paulmuses

With a stunning lack of foresight, I suggested this prompt to the Medium publication The Challenged.

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I ought to own my November 6 prompt: how do you feel the day after America’s National Elections?

Besides, it will give me a chance to start mourning.

Later today, I’m meeting with a group of Lifelong Learners who took my seminar on the 2024 American election in September. Several asked if we could meet the day after the election.

I’m 75, and the 35 students’ ages ranged from 50 to 91.

I think there were a few Republicans in the class, but most were, like me, liberal Democrats. I don’t think anyone supported Donald Trump.

In our first session in September, I asked the class whether they thought this Presidential election was the most important of their lifetimes. Ninety-one-year-old Will, a retired Religion and Classics Professor, raised his hand and said, “I was born in 1931. I think Roosevelt vs. Hoover in 1932 was the most important. This one is second.”

I taught American politics to college students for forty years, retiring in 2018. My courses included a quadrennial course on the American Presidential election. Since retirement, I’ve continued that penance in my former college’s Lifelong program. I always tried to keep my politics out of my classrooms, and that’s how I taught the September class.

Last week, I took my act on the road and gave a few talks on the American election at the University of West in Timișoara, Romania. This January, I plan to do a post-election session in another Lifelong Learning program at The Art Institute in San Miguel, Mexico.

This is my third morning after a referendum on Donald Trump. And the second mourning. As I write this story, it appears he will again capture the American presidency. In 2016, like many others, I was not mentally or psychologically prepared for a Trump victory.

Yesterday, I was confident of a Kamala Harris victory. After receiving President Biden’s baton, she ran a flawless campaign. Her campaign had money, a solid ground game in the swing states, and, most importantly, the moment’s zeitgeist.

I thought her twin arguments about freedom and abortion and Trump’s unfitness for office would carry the day. They didn’t.

It’s too early for prognostication, and at this moment, I don’t have the heart for it.

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The title of my talk on the American election in Romania was “American Democracy in Crisis.” During one session, the Dean of West University — a Shakespearean scholar someone told me later — said something I now think more about. She said a crisis can offer opportunity. It can force us to look at what we don’t want to look at.

I’m asking myself now, in the privacy of my office, what has led America once again to choose this damaged man? Donald Trump ran the darkest presidential campaign in American history.

What should we look at about America that can begin to explain this?

As I expressed in a story I link below, in 2016, I was shocked by the Trump victory because I assumed two Barack Obama victories proved America had loosened itself forever from its history of bigotry, misogyny, and intolerance that the forces of backlash were less powerful than the forces of progress.

In 2020, just before the January 6 riot that attempted to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, former President Obama said

AMERICA IS THE FIRST REAL EXPERIMENT IN BUILDING A LARGE, MULTIETHNIC, MULTICULTURAL DEMOCRACY, AND WE DON’T KNOW IF IT CAN HOLD.

I’m not sure it can — not as sure as I would have been with a Harris victory.

For now, I’ve got to think about what I will say to my Lifelong Learners later today if anyone shows up.

Misery loves company. It may need company.

Sometimes, depression is precisely the right feeling.

It won’t last; it can’t last.

There will be another election in four years.

We aren’t going back.

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This Work Is For Our Grandchildren

Write a letter to yourself to read on November 6

medium.com

Drabble # 307, Driver

This story was written for Medioum’s Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

The first sentence will be: You probably won’t believe me.

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“You probably won’t believe me. But we like the tinted windshield, officer.”

“Please step down and away from the car. Is the driver inside the service station?”

“I’m the driver. You probably won’t believe that either.”

“Can I see your license?”

“Dog, rabies, or driver’s?”

“Oh, a wise guy, huh?”

“Officer, Who are you talking to?”

“Sir, Are you the owner of this car?”

“And Fido. Is there a problem?”

“Does your dog drive the car?”

“Is that what he said? Well, that would be against the law, wouldn’t it, officer? Fido, apologize to the nice policeman.”

“Woof. Woof. Woof.”

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The random word for Drabble #301 is breath.

This story was written for Medium’s Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

Of course, this story will be a double Drabble.

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God: Kris, welcome.

Kris: Why me, Lord?

You were a good man. Anyone who could write Sunday Morning Coming Down could be saved.

What did I ever do?

You didn’t have to do anything. I loved you as I love all. As each is.

Years ago, I admitted needing you. You mean you loved me before that?

My love was never transactional; sadly, many people get that wrong. I gave you the breath of life; my love followed.

