The liberal line at WalMart

 What a wonderful day at WalMart!  I don’t get to say that very often.

I was feeling kind of bored and lonely, so I decided to go shopping. I learned that from my wife years ago. I spent part of the day reminiscing with old photos and video of us when she was still living.

Not only that, but I have been on a keto diet for about a year, due to weight and heart trouble, and I was having a carb attack. Specifically, I craved some corn chips with salsa. 

So I binged today. I told myself if I only do this once a year, it shouldn’t hurt me too bad!

I was surprised at the number of shoppers at 3:00 on a Monday afternoon. Most of them were not wearing masks or keeping a distance. This town is a conservative bunch, so that didn’t surprise me at all.

I got my groceries and went toward the checkout row. There was a long line of carts backed up to the fresh fruit and vegetables section waiting for the self check machines. I cut through there and headed for the live checkers. WalMart doesn’t pay me enough to do my own checking.

All the checkout lines were full, and most of them had carts loaded up like they were shopping for a month.

But hey! Look at checkout line  #4! Only two other carts in that line, with just a few items in the cart just like myself.

I looked down toward the checker, and there was a nice looking young black man with natural Afro hair wearing a mask. He was a little slow and unsure of himself, like he had just been hired.

I also immediately noticed that everybody in this checkout line was wearing a mask to avoid spreading the virus. I hadn’t been, but I had one folded in my back pocket, so I took it out and put it on! 

I was vaccinated back in February, so I’m safe from serious illness, but it is perfectly possible that I could breathe in the virus and pass it along to others who might be still at risk. The joker during this pandemic was finding out that people with no symptoms can pass on the virus and infect others.

Kudos to WalMart for having a line just for liberals! They should do that everywhere. As he finished checking each person out, they all wished him a good day, and thanked him. I did the same and made sure to call him by name. Kaleb. Good man!

I have some idea of what it feels like to be the only one of your color in a room. I had some of my buddies in the Army invite me out for drinks at a black bar in Koza, Okinawa, back in 1966. Even though I was with friends and Army buddies, I still felt strangely out of place. Even though they were celebrating with me and buying my beers! 

Yep, it was a great day at WalMart. I may shop there more often, now that I‘ve found the liberal line!

Invitation to the Bryan County Federation of Democratic Women

 Thank you for the invitation to the Democratic Party functions in Bryan County. I consider it to be an honor. 

However, my political story is long and involved, and although I was a fervent campaign organizer for Barack Obama and was elected to the chairman’s seat of the Humboldt County, Nevada, Democratic Party during the 2008 election, I was never more disappointed at his unwillingness to actually fight for poor and working people during his administration.

Before I joined the Democratic Party to work for Obama, I was a founding member of the Libertarian Party in Colorado. That was when the emphasis was on civil liberty, not as they later became the party for freedom to financially ruin all your competitors, when it was taken over by the Koch brothers and Ron Paul.

On February 20, 2001 I spent a long cold day picketing the courthouse on behalf of the Libertarian Party and November.org, a prisoner’s rights organization. We were protesting the incarceration of the 2,000,000 prisoner in the US.  One quarter of all prisoners in every country in the world are imprisoned in the US. We are by far the most imprisoned country in the world, even as we sing about the land of the free, and the land of liberty. I am still a long time member of the ACLU.

During those years of fighting to reduce our prison population, Joe Biden was one of my chief nemesis’ as he was a leading figure in the War on Drugs, Three Strikes You're Out, and other schemes to throw more poor people in jail and prison.

I was no longer the Democratic Chairman in the 2016, but I campaigned hard for Bernie Sanders in northern Nevada, and take a little credit for his win in the Nevada Caucuses. I organized and conducted caucuses for four different precincts, and actually got a couple of wins for Bernie in a strongly red part of the state.

To be frank, I don’t see a lot of hope for either the old conservative wing of the Republican Party or the old Third Way Clinton coalition of the Democratic Party. The younger generations are only too aware of the total failure of both mainstream parties to move America to a place with real opportunities for progress and advancement for them. Both parties are still committed to free trade, which forces US workers to compete with Chinese workers who get pennies per hour. I believe that is one of the main motivations for the rise of Donald Trump. He lied about his intentions better than Hillary did.

I see the national picture of the Democratic Party as pretty dismal. If Joe Biden survives to the end of his term, Kamala Harris may be the nominee, which will be a disaster. Identity politics got her the vice presidency, but her performance during the primaries in 2020 was pathetic. She is not a natural politician, her policy positions are vague to nonexistent, and she just isn’t very likable.

I am a Social Democrat, still in love with Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the rest of the progressive populist wing of the Democratic Party. As usual, the official Democratic Party has endorsed an opposing candidate to Nina Turner, a hugely popular candidate in Cleveland, Ohio. 

I believe if Democrats went back to the lingering legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ran on his accomplishments, they might have a chance at swaying some opinions down here in the South. I am a beneficiary of a wildly socialist electric cooperative company here in Durant. Many thousands of older people down here are existing on Social Security checks, a socialist conspiracy if ever there was one. 

I believe if Democrats ever want to win again, they need to stop cringing at words like socialist and liberal, and start preaching and educating people on the real history that is fading away with those people who remember the Great Hoover Depression.

Sorry I’m so long, but I don’t know how to say it shorter. 

I’d be happy to sit in on the meeting at the library on July 20, If I’m still welcome. 

Thanks again,

Don Rogers

P. S. I went to the meeting today and was made to feel very welcome. 

Kudos from my Cardiologist

 Hey!! I’m feeling pumped! I’ve got my cardiologist’s praise.

I went in for a follow up on my trans esophageal echocardiogram today, and the doctor came in smiling. He told me my heart valves are perfectly fine and my coronary arteries are splendid! He told me I am in better health than 99% of my peers, and asked me to what did I attribute that.

I told him I think it’s culture. I was born and raised in California, where most people walk, run, climb mountains, surf and swim, and some of us ride bicycles. I moved here, and everybody thinks I’m nuts because I still ride a bicycle, even though it’s been sixty years since I graduated from high school.

He asked where in California, and I told him in Merced, in the Central Valley. He explained that he and his wife went to Santa Monica to visit friends last year, and even took a boat over to Santa Catalina island.

I told him that twenty years ago my wife and I took a side trip from a national square dance festival at Anaheim, and went to Santa Catalina island, and right there on the dock we rented a bicycle built for two. We rode that bike all over the island on every paved road they have at Avalon.

( There were only three then).

He laughed out loud. 

He explained that he is retiring soon and will be looking for activities to keep him young, too.

He asked if I am up on my vaccinations, and I assured him I got mine in January and February. The side effect of those were what we had agreed was probably myocarditis, a rare condition for the Pfizer shots. But I haven’t had any trouble in a couple of months.

My guess is that years of dealing with an autoimmune disease probably ties into that somehow.

He cautioned me that he will probably call me when a booster shot becomes available soon. I asked, “Delta variant?” He said no, the latest mutant is the Lambda variant, and it’s worse than the Delta. It comes from South America, and the president of Brazil, Mr. Bolsonaro, who poo-pooed the Covid virus is in the hospital with an oxygen mask keeping him breathing as we speak.

I promised to keep in touch, even though I am cleared from any more cardiologist visits for the present.

Yep, I’m pumped! It’s been a great day. 

I went for a ride on my mountain bike to celebrate and got about a mile away from the house and the front tire blew out with a pop. So I got one mile of biking and one mile of walking back pushing the bike. 

Still feel great!