Remembering the Last Sane Man in America

My Uncle Paul died this month two years ago.

This morning I was thinking about the man who may have appeared a contradiction but his beliefs made complete sense.  Or, they did when the world hadn’t yet lost its mind.

He was a conservative and a registered Democrat.  When he came home for good from the Navy in the 1950s, my Grandfather Gordon told him nobody got ahead in their hometown unless he was a Republican.  Uncle Paul went to register and was told his name was already on the voter list.  Someone was also voting under his name as a Republican.

This wasn’t Chicago.  This was in a small town without even a traffic light.  The Post Office was the gas station and the general store.  He decided to become a Democrat and send a message about voter fraud.

He listened to Glenn Beck and didn’t trust big money in politics.  I last paid him a visit in late September of 2017.  His lungs were poisoned by asbestos and he was spending much more time in and out of hospitals and he was in good humor.  Always telling stories until the very end.

He believed in much of what President Trump was planning but feared we had crossed the Rubicon.  The man who had spent his younger years tracking Soviet submarines warned in the future more and more rich men would attempt to buy the White House.

Here we are, two and a half years later and there are two additional billionaire candidates spending lavishly on Presidential campaigns.

Paul Gordon came from a family of readers.  We’re told reading is fading in a modern visual culture and it’s a shame.  Books are filled with wisdom and wise people read a lot of books.

We’re not replacing these men and women.  They’re from an era when institutions still had public consent because people understood the workings of institutions.

I’m pleased President Trump is going to be acquitted but this weekend I came across a warning in my reading.  A conservative writer says the Executive Branch will only grow more powerful.  This is the path of Rome and there aren’t any men like Uncle Paul willing to say we need a course correction.