2 am. Topeka, Kansas, Nov. 10, 2016

I just woke up from 4 badly needed hours of sleep. I could use another 4. I’m sitting in the lobby of the downdown Ramada Inn’s lobby on an unfamiliar computer as my laptop died two mornings ago in Kansas City and it will have to be replaced. Amazingly I had backed up all its contents to a hard drive two days before I set out on this family research expedition. That was followed two days ago by my Chevy’s timing chain going rogue. I had to put it in the shop after five precious research hours lost waiting for a diagnosis and queuing up for a loaner car. On top of that the election night hubbub was clamoring all about me. Oodles of Democrats were in the Ramada before the most unexpected deflation I’ve ever seen on an election night.

The next morning my Buddy sent me the following email:

Harry

From [your latest post]:

“The better angels of our nature are in hiding.”

So much for the efficacy of your ranting

[Your Buddy]

To which I responded:

[Buddy],

I am flattered if you thought my readership could have changed last night’s national election results.

I will be satisfied if the local readers of my blog see fit to support me for reelection to the school board next fall.

None of them will be able to argue that I exceeded Don Trump in excrescences or Clinton’s coy, pursed lippishness.

Harry

PS. Speaking of efficatiousness – Do you expect Trump to sue the women who accused him of groping them and will he prosecute Hillary for her emails and corruption?

I have been so busy I have not had time to mourn the election of President Pussygrabber. In fact, after that shot, I will back away from my promise/threat to refer to him that way again until such time as he proves himself to have earned it as President. I’ll give him credit. He was well behaved for the first time in the last two years in graciously acknowledging his opponant’s humanity at his election night celebration. He was a good winner. That’s always easy. He’d already promised to be a sore loser in the event of his loss.

The next morning I felt an odd exhileration that I haven’t felt since the minutes following my reading the now ailing Ralph Doty’s scurilous attempt to destroy my character in the Budgeteer three days before the 2007 School Board election. I read it slack jawed knowing that its having been placed on the doorsteps of almost [every] voter in Duluth two days before the election it would almost certainly dash my hopes of returning to the School Board and working out a more modest school rebuilding plan. I found myself smiling at the long slog I felt trapped into for the foreseeable future (it lasted three years) to fight for the right to vote on the Red Plan.

In this election’s aftermath my “exhileration” may simply be the knowledge that the ugliness of the last two years is over before giving too much thought about how a Donald Trump Administration will proceed. But then, for the past month, my head has been turned toward the past. And that’s where I will proceed. I’m hell bent on writing a book about my grandfather next year. But I still have one more day’s research at the Kansas State Historical Society. I’ve been to five libraries in the past three days and corresponded by email with two others.

Now I’m going to head back to my room and see if I can catch a few more z’s.

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