This Sunday will mark the 6-month anniversary of my Substack posts. It also coincides with the 6-month anniversary of the Trump administration. I started writing these because I am not a fan of Mr. Trump and needed a diversion. I am happy to report that of my 58 essays only 15 or so were about his administration. The others were a hodgepodge of memories: my wedding, fishing with grandkids, the Manhattan Beach Pier, the San Clemente Pier, Marine Boot Camp. There were history lessons on four of the five-star officers of World War II: George Marshall, William Leahy, Ernest King and Hap Arnold. These weren’t really about Trump either, but rather about the caliber of men we once had for our leaders. I even did one on my new dog Dexter. Dexter’s essay was the most popular. My essays average about 650 words. The total word count would then be around 37,000 or midway between “Of Mice and Men” and “The Great Gatsby.” My average Middle Grade novella is around 20,000. This has been more work, but also more fun --plus I didn’t have to make it all up. I also get the instant gratification of seeing people at least open it.
The 15 Trump essays mostly reflected my concerns over immigration issues, support for Ukraine and the caliber of his cabinet picks. I have been encouraged by the realization that Putin is the real culprit in Ukraine and remain hopeful that we will soon realize deporting everyone here illegally is not really in our best interests. Trump has the best chance since Reagan of delivering a workable solution to the handling of long-term illegal immigrants. He may lose the hard-core Maga folks on this issue, but a lot of them are gone anyway thanks to the Epstein debacle.
I will never write an essay on Epstein. Pedophiles doubtlessly exist, but not in the numbers suggested by many hard-core Republicans. Clearly, we can now see they don’t have a favorite political party.
I started out strong writing these and have sort of tapered off a little. If I concentrated on Trump I could write more, but that is a subject already over analyzed by much better writers. I could do an article on Bondi’s visit to Alcatraz but what’s the point? It’s a diversion, a bright shiny object, that will consume lots of trees but never happen. Likewise with the state of Canada or the protectorate of Greenland. I suppose cane sugar may end up in American Coke, but I can’t imagine writing 650 words about that or the denaturalization (or whatever you call it) of Rosie O’Donnell. Trump’s late night all-cap texts are best ignored in the interest of maintaining one’s sanity.
Since Dexter is so popular, my next essay will be on him. He is certainly the reason there will likely be fewer of these posts in the future. I’d like to thank the 21 people who signed up for a free subscription. I have no intent of every charging anything for one of these essays. The free subscription merely means that you get these hot off the press in your email. Some people have thousands of subscribers. I like the fact that all of mine read the essays.
Steinbeck did well with “Travels with Charlie” even though he made a lot of it up. I may try “Walks with Dexter” next. I can always add in a few characters we never met. It’s now time to put on his cute little walking vest for our walk. It’s never easy!
Thanks for reading this.