No wonder they were and are angry! What would you expect? This anger, plus the fact that labor unions no longer seem to be able to do anything to help level the playing field, are more than enough reasons for people in their situation to try something new and different—in this case, to vote for an anti establishment, tough guy who promised to turn Washington upside down and bring back the imagined, good old days when America was great. A whole bunch of these people who voted for Trump in the general election voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and for Bernie in the primaries. In other words in 2016 it was a stick-it-to-the-establishment statement and faith in a Hail Mary pass that a maverick outsider could really make a difference.

To his credit, Trump sensed the mood and milked it for all that it was worth. His mantra was jobs, jobs, jobs. The message was also tinged with racism and nativism. He is still doing this today as he tweets red meat to his base. We Democrats missed it. We took the normally reliable, white, working class vote for granted. We continued playing the identity politics game, focusing on many important issues such as the environment, immigration reform, civil rights, women’s rights, the right to choose, LGBT issues, and responsible foreign policy. But these issues did not resonate with the guy who lost his good paying job three years ago, lost his house to foreclosure, his wife to divorce, and his son to an opioid overdose.

In addition we had a Democratic candidate who was the personification of the establishment. While she had the right ideas appealing to many traditional Democratic voters like me and had carefully thought-out policy recommendations, she did not appeal to the people who felt they were being left behind and being pushed aside in favor of other racial and ethnic groups and immigrants. As far as many blue collar voters were concerned, under Hillary it would be more of the same. That was a non-starter.

So that is how we got Trump.

But keep this in mind: Hillary still won the general popular vote. And while she lost the vote in the key industrial states, it was very close. And we are learning more almost daily of Russian meddling in critical precincts. Maybe if we had put more time and money into these states and focused our message on what was motivating the traditional, Democratic-leaning, white, working class voter, the outcome would have been different. But that is water under the bridge.

Where To Go From Here

There are five things we Democrats need to do to recapture the white, working class vote that we failed to get in the 2016 election. We must change our attitude and how we look at “those people.” We must offer a message of hope and credibly demonstrate that we can deliver on it. We must vigorously and unrelentingly expose the sham and bait-and-switch policies of the Trump Administration. We must put money into the effort and boots on the ground in a grass roots effort to get our message across and get folks to the polls. And, finally, at every level we must recruit and select good, electable candidates that have empathy, vision, and charisma.

1. Changing our attitude. Sadly, the attitude that many of my highly educated, professional friends have toward the Trump base is not all that different from the racist attitudes that some of my friends had toward blacks where I grew up in the South. I have heard the term “white trash” used more than once to describe the Trump base. We tend to assume they are all racists, “low life,” stupid, and mean people. “Deplorables” is one word that will live on in the history books even though when taken in context it was not anti working class. We Democrats tend throw up our hands in disgust, wondering how “those people” could be so wrong-headed and naïve as to vote for a scoundrel, narcissist billionaire. Our tendency is to write them all off as hopeless.

Certainly it is true that there are racists and mean people in Trump’s working class base just as there are racists and mean people at all levels of society. There are also many in the white, working class who would never vote for a Democrat under any circumstances. But to lump everyone in the Trump base into the hopeless category as many of us Democrats have tended to do is a huge mistake. In my experience on Clay Street, the people whom I got to know had many of the rough edges and mannerisms of “those people.” They used the N word. They distrusted government at all levels. They distrusted the church and most institutions. They were especially wary of elites, who “thought they were better than everyone else.” Some felt like outlaws—and even relished the term as a badge of honor.

But at the same time they worked along side black people, many of whom they considered friends. They were kind to family, friends and neighbors and extraordinarily welcoming and generous to me and Embry—who were outsiders and “egg heads working on some dumb government study.” They faced harder times just getting by than I could ever have imagined. Yet they stoically took their knocks and hung on to a personal sense of self worth and pride. In a word, they were real people just like you and me. The message to Democrats and “the elite”: treat them with respect that they deserve.

Could these people, who surely would have been Trump voters in 2016, vote for a Democrat for governor or senator in 2018 or a president in 2020? Absolutely. They do not have strong party loyalties. They are not hard line conservatives or right-wingers or belong to groups who never vote Democratic. They are not hard-core racists. They will vote for candidates who speak to them, who take them seriously, and whom they can relate to.