What did I do to deserve the pleasures of my life?

Let me ask you something, Kris. Are you surprised to be talking to me?

I wasn’t sure what I’d find on this side. And I don’t see you. I sense your presence. Are you real? Is this heaven?

Heaven is not a place. Do you feel at peace?

I do, Lord.

You asked before what you did to deserve the pleasures of life. Some never ask that question. They feel entitled. I loved your songs because they came from a humble heart.

Was my soul in your hand?

Each soul is precious to me.

Is that where peace comes from?

It was always there, Kris. That’s where Sunday Morning came from.

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Kris Kristofferson died on September 28, 2024. Below, he tells the story of where the song Why Me, Lord came from. You can find the lyrics that I use in this story here. Sunday Morning is here.

https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2F1tA7E7pbUws%3Ffeature%3Doembed&display_name=YouTube&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1tA7E7pbUws&image=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2F1tA7E7pbUws%2Fhqdefault.jpg&key=a19fcc184b9711e1b4764040d3dc5c07&type=text%2Fhtml&schema=youtube

Write a letter to yourself to read on November 6

Anxiety

I took this photo a few days ago as we were wrapping up two weeks in Timișoara, Romania. ‘They’re on a precipice,’ I thought, just as we Americans are as we approach our national quadrennial ritual.

I was born in 1949. This election feels like the most critical of my lifetime.We could go one way, toward the Declaration of Independence’s aspiration of equality, or turn back toward the ugliness of exclusion. Both options are ‘as American as apple pie.’

The Romanian and American Fulbright Commission sponsored my visit to talk with audiences about The Crisis of American Democracy*. West University hosted Rebecca and me in this beautiful western Romanian city.

Romanians are also anxious about the election. They fear what a Trump victory might mean for the NATO alliance of which Romania is a member and Russian aggression at Romania’s borders. Historically, Romania’s geography has put it at risk from invading armies. Imagine living in a country that sits between Germany and Russia.

Here are two photos from one of my talks.

A loss of innocence

I taught politics to college students for forty years, retiring in 2018. One of my regular courses was a seminar on the American presidential election in the fall of an election year.

The first sentence on each syllabus was always, “This is the most important election of your lifetime.” History has finally caught up with my hyperbole.

In 2016, I remember telling my students that Donald Trump had a 30% chance of winning. That was pollster Nate Silver’s estimate a week before the election. We live in a probabilistic world, and sometimes, improbable things happen.

I even joked the week before the election and after the Chicago Cubs had won the World Series, coming back from a 3–1 deficit, that odds makers had given the Cubs only a 15% chance of victory. If the Cubs could do it, then so could Trump.

But when Trump won, most of my students and I were unprepared. We had yet to internalize the possibility. Now, I know that roughly half of America was jubilant. I have a friend who sat up on election night with his 95-year-old mother, and both cheered when Trump’s victory was announced.

I was devastated. I recall thinking I didn’t know anything about my country. How could America go from Barack Obama to Donald Trump? What crashed and burned that night was my innocence.

What do I mean by innocence? I thought the election of the first Black president proved Martin Luther King, Jr’s dictate:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. (source)

America had made progress toward the Declaration of Independence’s equality aspiration. Obama the person proved that.

But I had forgotten that the struggle for inclusion is never over in America. There is always a backlash.

Former slave Frederick Douglass put it this way.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” (source)

Write a letter to yourself

For eight years, I’ve focused on understanding these two parts of America: progress and regress. Barack Obama’s election made Donald Trump inevitable. If not in 2016, someone else like him and MAGA would appear at some other time.

A fierce backlash was inevitable. When Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the ticket, we were given a contrasting image of two visions of America competing.

One vision is a multiethnic democracy.

The other is an America of the past.

I don’t know which vision will win next week.

Even if our side wins, the struggle for equality and inclusion will not be over.

Some forces in America always want to take us back. This phenomenon explains the extremism of Donald Trump’s language of division and hate in the last few weeks of the campaign. He and many of his supporters know exactly what’s at stake.

Robert Hubbell, one of my favorite political analysts, suggests writing a letter to yourself you will read when you know the winner. He says to thank yourself for the efforts you have made to make America a better place for your grandchildren.

And to remind yourself that you are standing on the shoulders of other Americans who fought the good fight.

My camera’s magnifying lens shows the Romanian workers working around the edge. They understand the danger; perhaps that is the secret.

