TOO CLOSE …
Steps. Our lives are measured in steps. First steps. Baby steps and missteps.
Steps to the altar.
Steps calculating success, failure, fitness — and even a 12-step program treating addictions.
So many steps in a lifetime.
Even the goose steps of tyranny.
This past week, in the midst of the riveting and exhausting Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump, a calculated measure of “58” hallway footsteps got the nation’s attention. Fifty-eight steps.
It was the length of a hallway path calculated as the distance between life and the possibility of death — walked by legislators away from the Trump-inspired marauders stalking legislative prey at our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6.
“I paced it off myself,” argued U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a House impeachment manager pleading a case for a high crimes and misdemeanors conviction of Trump, who was acquitted Saturday by a vote of 57-43, well short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.
In the midst of the melee, the maniacal Trumpsters called for death, thumped on walls, banged on doors and became a river whipped into froth and frenzy before leaving behind the detritus of fury.
They called out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
They called out former Vice President Mike Pence.
They erected a gallows and a hangman’s noose and called for death.
Then they called home, texting each other about their bravura and stolen goods. “Bring them out,” they kept shouting. As a result of this assault on our nation’s democracy and interruption of a peaceful certification of the electoral vote, the subsequent televised hearings this week were equally riveting — and exhausting!
And when it was Trump’s turn Friday
to defend himself, his lawyers got out their weapons to tweak strategy, redefine freedom of speech and declare Trump a victim.
So Trump’s lawyers brandished scissors and clipped and snipped their way to a celluloid production of dizzying news clip soundbites of Dem leaders urging their country to fight, fight, fight — without context — and added spooky music to manipulate.
Covering everything short of war in my newspaper career before becoming a deskbound columnist, my encounters with fear of possible danger were as a tourist: leaving Tunisia’s second blowup during the “Arab Spring”; a brief border stop in Libya, hoping I wouldn’t be identified as a journalist; and being separated from my companions and confined in a thatched “jail” cell after a brief border arrest between Vietnam and Cambodia.
But as a reporter, hitching a ride on a rickety helicopter flying over a dense jungle canopy en route to witness the death camp created by the mass suicide of members of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, could have been a disaster.
How cunning danger can be: An innocent step the wrong way in the Capitol could have
led into a mob bearing stun guns, hockey sticks, military muscle and plastic handcuffs, amid churned-up rioters.
How would that have changed America? So in the midst of national desperation or disappointment or delusion in a changing America divided by the way we define free speech and sedition, let’s hope our country gets a second chance at joining hands and getting together.
But for now, I’m taking a breather from this national nightmare of dirty politics and heading to a dirty martini.
A COVID-19 update . . .
Dear Aunt Blabby,
Just thought I’d give you a coronavirus update.
My tortuous tango leading up to my first COVID-19 shot was a success.
It was efficient, it was fast and it was not a long wait following a subsequent warning my left arm might be sore and I might feel fatigued.
Thankfully, the day after the needle was a piece of cake.
Unfortunately, a subsequent two-day fatigue and sore arm did not limit my ability
to unpack and eat a box of yummy apricot rugelach baked by the divine Three Tarts Cafe in Northfield.
Sneedless to say, stay tuned for the second installment of the COVID-19 vaccine.
A special man . . .
Condolences to the family of a man who inhaled life and exhaled love, Edward Weil, who died early Thursday morning at the age of 93. He was the husband of a woman he praised every day as a reason for his incredibly happy life — his beloved wife, Dia.
His devoted son, Eddie, proclaimed his adored dad a second father to countless people and a mentor to many; his daughterin-law, Karen, praised him as a teller of truth; and his brother, Tom, proclaimed: “I wish I was half the man he was.”
As for myself, may everyone have the great, good luck to have a man like Ed in their life.
Sneedlings . . .
Saturday’s birthdays: Randy Moss, 44; Peter Gabriel, 71; Robbie Williams, 47 . ... Sunday’s birthdays: Freddie Highmore, 29; Edinson Cavani, 34; and Danai Gurira, 43.