2. Getting the message right. There are a host of important issues in politics today. Hillary’s playbook included all of them and her positions were solid. Democrats do not have to back off from supporting civil rights, immigration reform, the right to choose, saving the environment, affordable health care, and better income equality. We do not have to make compromises regarding what we believe. What we have to do is frame those messages in a way that the benefits are seen as universal benefits to all Americans, not just a privileged few or a special interest group. We must present a compelling message of hope, and we have to show how this message will benefit the white, working class. We have to understand what issues concern them and what they care about. I assume that focus groups must be going on right now in all the key, blue collar areas where we were out performed. If this is not happening, shame on us.

 3. Exposing Trump for what he is. It is true that if the only unifying thing we Democrats have in common is our hate for Trump and all he stands for, that is not enough to win people over who voted for Trump. That does not mean that we should stand by and ignore the disaster that is unfolding before our eyes. At the same time that we are offering a positive message of hope, we cannot let people forget just how bad this bait-and-switch president is. This is especially important in reaching the blue collar voter. They have been duped, sold a bill of goods, taken to the cleaners. Massive tax breaks for the superrich, drastic cuts to the social and health care safety nets, and opposing raising the minimum wage all hurt the white working class. Trump has drunk the extremist, libertarian cool-aid on practically every issue. He is a sham. We cannot let up on aggressively broadcasting this message—especially to those blue collar voters who were expecting the higher paying jobs to miraculously reappear.

4. Putting boots on the ground. The Democrats just didn’t lose the presidency to somebody many believe is the worst person for the job in U.S. history. For the past decade we have been losing at all levels of government. In short the Republicans have outfoxed us. When Obama was elected in 2008, they panicked and set in place a strategy to “take the country back” by spending money big time and working at the grass roots level to get their candidates elected—most of them hard-liners. Funded mostly by billionaire libertarians like the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife, John Olin and the Bradley bothers—and enabled by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United— they have essentially stolen our democracy. It is time to take it back. (Read Dark Money by Jane Mayer.) Democrats need to think and act locally to get people involved and excited about fighting the Trump agenda and redirecting the country. This is especially important in the traditional, Democratic-leaning, blue collar, voting districts. We need organizers and we need help from labor unions, from college students, young people and anywhere we can get it. We need boots on the ground.

 

5. Finding the right candidates and getting them elected. The blue collar families I got to know on Clay Street were drawn much more to the personalities of people running for office than in policy positions or voting records. The biggest turnoff for people like the ones I knew on Clay Street was elitism. They seemed to have an uncanny sense about whether a person was on their side or looking down on them from a pedestal. It is true that Trump got away with this. That he never had anything to do with government and that he was so outrageous and angry probably helped. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent –even to some in his base–that he is a fraud. That will help. But we need viable alternatives. We need to find electable candidates who are willing to run at all levels, who genuinely care about the white working class, who are approachable and empathetic, and who are fighters for what is right and what they believe in.

 

The good news is that the Democratic Party seems to have figured most of this out. The leadership is working on a new message focusing on jobs and the economy, seems to understand that grass roots organizing is now a priority and already has solicited a large number of good candidates at various levels. My hope is that we will also listen better to what the white, working class is telling us and address their needs better than we have done in the past.

 

Who knows what the future will hold? We do not yet know how the Mueller investigation will turn out or what will happen with the various international crises underway.

 

What we do know is that the country is in crisis. The only way out of it is to change the cast of characters who got us into this mess and who are unable to get us out of it. This will take time, money and effort. Using “dark money” and clever tactics, Republicans got the ship of state to change direction. The result has been a disaster. Democrats must now rise to the challenge and beat them at their own game of organizing at the grass roots level. Regaining the trust of the white, working class is part of the answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Several months ago Embry suggested that instead of traveling on our own like we did in 2015 on our trip-around-the-world-without flying or our 2016 road trip out West and back in 2016, we should do an easy, on-the-bus tour with a group. She had identified a good one, a Roads Scholar tour of Japan. We would be part of a group of seniors our age, which would virtually guarantee a pleasant, low stress trip. It sounded like a good idea to me as I envisioned a bunch of gray and white haired people some with canes and walkers. Even with my bum knee I would surely stand out as a paragon of physical fitness.