Building an American house big enough, welcoming enough, and generous enough to include everyone requires constant vigilance.

That labor won’t end even if Harris wins.

If she loses, we’ll return to that roof the next day.

Because we are not going back.

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The idea for this story came from this terrific essay by Robert Hubbell.

Make a plan for Election Night and beyond

October 12, 2024

roberthubbell.substack.com

And I’m not a perfect man

This story was published in Medium’s The Challenged.

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Call me Paul.

It doesn’t have the same flawless cadence as “Call me Ismael,” does it? Herman Melville followed that first sentence with 209,114 more words about following a whale.

I’ll be satisfied with 200 on Rodrigo S-C’s October 7 prompt on perfectionism.

Speaking of Rodrigo, what would a professional photographer say about my attempt to capture the essence of my coffee mug in the photo that leads the story?

By the way, I loved that misshaped mug the first time I saw it.

An irregular shape

With two blue paint splotches

And the pentagon-shaped bottom that collects coffee and tea stains.

It reminds me of you. And me.

We’re all works in progress, aren’t we, with a smear here and a crack there?

Would a pure writer need Grammarly to help him decide whether the previous sentence required a ‘?’ I’m still not sure!

Knowing their limitations, the not-so-successful Scottish duo Steelers Wheel1972 song Stuck in the Middle honed in on this little bit of folk wisdom:

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

Isn’t that perfect? We’re all either clowns or jokers or stuck between the two.

Doomed to coming up short.

That’s why I love my mug.

It’s beautiful despite its flaws, perhaps because of its flaws.

Mr. Headline analyzer says my title has no pizazz.

Perfect.

Today’s random word is squeak.

This Drabble was published in Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

And will include the phrase “as soon as the words…”

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“Oink.”

“Let me…”

“Squeak.”

“All I said was that I could pee standing up in the old days.”

“You mean the good old days. When men were, men and women were…”

“I didn’t say that. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt accused of being a pig.”

“You are doing better, John. Instead of saying, ‘You accused me, you owned the feeling.’

“Mary, sometimes I feel the world is moving too fast.”

“For me, it’s like James Baldwin said, ‘America is changing all the time but never changes at all.’

Waiter, the check, please.”

“Oink.”

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And don’t you dare call these stories tiny.

Some of my blog readers have asked about my Drabbles or short fiction stories. Here is my answer.

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I usually start with a photo.

Ask a question about someone or something in the picture.

This question often produces an imagined conversation.

That includes Fiction Short’s daily random word.

My last two Drabbles, here and here, illustrate this technique.

As does this one.

Today’s random word is tiny.

Drabble

Me: “Do you like being tiny?”

Benji: “I’m not tiny. I’m small. Humans are always calling me little. I’m bigger than a rabbit. You’re not so big for a human.”

“Yesterday, we met another Terrier on our walk around the pond. But you were standoffish.”

“I’m a Biewer, purebred. She was not.”

“You seem to have a bit of an attitude — my mother called it feisty.”

“My mother called it knowing who we are.”

“Is it hard being a dog?”

“Would you like to wear a collar and be led along at the end of a leash?”

“Some days, yes.”

My Drabble History

I started writing Drabbles on January 22, 2024. Sixty-four of my 388 Medium stories are Benji-sized. Somehow, luckily, I found my way to Fiction Shorts. Before that, I didn’t know what a Drabble was.

At first, I wondered whether I could write fiction.

But then I realized nothing is ever really made up. Every work of imagination is projected biography — even War and Peace.

“What’s that Benji?

I’m just finishing a story. But you pooped two hours ago. Oh, sometimes I get those barks mixed up. You say that in that story, Tolstoy had diarrhea from the quill.

Too many adjectives and adverbs. Big is not always the best.

Like the Mastiff.

Thanks, Benji.”

Today’s random word is pliable.

This Drabble was written for Fiction Shorts.

A Drabble is a concise 100-word story that respects your busy schedule. Your presence here matters. Please stay on the page for thirty seconds so you will count as a reader. Thank you.

The last sentence will be, “What the hell were you thinking?”

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She offered a small smile to Bill. “I’m interested. Tell me more.”

He fidgeted on the stool and looked into the mirror across the bar. “I needed to belong. I was afraid to say no.”

Betty liked his eyes. They were sad and kind. And his hands. Even the ragged index finger. She thought he could be saved. “Did you know what he meant by ‘we’ll just lie about what they did?’”

