Day 1 of bridge lessons, and Patty has one more thing to say in her introduction.
“And no politics or religion, OK?”
But these days, how do you escape it? I mean, if the world is falling apart, our country and the rest of the West is committing suicide, right in front of our face, how can you not notice and say something?
The answer, of course, is that there’s work in the morning and beer in the fridge, so you can still put on the blinders, stick your head in the sand, whatever your metaphor, etc. and go about your business and pleasures and ignore it the best you can. Hence a hike with Finn, a Sunday evening at pick-up soccer, a course in beginner bridge and while doing all this, no mention of doom to to strangers and acquaintances while, let’s say, Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (El Cid), Patrick Henry, rolling in their graves, and Jesus Himself in heaven say, “Your house is on fire. Do Something!”
Prudence until the very end, I guess.
Example: I don’t intend, of course, to bring up politics in this bridge course, but before the course even begins, I’m on the phone with Patty and she says, “Well, we have a couple cancellations. One is my friend Martha, who has covid, again! She keeps getting a mild to medium level variety and can’t shake it. I tell her, you’re going to have to go through a tougher spell of it for your body to defeat it for good!”
Patty is from Cincinnati. She went to Wellesley College. I’m going to guess most of her friends more or less share her politics, so I’ll assume Martha Trusts the Science(TM) and got her full gauntlet of Trump Jabs. When I ran into Craig Pearson, my one-time landlord in Hamilton back in 2020, at the Highland Games last summer he said he had been quite sick and to his shock the doctor had discovered uncharacteristically high blood pressure and clots in his legs. “The doctor didn’t know why and I couldn’t imagine why either. I’ve been in good shape and I’ve never had blood or heart trouble.”
“Well, duh,” was my immediate thought. He wasn’t my landlord anymore, and I wasn’t depending on him for work either, so I acted out giving myself a shot into my left arm.
“What? What’s that?” asked Craig.
“The jab, man! Your precise condition is popping up everywhere in people who got the vaccination.”
Craig paused, looking at me like I’d just morphed into a David-Ickean reptilian. And even if he didn’t think I was some kind of alien life form by making this outrageous statement, he knew there was no hope talking sense into a tin-foil hatter, and I knew there was no hope talking sense into a normie.
It’s the same with Patty, so I kept mum about her friend and didn’t say, “She might consider passing on the next jab,” even though such advice might save her friend’s life.
So I’ll avoid politics at this course at least. But like I said, everything is political now, so you weirdly avoid the even the most mundane, formerly safe topics.
Each table at the lesson has one volunteer teacher playing one of the hands, and our guy was Dennis. He’s playing south and I’m directly to his right, playing east. Let’s say he asks about me and my life. Can I avoid politics?
-What do you do, Dan?
-Well, I’ve mostly been a teacher for the past 30-plus years.
-Oh really, where did you teach?
-For the past 25 years, except for the last year and a half, I was teaching in Japan.
-So what are you doing over here? -BOOM- the honest answer is, “To get away from the covid craziness, especially the ubiquitous masking,” but then, Dennis, as a friend of Patty, might not see any craziness in the official ‘response’ and want to know what craziness I’m talking about. Voila! Politics.
Or Dennis might ask, “Where do you live, Dan?”
-uh, up in Stevensville. Out west of town on Dillard Road.
-Oh, is your house near the fire station?
I’m going to be honest. “Yeah, it’s pretty close to the station, but it’s not my house. I’m house-sitting for a guy.”
-He’s letting you live rent free? Must be nice.
“Well, see, he supports my efforts in media getting the truth out. He’s a fan of the interviews I’ve done for kla.tv, and…”bla bla etc. Politics.
or,
-So what do you do here in the Bitterroot, Dan?
“Well, I have a job cleaning ponds and I might be driving a snowplow this winter, but I’m also just on the verge of creating a website and streaming radio station. It’ll be called Bitterroot Beacon Radio, and”. See…Politics.
So around strangers I guess I’ll have to become, uncomfortably mum (apologies PF).
Sooner or later, though, I guess I’m going to have to be like Pastor John, or Ed and his firebrand wife Annie, or Sloan Youngblood even and wear my anti-establishment credentials on my sleeve. After the truth starts getting me in trouble, prudence be damned I suppose.
Wait a minute, Dan. Why the heck are you taking a bridge class with octogenarians Nellie and Doris while Rome burns? Are your friends just kicking around too, enjoying the easy life? Pastor John and his wife Lorraine are downtown holding up signs against child abuse and kidnapping; Bernd and the Frankfurt gang are busy documenting the latest outrages of the elite and spreading the truth on kla.tv in 82 languages; Rick and Leon are up at the Griz game confronting the beer-guzzling fans on the way to the stadium, trying to compete with Panem et Circenses and snap them out of their stupor; Ed and Annie are up in Helena holding fire to the britches of our state legislators; Sloan Youngblood is out on the highway saving souls, visually accosting the would-be-damned with his flaming, scripture-plastered ‘92 Kenworth; and you’re playing cards???
Now hold on a sec, friend. Two things:
All of us have to stop and smell the roses a little, and I’m not exactly living the bon vivant life here in the Bitterroot, $2.68 on-sale Dreyer’s Ice Cream in the freezer notwithstanding.
You want me to list you all the pro-bono, save-the-world crap I’ve been doing for the last six years, and total up the hours?
-OK, OK, fine. You don’t need to tell me about that list. But come on, man. Contract bridge? This is Montana. At least you could be out throwing a line into the Bitterroot, or fixing a motor or something with Big Joe, or heck, getting into a barfight at Hayseed Slim’s, know what I’m saying?
-The Hayseed is up in Lolo. I’m not getting into a fight across county lines. Never know how the Missoula cops are gonna treat you, or the courthouse up there, for that matter.
-Well, then you could be out hunting with Lars Hansen. Isn’t he up at the Big Hole right now?
-Yeah, I thought about it. He invited me, too, and said he had a rifle for me, but I’ve got stuff to do down here. Anyway, the reason I’m taking bridge is not for me, really. It’s all part of my screen-free stuff for the youth.
-Oh, come on.
-No, really. My kids love cards, but the games we play only go so far in stimulating their minds. Hearts is fun for a while, but once you know how everyone plays, it loses its luster. Andy is trying to shoot the moon again. Big whoop; he does it all the time, and the ace is out and I held on to this king of hearts to stop him. Snooze. Once I get my youth group going, challenging games are going to be part of the deal for sure. Chess, Go, Shogi, Bridge. All of that. Plus when Andy and Kyle get over here, we’ll have another fun thing to do, if we can pick up a fourth player. That’s why I’m taking bridge lessons among other reasons.
-OK, Shumway. Whatever.
And judging by the characters I met at the first bridge lesson, I’ll have a goofy story or two about that right here on this stack.
❤️ Perfecto ❤️