This is a story of how this trip began and what it was like.

The first leg of the journey—a flight to San Francisco (where we would spend four days staying with old friends) got off to a shaky start and was a reminder why we elected to avoid airplanes when making our around-the-world journey in 2015. Arriving at 8:30 AM at Dulles Airport in plenty of time to check in at Virgin America Airlines (the cheapest ticket Embry could find), we were informed that our flight had been cancelled. When Embry complained that we had not been notified in advance, the attendant, a 40-something man with a scowl, mumbled that it had just been cancelled a couple of minutes ago for reasons unknown. He said he could rebook us on a Virgin America Flight from Reagan National Airport leaving at 6:00 PM and arriving at San Francisco at midnight.

Not acceptable, we replied.

What transpired over the next two hours was a seemingly futile effort to rebook on another airline. The scowling Virgin America guy informed us that it was Travelosity’s responsibility since Embry purchased the tickets from their website. The encounter with Virgin America ended with the attendant snarling, “Don’t raise your voice at me, Lady!” We gave up and retreated to the quietest corner we could find to begin the ordeal with Travelosity. I checked the time. It was 9:05. At 10:30 she was still on the phone.

The phone call between Embry and Virgin started like this from Embry’s end:

“No, leaving from National Airport at six and arriving in San Francisco at midnight will not work. We already told Virgin America that.

What do you mean that is the only option and take it or leave it?

No, it is not our responsibility, it is yours. You sold us the tickets.”

This dialogue continued for about 30 minutes with no apparent progress. When Embry realized her cell phone was running out of power, we rushed to find a electrical outlet for the charger. I spotted an outlet near a line of unused wheel chairs. I rolled two wheelchairs over to the electrical outlet so we could sit down and continue the ordeal. Embry directed me to try to find some coffee and something to eat, which I did, returning a half hour later with two cups of coffee and two banana nut muffins. By this time Embry was on her second supervisor, but her tone was less exasperated. Miraculously Travelosity had been able to book us on a noon American flight from Dulles with a change of airplanes in Charlotte. We breathed a sigh of relief.

We immediately rushed over to the American Airline counter and after waiting in line for a few minutes, began the procedure of getting our boarding passes.

After spending several minutes on her computer, a mid 30s, frazzled woman announced with authority, “You’re not going on this flight. There is no record of it in our system. You will have to start over with Travelosity. Besides American does not do business with Virgin America. There is nothing we can do for you. Period. Now I have other customers to deal with…”

When we refused to budge, she frowned, excused herself and returned with her supervisor who I suppose she assumed would support her case and get rid of us. It took the supervisor about two minutes to determine that our reservations actually were in the system and that we should be issued boarding passes. After protesting, the attendant reluctantly printed out the boarding passes, never once hinting at an apology. We took them and charged off to the security line.

We had an hour to make the connection in Charlotte and were a bit dismayed when the pilot came on to announce that because of an equipment issue the takeoff would be delayed indefinitely. False alarm: whatever the problem was got fixed in about 20 minutes, and we were on our way. We made it to Charlotte with time to spare, but when our time came to board, we were told to go back to our seats because the boarding process was on hold. The attendant announced they were in the process of trying to find someone to fly the airplane.

I imagined a bunch of harried American Airline executives running up and down the terminal frantically asking, “Can you fly a plane? Can you fly a plane?”

In about an hour, a plump, balding middle age guy wearing an American Airline uniform pushed his way through the anxious passengers bunched around the counter and started signing a bunch of papers. Someone in the line commented, “Well, it looks like they found a pilot. Hope he knows what he is doing.”

Boarding resumed and we were on our way, arriving in San Francisco at 7:35, almost eight hours behind the original arrival time. Thus began the first leg of the journey to Japan.

I wondered at the time if this ominous start might be a harbinger of things to come.

