The first part of today’s Funny Papers Again column is an off-handed comment on the present politically charged situation, so if you are as fed up with anything even slightly political, just skip to below the three asterisks and read on.
In last week’s column, I touched upon my attendance at the June 14 protest in Monterey; I also made mention of it on a popular social media site and got a response from a friend of some 40 years that shook me a bit given the history between us.
I was once in business in King City with the youngest son of a well-known Greenfield business family who was six or seven years younger than I; it was through him I met his friend from a well-known King City business family. Given my parent’s situation as civil servants, my financial situation made me the odd man out of the threesome, yet somehow the two of them accepted me. Normally I use real people’s first name, but for purely personal reasons I opt for the fictional Tiny from Greenfield and Casey from, well, KC. It would take much mental recall and many words to recite even a few of the escapades we three ultimately undertook in those halcyon years, and I’m not up for that; but one short period of time did prove to have an ironic twist given Casey’s social media response.
While at the Monterey protest, which took place adjacent to El Estero Lake, I took a short walk up a bordering street and looked at an apartment the three of us occupied for several months, who remembers how many, while Tiny attended MPC and I was driving a refrigerated van delivering meat throughout the Monterey Peninsula and Big Sur. I don’t recall what Casey was doing at the time, but he always had an entrepreneurial way about him, so I’m sure he was gainfully occupied. I do remember he was a hell of a barbecuer and cook who once spent a whole day preparing the best cioppino I had ever eaten before or since.
We had a weekend routine where we would walk the block to a restaurant with bar, call our taxi driver, have a drink, and wait for our ride to another eatery with bar on Alvarado Street or down on the Row. At the end of the evening, usually early morning hours, we returned to the apartment via our driver. I use the term our driver because after the guy saw how much we tipped him, he gave us his personal number and we used him thereafter.
That was many years ago. We lost Tiny to a car crash 13 years ago while I was living out of the area. Upon my return, Casey and I met up again here and there; I helped him move out one house into another and helped him with some yard work on another place up in Arroyo Seco. His daughter, whom I met when about 6 or 7 years old, is now a married mother; his son, whom I knew, is with Casey up in the Gold Rush area of California. I’ve spent the night in three of Casey’s homes, dined and drank and smoked with him many times over the past decade.
So that is why it hurt when Casey, knowing I was in Monterey on No Kings Day, asked me if I enjoyed “watching the birthday parade in D.C. as it was better that the commie s**t over in Monterey.” I thought I would respond not on social media but here in my column to allow for more explanation. So, yes, Casey, I did watch some videos of the low-energy parade in our nation’s capital the day after it took place but was as enthused about it as much as the other millions who chose to hit the streets in protest.
The Army and the Trump both have birthdays every year, and I have never celebrated them before so saw no reason to this year. Besides, I am just enough older than Casey to remember annual military parades going as far back as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chenenko, Gorbachev and now Putin. Every May Day the Red Square in front of the Kremlin sees a forced crowd watch military might roll by so that the world knows how powerful the Russians are, so such parades are nothing new to me; just not interested.
I chose instead to exercise my First Amendment right to free speech and assembly and add my name and voice in with millions of others who know this present administration is lessening the value of America in so many ways; what Casey called “commie s**t” even though he is a wise enough man to know communist countries do not allow such freedom. So, as you see, Casey and I disagree on Donald J. Trump; but I still consider him a good friend and will until he tells me otherwise.
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As mentioned in last week’s column, I was expecting to see my daughter Jenny for the first time since we lost Weston to a car crash last September; well, it happened and I have been living off the few hours we had together since then.
What made the time even more special was the surprise of two of my granddaughters, 20-year-old Beccah and 14-year-old Leilani, in tow along with Jeff, my son-in-law. We had some Mexican take-out down at San Lorenzo Park, toured the Museum for a bit and then it was time for them to head back up to Salinas, where Jenny was needed to arrange flowers and table settings for a Saturday wedding she was involved with.
While the time was short, it was worth every minute we spent together, and with a little luck and diligent budgeting, I hope to be with all my family come September, where people will gather one year after the accident that took two young lives and damaged two others and collectively find some peace and healing over such a loss.
Take care. Peace.
