Bill Mayers

COLUMN: A Confederate Yankee

Have a cookie and behave yourself, Donald

For several days, the house was filled with astronomically delightful odors.

Peeled, cored and chopped spies, sugar, cinnamon and cloves simmering in the crock-pot overnight produced 27 pints of apple butter, most of which goes as gifts throughout the year.

For a couple years, it amounted to 40 pints at a time, but grandpa has had to slow down a bit.

Then grandma Carol got into the cookie-baking mode, and for days the scents remained. Dozens of a variety of cookies, all packaged up and ready for delivery or the big freezer in the garage. I mean, three half-sheet pans at a time, keeping that oven going overtime. And in between all the apple butter and the cookies, pans of carrot cake for the Legion dinners and even one for the Scouts down to the Post.

Grandpa didn’t even shave for days on end.

Grandpa. A title that has eluded me for ages, at least in my mind. Kids,   grandkids and now great-grandkids. T’other day it dawned on me: Tet ’68 was 50 years ago. What the blazes?

Memories of that time are vivid. Blood and guts? Worse than that – far worse. And now there’s people in middle age who were born after that. And it seems that America has forgotten the dreadfulness of that time, of that war.

It seems almost sacrilege to say it, but General Lee was mistaken: we have indeed grown too fond of war. Just listen to the madness emanating from the White House lately and the sqawks of approval from Middle Earth … I mean Middle America. How come we so eagerly dismiss history?

The same insane rhetoric that led to pointless loss of life and fortune cascades down from that inaptly-named Shining City on the Hill. And worse: attempts to deny desperate people from seeking refuge from the worst of abuses in their home countries. Threats to deport naturalized citizens – I know a few gentlemen whose wives and children fall into that category.

Veterans who still remember how to fight – does Donald think they’ll all meekly stand by while their families are torn apart? And do our fellow Americans eagerly anticipate the nation-wide explosion that would accompany such madness? I doubt it!

We need to take a couple steps back. Maybe have a few of Grandma’s cookies and a glass of milk, or a warm biscuit smothered in Grandpa’s apple butter while we calmly consider the wisdom – or the lack of same – of recent con-damn-nation of those who aren’t of the same political persuasion as the rest, or the same ethnic background, same religious outlook.

Ya know, neighbors, those folks are human beings, too. They’ve the same needs, their kids need what all American kids need. And then there’s the nonsense regarding that supposed caravan of would-be immigrants from largely Spanish-speaking refugees at or near our southern border.

People, they are NOT accompanied by terrorists from the Middle East! Those refugees know whether there are such people among them – and they do NOT tolerate it! They know allowing terrorists to accompany them makes it far, far more difficult to make it into the USA, thereby threatening their children’s well-being. They will tell the terrorists to get lost – or be set upon by the real refugees. And that would be quite the bloody interval.

Mr. Trump, you can stop playing politics with our military. Stand down, Donald. You’ve made a complete jerk of yourself and America a laughingstock.

Kindly knock it off!

William Mayers of Sullivan is a retired senior U.S. Army Corpsman. A certified healthcare professional since 1964, he holds two professional licenses, including that of Registered Professional Nurse licensed in New York, Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana. He is the father of three and avid analyst of current events.

By martha

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