Leg 2

The flight from San Francisco to Tokyo was uneventful and about as stress free as you can get since Embry had used frequent flyer miles to upgrade to business class on ANA, a top Japanese airline. The only glitch was that I boarded the plane healthy; and when we landed 10 hours later, I felt like the walking dead—fever, sore throat, runny nose and a hacking cough. I don’t know how I looked, but the customs attendant at the Tokyo immigration gate took one look at me, excused herself and returned wearing a surgical mask. I would just have to take it a step at a time and deal with it as best I could. Thank heavens, I said to myself, I can just sit on the bus, watch the views and take in a temple or shrine when I feel like it.

The other thing I would have to deal with was my knee. For over a year I have been suffering though a cartilage issue but have not had surgery because apparently Kaiser Permanente has some sort of protocol that puts off any surgery until the pain is unbearable . “Yep, “ the orthopedic doctor said upon looking at the X-rays, you need a knee replacement but you aren’t going to get one here!” I shrugged my shoulders, mildly protested and eventually tried a stem cell treatment from another provider, which alas does not seem to be producing miraculous results. Bottom line: walking would be limited anyway; so I figured, no problem.

The knee issue moved to the front burner during our three day stay in San Francisco when I noticed that it was extremely swollen and to be safe probably should be drained before leaving the U.S. I went to the closest Kaiser outpatient office and persuaded them to see me without an appointment. The doctor—a sports medicine physician—knew his stuff, performed the procedure and told me I should badger Kaiser in DC about the knee replacement. The stem cell stuff he said was a big fraud. His final words were, “You are good to go, no walking or knee exercise for at least five days and go easy for ten.

“No problem,” I replied, “This is a geezer tour. There will be people with walkers and wheelchairs. I am planning to mostly just sit in the bus anyway.”

Our plane to Tokyo landed on time and waiting to get our bags we bumped to our traveling companions from Seattle, Rick (Embry’s first cousin) and his wife, Karen. We had traveled with them to India, Southeast Asia and sailed with them in Tahiti and they are almost like brothers and sisters. Also joining us would be Rick’s sister, Meimei, and her husband, Neil, from outside San Francisco. Suffering from jet lag and lack of sleep, we staggered together to find the rendezvous point where we would meet our fellow travelers, hop on the bus, and be whisked to our hotel. I could not wait to collapse in a soft bed.

We were soon to experience our first surprise.

Leg 3

Tokyo is a city of some 38 million people, the largest in the world. You can imagine the size of the airport—a vast terminal, with masses of people, mainly Asians, scurrying about in every direction. All we knew was that we were to meet our Road Scholar group at 4:oo pm in Terminal 1, South Wing, near the information center. Getting through customs took a bit longer than expected so when we finally dragged ourselves to the South Wing and spotted the information center, we were about five minutes late. I figured it would not be hard to find a group of 20 or so American old folks standing around in a fog after spending 12 hours on a plane. By this time my cold was in full force and it was about all I could do to keep standing. All I could think about was the soft bed.

Where were they? Thousands of people were running this way and that but no herd of old codgers.

We wandered over to the information booth and asked if they had seen any Americans like us hanging around, and the attendant replied that there had been a group there a few minutes ago. Embry had a cell phone number to call, dug into her backpack to find her phone and got through to the person who was our leader. After a short conversation she hung up with a shocked expression on her face and reported back that since we were late, we were on our own. The tour leader said it would be easy to get to our hotel, just take the number 4 train to Tokyo.

“That’s it?” I exclaimed, “They leave us here because we are five minutes late and the only advice is to take a number 4 train? You have got to be kidding!”

Rick and Karen were as baffled as me.

You can picture the situation. All four of us were disoriented and exhausted. Due to my cold, I now had one foot in the grave. It was 4:30 in the afternoon—the beginning of the evening rush hour in the world’s largest and most congested city, and we had no idea where the number 4 train was or the address of our hotel. We were lugging huge suitcases weighing what seemed like thousands of pounds each. Furthermore I was under strict orders from my doctor to avoid any strenuous walking for a week. Trying to process all this I felt a panic attack coming on.

Taking it all in stride Embry scurried off and returned a few minutes later with good news: She had directions to where to catch the Number 4 train and it was not that far away. Furthermore she had even purchased the tickets.

So began our introduction to Japan.

