We can have just so much confidence in the choice we made when we decided against years and maladies to travel up the coast to NJ, over to the middle of Pennsylvania and down the western edge of Virginia to get back home.  Then, after we made it – got home and much needed rest from being cooped up in the car, we are home cooped up behind shutters here while waiting for the Hurricanes to roll in.

I don’t know about you but I sometimes have the feeling that while I try to be good and do everything by the rule book that something unknown is out there.  We closed ourselves in and bought a lot of what the rules say that seniors should have in kits to prepare for the worst.  The worst in our case is a lot of rain and the probability that the power will be shut off hence no air-conditioning. We might have to cook with our portable gas stove – not a great idea.

We have taken a beating from watching the Olympics and finding out that the Chinese are not so bad after all and that overly gorgeous affair produced democratically acceptable winners who showed that they were, indeed, the best in their chosen sports.  Now the two political conventions we have just undergone show how the truth in a Democracy can be distorted by wily professionals who pump up their candidates and deflate their “enemies”.  It seems the athletes were competing democratically and the Democrats and the Republicans were busy tearing each other up and down.  Two contests with vastly different orientations.  Guess which one was the more democratically run? Our democracy has much more to learn before it can teach others to enjoy what we are supposed to have.

I have the feeling that the Gun-owning types are out to get me.  I do not mean the respectable NRA that tries to teach respect for weaponry and the care and feeding of what soldiers use to kill each other.  In Florida there is legal gun owning which is the same when we legally murder bad people who certainly need punishment.  We are at the mercy of people and forces that have no mercy.

I worry most that someone out there is planning to take my pension and SS away or at least make my coverage irrelevant.  The same goes for my health and surgical benefits.  Right now we are pretty O.K. but some doctors are seeking ways to earn a living in other ways than doctoring. Something out there is out to get them and me too. Could it be unfettered individualism or too controlling government?

I wish it was just a feeling but I see evidence in the unrest all around me.  Others see this too and no one seems able to do anything about it. The political parties promise a lot of amorphous ideas but real leadership probably feels that something is out there to get them. They are probably right.