In anticipation of a Trump victory I’ve been thinking about being a reverse Alexis de Tocqueville. Actually I’ve given that thought from not long after Donald Trump began sullying the ideals of our so called founding fathers. I’m not sure when exactly I thought about it but here is a rough timetable.
Ancient Harry History in awe of my Grandfather’s reputation as a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. A pic from 1962
2015 Donald Trump draws guffaws from Republicans when they see him go down an escalator in Trump Tower. Me. I’m scared shitless. I predicted he could be the direction of the Republican Party back in 1992 a fact I reiterate on the front cover of the book I put together to run for my fourth attempt at discrediting a piece of human plucked from the ex president’s butt.
2016 January spiritual mission to study peace in the Holyland as a guest of my wife a seminary student with an unexpected close encounter with Benjamin Netanyahu an implacable enemy of my favorite recent president Barack Obama. I write an angry letter to the editor to the Jerusalem Post that night about Netty’s attempt to weaken Obama. Don’t save the text of the letter but after I return I write a column about my mission trip which over the years I have had republished in the local tabloid the Duluth Reader.
2016 February. I sculpt the first of what will be three snow sculptures panning Trump fearful he will become the GOP nominee.
2017 November I spend the week of the Presidential election traveling to Topeka, Kansas where a VFW Post creates a memorial for my Grandfather Robb and give a speech in recognition of the honor. On my mind as I write the speech is the recent election of the pirate Donald Trump as President of the United States. On my wat down to Topeka I also stop at his alma mater Park College, near Kansas City, Missouri, where the college some years before set up a George Robb Center for the Study of the Great War. I also spend two days at the Kansas State Historical Society photographing hundreds of letters given to the Museum by my Mother and her sister shortly after their Father’s death in 1972.
2017 My wife and I begin planning a September 2018 month-long tour of France so that I can visit the battlefield where my Grandfather earned his MOH.
2017 November Just before my 67th birthday I decide I’d like to speak a little French by the time we arrive in France ten months later. I try a new app Duolingo.
2018 October I get to Sechault, France and my Duolingo French is useless. I buy French books in hopes of continuing my study of French.
2018 or 2019 I read a letter from my Grandfather to his brother Bruce in which he says he didn’t go for a masters degree in Economics because unlike his brother who studied at Yale because he would have had to study language and he was no good at it. It puts a grain of an idea for me to one up my Grandfather at least in one sphere. I continue a daily Duolingo streak which I have not yet broken which is in excess of 2,200 days as of this posting.
2019-2024 I learn that two hours of daily French practice isn’t enough to make me a fluent French speaker although I keep getting better.
2020 – I find a French pen pal on another ap called Hello Talk.
2021 Sept My wife and I travel to southern France for a month. I buy more French books including Democracy in America by de Tocqueville. I want to read it in French. That is a goal that lies years away.
2024 a lot of water under the dam. My French is slow, imprecise, full of mistakes but I’m thinking about translating my thoughts into French to explain to the French the mysteries of my country to them in the new millennia much as de Tocqueville did roughly 200 years ago.