Actually finding the location for the Number 4 train turned out to be somewhat harder than we were led to believe—with a few failed attempts to find the right turnstile– and it required walking underground, hobbling in my case– for something like a half mile, but it could have been much worse. We finally made it to the station area and managed to board the train around five o’clock. Because the train originated at the airport we were able to find seats and a place to store the baggage. I collapsed in my seat contemplating our next move, finding the hotel.

We were told the ride into the center of the city would be about an hour and that we should hop off at the second stop, the main station, called “JR.” We did have the name of the hotel, but no address. But we had a small map showing the hotel to be only a couple of blocks from the station. None of the streets was named on the map; but even if they had been, we would not have been able to figure out the Japanese writing. I figured we would exit the station and try to find someone who could speak English. Since the hotel was so close, they would probably know where it was.

The doors opened and we found ourselves in the middle of the world’s largest beehive. We were in Tokyo’s largest train station where the trains and subways all come together. This was the peak of rush hour. I have never seen so many people walking so fast in so many directions in such a vast space. Combine Penn

Station and Grand Central in New York City and you still would not be close.

For a brief moment we stood silently marveling at what was going on around us, wondering which way to go. Just getting out of this place was going to be a challenge. We aimlessly took the path of least resistance allowing the flow of people to push us along to a larger space where there was room to pause and try to get our bearings. Standing in the middle of the gigantic room and puzzling over the map with skimpy information, we must have looked pretty pathetic; and it was not long before a police officer tapped me on the shoulder and in pretty good English asked how he could help. I showed him the map, and he kindly pointed us in the direction of the North Exit. Only then did I begin to realize how big the station was. The North Exit had to be close to a mile away. We set off with renewed determination and a half hour later managed to stumble out onto the street level where we found even more people charging in every which direction. Rolling the suitcases along the crowded sidewalks was close to impossible, but we had no choice.

We had to be close to the hotel, but where was it? Certainly someone must know about it. So we began stopping people, asking if they spoke English—not that many did—and if they knew where the hotel was. The response was always the same. The helpers scrutinized the map, looked around at the crowded streets and sidewalks and shrugged their shoulders. Finally a young woman took a special interest in us and after admitting defeat in finding the hotel, had the brilliant idea of calling the telephone number on our information packet. Two minutes later a young man wearing a hotel uniform appeared and led us to our destination. It was only a few hundred feet away, and we must have passed by it several times. The sign out front was in both English and Japanese but was tiny and easy to miss. The hotel was also quite small, under 100 rooms. My question at the time was how could the Road Scholar people possibly think it would be easy for us to get from the airport to the hotel on our own.

The hotel was modern and chic with a restaurant and bar. The room, however, was on the small side with barely enough room to squeeze between two twin beds. In fact I believe it was the smallest hotel room I have ever stayed in. I immediately collapsed into one of the beds, where I would remain for another 24 hours in a desperate attempt to avert a total physical meltdown as Embry hurried off to the orientation session followed by a welcome dinner. When she returned a few hours later, I managed to wake up enough to hear her describe our group of 19 senior travelers as relatively young, spirited and very experienced in international travel.

The full day of rest for me was what I needed to get me more or less back on my feet, and I was able to join the group on the second day for our bus tour of Tokyo—except for one small detail. There was no bus, and this was no get-on-the-bus-tour. This was a walking and public transportation tour, described in the Road Scholar promotional materials, which we had failed to read, as “strenuous,” averaging about 3.5 miles a day on foot. The name of the company running the tour was “Walk Japan.” How did we miss this? Embry later confessed that since it was a tour for a bunch of old folks, she figured it had to be easy.

Now there were times not that long ago when I would have welcomed this kind of adventure. For 25 years I was a dedicated runner and for another 25 years a serious power-walker, logging in between 15 and 20 miles a week. But for the past two years it has been a different story with my bad knee causing me to cut out all serious walking and switching to lap swimming. How was I going to manage? And the words of the Kaiser doctor in San Francisco were fresh in my mind: “Stay off the knee for at least a week.”

Oh ,well, I thought, how much damage can I do to the knee anyway? Maybe at least I will qualify for a knee replacement when we get home.

