1. I kept meeting people who claimed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. 'Does it ever end?' said everyone, wondering how we had arrived in this alternate hellscape in which the biggest meatheads from high school were now literally being confirmed to the Supreme Court and where Republicans, despite representing a solid minority of the population, were -- because of structural problems with our outdated Constitution -- constantly winning and getting angrier and angrier. 'What exactly do they want?' was another question I heard, the answer to which remains a mystery.
2. I escaped to the park, which despite the surreal temperatures and oppressive humidity seemed to be flourishing. 'Hang in there, park,' I said. 'It can't last forever.'
3. I thought about my mother, who had fought so hard in the 1970s for women's rights. I remembered when nasty trolls used to call her a 'women's libber,' which sounded annoyingly familiar. So many good words begin with 'lib' and Republicans detest them all.
4. She has reserves of optimism that I did not inherit. As I strolled through the park talking to plants and ghosts, she was organizing like-minded individuals at her senior center and canvassing for several candidates in Western Pennsylvania.
5. The thought of her knocking on doors in 'Trump Country' was troubling. One thing Republicans clearly seem to want is to put everyone in jail, so why would they make an exception for an 80-something?
6. My mother wasn't worried, however. After all, she had picketed the (Jimmy Carter) White House and had experienced Ronald Reagan's hands around her neck when she -- wearing a monkey suit -- greeted him at the Pittsburgh Airport on Halloween night before his winning election. 'You women don't know anything,' he screamed at her. #truestory
7. The episode again sounded very familiar in 2018. Did anything ever change?
8. My mother likes to focus on the fact that there are more (progressive) women running for office today than forty years ago, despite ongoing attempts by the Republican leadership to 'roll back the clock' to 1792, when only white men who owned a 'shitload of property' were allowed to vote.
9. A few years ago, she gave me a t-shirt from 'The Majority Caucus,' which was a faction, formed in 1975, of the National Organization for Women whose motto was 'Out of the Mainstream Into the Revolution.' Defending this idea, its leader Karen DeCrow explained: 'I stated, very clearly, all along, that what I wanted to do was not enter the mainstream in full partnership with men, but to change the mainstream.'
10. Forty years later, the motto seemed relevant.
11. I'll be wearing this shirt a lot, because I want to remember that some ideas -- unlike certain people -- never get old.