“I knew they would be attacked. I didn’t have the balls to walk away. My mother warned me about being too pliable.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

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This Fiction was based on accounts by election officials in Arizona and Georgia about how they were harassed because Trump administration officials in 2020 and 21 lied about how the votes were not counted properly in their jurisdictions. You can read one account here.

I’ve been a young man, a father, and a “grand friend.” A straight-shooting partner is essential to growing up.

This story was published in Medium’s Six Word Photo Story Challenge.

The winner is…We, the People.

We live on one of the busiest corners in our town in northeast Iowa. With front and back porches, we enjoy being on the border of each street, close to the sidewalks.

Tens of walkers, runners, bikers, and skateboarders pass by each day. Most do their own business, and some stop to chat about this sign.

I posted it a month ago after seeing another NOPE symbol in Boston. If you like it, you can purchase it from Amazon here.

I’ve lived in this house for 24 years. Every election cycle, I put political signs up. In case you’re wondering, I’m Blue.

I can’t remember anyone ever stopping to talk about a political symbol until this year. And no one says anything about my Harris/Walz or Vote Blue, Save Democracy displays.

But this one yielded comments.

Love it.

Right on.

Where did you get it?

What does it mean?

I like it. It’s gentle.

Where’s the red tie?

I’m scared.

Surely, someone will steal it.

No one has yet.

Nope.

Blue is my party, not my feeling about the election. I’m optimistic. We’re going to win this one for America. For all the people.

YEP.

What about yours?

To my Blog readers. This story was published in Medium’s Good Vibes Club. It is a reflection on my writing experience on the Medium platform.

Prelude

However, occasionally, like this morning, as I sit down to write story number 403, I imagine my Medium residence looks like this shack just around the corner from us.

Old, tired, collapsing, plant and animal infested — abandoned. A small number of readers, few reads, and fewer comments. For example, story 401, about 9/11, got five reads and two comments.

You may identify with this discouragement, regardless of the size of your Medium audience. I recall being on a friend’s 50-foot yacht in Chesapeake Bay and catching a glimpse of a 240-foot ship moored off to our right, thinking, “There’s always a bigger boat.”

We’re never satisfied, are we?

On Sunday, I went to church, something I rarely do. I should do it more often. It was a Presbyterian service. The Pastor admonished us not to “Covet our neighbor’s house.”

Of course, I spent the next minute in a visionary rapture over the magnificence of some of my Medium friends’ homes.

They get 1000s of claps, 100s of reads, and 10s of comments.

I had no idea what to expect when I joined Medium three years ago. In 2018, when I retired from forty years of teaching Politics to college students, I started writing a blog.

I disliked the third-person academic writing I had to do to get tenure and promotion. It was too far removed from exploring my immediate world, which fuels my Medium stories.

My blog tales were like this one, triggered by something that jumped up and bit me usually the day before. In this case, it was a combination of Pastor Jay’s chide, my jealous response, and that crappy shack I walked by for the hundredth time. And, of course, disappointment at the woeful response to my September 11th story.

But I wanted a bigger readership than the family and friends who faithfully followed paulmuses.com.

My blog house looked like this. I wanted more.

Tiny, Funky and Beautiful

Medium gave me more readers. It’s a busy street.

So there was a steady stream of people walking, biking, or driving by— seven hundred this month. About half linger, say hello, and then they’re off.

I appreciate each one. My door and windows are always open, and there’s a chair for you to sit on if you want to chat.

My property looks so much better today. A friend says I have a funky place. But I needed help.

A neighbor offered her kayak; another helped me install the solar panel and a third the housewarming plant.

Similarly, Medium has given me outlets. My favorites include Six Word Photo Story Challenge, Fiction Shorts, Crow’s Feet, Entertain Enlighten Empower, and Good Vibes Club.

There are so many more. Each has helped me grow as a writer. For example, before I joined Medium, I never used photos in my stories. Now, often, a visual image starts the creative process. It’s the seed. That’s how the shack in the second photo worked — it externalized my disappointment over the few reads for a story I believed deserved more.

Honestly, I don’t want a larger house. Occasionally, I think I should add another room or build a garage, but my house and yard would become too important. And I have other things to do, other vital things in my life.

Small is beautiful!

Postlude

I’ve been fortunate to have two Medium stories boosted. Each time, I rattled around in the mansion for a few days.

You can take the boy to New York, but you can’t take Iowa out of the boy.

I could not wait to return to my tiny, funky, beautiful Medium home.

How do you feel about your Medium experience?