So at eight in the morning I was standing with our group still coughing, sniffling, and a bit dreary eyed as we began Day 2 in Tokyo. Having gone on Day 1, Embry had alerted me that it might be a bit of a challenge.

We had two somewhat unique guides. The leader was a 30-something Japanese woman who actually had been born in the U.S. but raised in Japan. She returned to the U.S. for college (SUNY Buffalo) and masters in Environmental Policy (Duke) and spoke totally fluent English. The “color commentator” was a 72-year-old, former Catholic priest (now married with adult children) with a bushy mustache from the Midwest who had worked and lived in Japan for over a dozen years serving in the Catholic Church in Kyoto and later working in business in Tokyo. As far as I could tell he was as good speaking Japanese as his tour partner was speaking English.

Off we went.

The first leg involved negotiating the Tokyo subway system en route to the Tokyo fish market. This procedure involved herding 19 old folks on and off several trains at the height of the morning rush hour. It also involved charging up and down several steep staircases. Our leader carried a yellow flower and led the charge. Her partner was the sweeper. How they kept us all together involved considerable skill and focus. Naturally I was last as I hobbled along with my walking sticks. The sweeper was close behind barking out, “Stay to the left, faster, faster, keep up, keep up, quick and the dead. Quick and the dead.” I was probably the only one on the tour who understood the meaning of the ‘Quick and the dead,” which was taken from an old English translation of the Apostles Creed “[Jesus] will come again to judge the quick and the dead.” Put it this way: it put the fear of God in you. The very thought of being left behind in the Tokyo subway was enough to keep me going at all costs.

We emerged from several subway stations to see a few shrines, temples and a fish market at various locations, but frankly all I can remember is the white tile in the subway stations, the packed trains and endless staircases. At one point I thought I had seen a mirage—an escalator. But it was not a mirage. It was real and directly in front of us. Our leader charged up the staircase next to the escalator, leading about half of our group. I stared at them in disbelief and stumbled toward the escalator with a few other stragglers, saying a prayer of thanksgiving and making a mental note of the physical conditioning of certain members of the tour.

So the question running through my mind in the middle of the second day when I hailed a cab to return to the hotel and left the tour group so they could scale more stairways and enter more tunnels was this: how am going to survive two weeks of this. Of course, this was hardly our first trip abroad as anyone knows who has followed my blog on the trip-around-the-world-without-flying in 2015 and the road trip out West in 2016. Between the two of us we have visited or worked in something like 50 countries, many of them developing nations. We have done harder trips than this, I kept telling myself. But still….

Subsequent Legs

It is true that we are blessed that the human mind has the capacity to downplay the painful moments in life and remember the good ones. Embry pointed this out, observing that were it not for this fact, no woman would ever have a second child.

As I reflect on the Japan adventure a month later, I have to admit that all things considered, it was a good trip. The Tokyo ordeal was by far the most challenging and only lasted two days. On the third day we departed on the bullet train to a tiny village in the mountains where we spent two days in a delightful, traditional Japanese inn with an onsen—the name for the traditional, communal hot bath. By this time Embry had come down with my cold, but I was on the mend, and within a week we were both almost back to normal. My knee situation was not great but was manageable. I am sure the cortisone injection I received in San Francisco helped a great deal. The hiking sticks I brought with me also made a difference.

The tour took us to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, several rural villages, and ended at Fukuoka. We stayed an extra two days so Embry could give a lecture on the U.S. health care system at Kumamoto University. One unusual aspect of the tour protocol was that we were not allowed to bring our large suitcases with us because since Japanese trains pause only for a minute or so at each stop, it would be impossible to get 21 people with big suitcases off the train before the doors closed. The solution was to send via the Japanese equivalent of UPS the big suitcases to the stop after the immediate next stop and take what we needed with us for the next day in a backpack. That actually seemed to work pretty well and eliminated the ordeal of trying to lift a 50-pound suitcase up to an overhead storage rack.

