My grandma is convinced that her children are trying to keep her deaf and blind.
She had a stroke two years ago and her faculties are failing but that can’t be it, that can’t be why she can’t hear or see.
She’s grown far too accustomed to seeing the doctor to have her youth restored but now, even with great hearing aids, there’s not much that can be done.
I love my grandma mind you. Right now, we’re having ice-cream in a mini diner they’ve put together for the geriatrics in her nursing home. A resident of the home is behind the counter shuffling around cartoonishly slow to get our ice-cream. He says he volunteers there to stay busy. He tells me how he hasn’t seen his grand-daughter in three years. My grandma offers him her glasses and says, “Try these and you won’t see her at all.” That must be where I get it from.
His daughter is married to an air-force engineer. A woman in the hall outside the diner told me her son is also in the military. I’m reminded how so many people in New Hampshire, where my grandmother lives, go into the military. Live free or die is the state motto. So many questions. I’ve only seen two black people in New Hampshire in the 10 years that I have been coming here. Suddenly it starts to all make sense. Why is New Hampshire home to libertarianism? Why had so many people here voted for Trump, someone who promised to essentially dismantle the government?
When I sat down in the airport pickup van on the way into New Hampshire I was met with a familiar face. Ken, the crusty old New Englander who would always pick me up. He looked back at me with his humorless, bald on top, long in the back white mullet and flashed me a smile that lasted only a millisecond before he put it away. Better get rid of it before it really catches on. He wasn’t taking any chances.
I knew what would come next, our usual slate of small talk. So small that it usually only lasted 2-3 seconds before an unusual, warm, enduring silence, would envelope the car.
“How ya doin Matt?.”
“Hey Ken, can’t complain.”
He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t do ya any good.”
This is as far as it always goes. In the ice-cream parlor I thought about Ken and looked at this man behind the counter who’s son-in-law was in the military. Nobody I’ve met in California has ever told me that their family members’ are in the military. Everyone does in New Hampshire.
Nearly everyone I meet in New Hampshire has that, self-reliant, dismissive, independent approach to life. It’s no wonder these people don’t want universal health-care or a safety net for people they’ve never met. They can barely smile at strangers, let alone talk to them. They care about their families and their community and they bust their asses out there. My uncle spends half of his days in the winter breaking his ass just to exist. Cutting down trees on his property, chopping wood, shoveling, ice picking, feeding the stove, keeping the pipes from freezing, are just a few things he does on a daily basis. It goes on and on. He’d do just about anything for his friends and family though.
It’s too bad trump’s friends all seem to be the scum swamp feeders he promised to rid the government of.