Here are the highlights:

• The beauty of Japan. Embry and I have been to a lot of countries and would describe Japan at or near the top in terms of beauty. I had spent an entire summer in Japan in 1962 traveling with American students and working on a farm in the Japanese Alps. I remember from that experience the beauty of the towering mountains, the sparkling sea and the quaint, small villages. Some 55 years later, the beauty remains. Just about every square foot of space that is flat is occupied by a road or building or rice patty. The cities are big—especially Tokyo—and congested; but they are pristine compared to ours. The only trash I spotted on the streets or sidewalks was one short piece of thread and a scrap of paper. I saw only one small patch of graffiti, which was on a building scheduled to be demolished. Nothing compares to our low income or working class neighborhoods.

 

• The politeness and efficiency of Japanese culture. What is it about these Japanese? The bow to each other all the time. They speak softly. They always take off their shoes when entering a private residence or a religious building. They dress conservatively. They are friendly to tourists and are all the time apologizing. The cab drivers will not accept tips nor will anyone else. It is considered dishonorable. The prices are what they say they are with no add-on for sales taxes. No one asks for a handout. No one tries to sell you anything. Baths (and fancy toilets) are a big thing, and you get the idea that they are the cleanest people on earth. Subways run on time. Trains run on time. Buses run on time. Drivers always stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and people quietly line up to get on trains. Courtesy prevails. What is wrong with them? Don’t they understand that life is a conflict and the law of the survival of the fittest prevails?

And where are all the fat people? We surely did not see many. And why do they seem to walk everywhere?And guns? There were a total of six gun deaths in 2016 in Japan compared to over 35,000 in the U.S. and they make it almost impossible to own a gun. Don’t they understand freedom. Healthcare is universal and affordable. Literacy is among the highest in the world. They live longer than any other people on the planet. The list could go on.

One of the nagging questions is given the kind and gentle culture we experienced in Japan, how could they have done the awful things they did in World War II in Nanking, Manchuria, Pearl Harbor and other places. And why are they so hostile to allowing immigration? The country is probably the most homogenous in the world. While welcoming tourists and visitors, the Japanese have the reputation of not accepting foreigners as part of Japanese society. At times some in Japan have described themselves as a master race.

So perhaps the country is not near-perfect after all and has a dark underside. They too are human and have made their share of mistakes. Much of their past history has involved conflict, and the warrior class of Samurais ruled the country for many years. Women are still far from equal with men. Their leaders have been as bad at times as some of ours. There is income and wage disparity in Japan though not to the extent as in the U.S. In other words, they have issues as has every country.

The take-home for me is that the main thing that Japan can teach the shrinking world that we live in is how to adapt to living in very limited space. Our small planet is getting smaller and the frontier spirit that dominated the U.S. and other countries no longer makes sense or is appropriate. Perhaps being polite, courteous, orderly and honoring others is one way to make the best of living together on a small ship.

 

• Japanese religion. When I was in Japan in 1962 working on an “experimental” dairy farm founded by an evangelical Episcopalian—I know, this sounds like an oxymoron– I was led to believe that the Japanese did not really have much of a religion and that was why it was so important to bring them into the Christian faith. Since our tour guide historian was once a priest in the Catholic Church, he tended to comment a lot on the Japanese religion and went to some length to describe Shintoism and Buddhism as valid expressions of religious beliefs and practice. Many of the fundamental values of all major religions are similar—the belief in kindness, humility, fairness and the awareness that there are mysterious, unseen powers that determine meaning and purpose for our short life on the Planet Earth. According to our guide the biggest difference between Asian religions and Western religions is that in Japan the emphasis is on “practicing” religion rather than adherence to a strict set of beliefs or creeds. In the West, what you believe tends to be more important than what you do or how you behave. He said more than once that if you are looking for theology in the Japanese religions, you won’t find it. In other words the approach in Japan is much looser, and the Japanese tend to “practice” both Shintoism (where they often marry) and Buddhism (where their funerals more frequently occur) and to visit and pray at both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. They do not see this as a problem or being inconsistent.

 When I was a visitor to Japan in 1962, having just completed my sophomore year at Davidson College, I saw this religious fickleness as a weakness. Now in my 76^th year, I think they are on to something.

The impressive group of geezer travelers. Of the 19 participants, six of us were “The Cousins,” and being with Embry’s first cousins and their spouses was special for us. It was our third major trip to Asia together, and at our advanced age you always ask the question in the back of your mind whether or not it will be the last. We had a great time together.

 Not having read the fine print about the tour, my idea beforehand as to who the other travelers would be could not have been farther from the truth. There were no walkers, canes or wheel chairs, and there were always 7 or 8 people who stormed the steep stairs when given the option of riding on an escalator. I suspect that each of them had read the fine print, and the strenuous nature of the trip is what appealed to them. One couple, like us, had even done an around-the-world-without flying adventure and made the entire voyage in five months on a tramp steamer, leaving the ship only for a day or two when it was in port. Most were from California and Washington State, and they all had impressive careers and were seasoned travelers. I never heard anyone complain about anything—except, of course, Donald Trump.

When it was time to say good bye at the end of the trip, it reminded me a bit of summer camp. We felt like we had made lifelong friends—which, of course, means something for us now very different from what it meant when we were in summer camp. We were sad to say good-bye.

• The seasoned guides. Where are you going to find a Japanese who speaks fluent English matched with an American who speaks fluent Japanese? That is what we had on this trip, and besides that, what made them special was their knowledge of Japan, their organization and communication skills, sense of humor and enthusiasm. Most important they cared for us tour members. I was the straggler in the group, hobbling along as best as I could, and despite the “quick and the dead” admonitions from time to time was never made to feel that I ruined the trip for others. The guides used a new high tech blue tooth communication device to provide commentary along the way, and at times I thought that when the ex priest talked he sounded exactly like Garrison Keeler.

 

 The special moments. There were many:

•  Japanese Inns. We stayed in two ryokyns for two night each. Do not go to Japan without staying in one and going to the onsen, the hot spring bath. Also the traditional food served there is fabulous and plentiful. Standard dress is a yukata (colorful bathrobe) for guests at all meals.
• Dancing with the ladies. We stopped once mid day in a tiny village surrounded by rice patties. Towering mountains were on all sides. A dozen or so local, farming ladies prepared a traditional Japanese feast with something like 20 dishes for each person. After the meal the ladies danced a traditional folk dance and invited us to join in, which most did. We then spent almost an hour seated in a big circle with everyone introducing themselves and answering questions.
• Tea ceremony. Another special Japanese tradition. This one was performed for us in a tiny tea house by a Swiss expat married to a Japanese woman. A good tea ceremony can take hours and you won’t find anything like it outside of Japan.
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Someone should make Donald Trump visit these cities before he blows North Korea off the map as he has been threatening. The devastation is indescribable. Could we have blown up at bomb in the ocean close enough for people to see? Did we have to drop a second bomb in Nagasaki only three days after the first? The cities have completely rebuilt and are quite beautiful, but the memories remain and they should. The survival of the planet depends on it.
• The shrines and temples. We saw a whole bunch of these all over the country. My favorites were the Zen temples with the mystical rock gardens and the Shinto Gate situated in the ocean near a shrine in a fishing village near Nagasaki.
• The food. Lots of fresh fish, sushi and sashimi and a lot of things that you have no idea what they are. But most are tasty and are healthy, perhaps a reason why most Japanese are thin. We ate a whole lot but avoided putting on a bunch of pounds.
•  Embry’s lecture. Embry had been invited by a professor at a major Japanese university to give a lecture about the American health care system. She talked to a lecture hall full of Japanese students at Kumamoto University and others from various developing countries like Egypt and Bangladesh. She did a great job and was warmly received. At the time she was not sure if the ACA would survive or not. Several people asked why Americans do not have universal health care and why the cost of care is three times per person in the U.S. compared to what it is in Japan. Embry’s answer was essentially this: all is not perfect in the U.S. and there is much we can learn from Japan.
• The challenge of seeing a country in a different way. Ok, I was expecting an easy hop on/hop off the bus tour and instead got a strenuous walking/public transportation tour. Though not easy, there is something to be said for seeing a country more like the people who live there. Admittedly you are still a tourist but taking buses and trains and doing a lot of walking gives you a feel for the country you usually do not get on a tour bus.

 

Given my knee condition, if we had read the fine print ahead of time, we probably would have passed on this tour. I am glad we missed reading it. It turned out to be a fabulous trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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