when i was a teenager, i’d often stay up late, wrestling with this or that, frustrated that i couldn’t find <quote-01>closure<quote-01> with some issue: a fight with a friend, a disagreement with a teacher, or--as was more often the case--a matter of the heart. you can’t solve everything in a day, my father would say.
but dad, there are still votes coming in! <quote-02>the networks<quote-02> are going to call it, i can imagine my teenage self whining as he stomps from the webber family den and off to bed. i imagine him <quote-03>staying awake for hours, secretly monitoring the count on his phone<quote-03>. go to bed, says anthony, the electoral college will still be there in the morning.
watching the initial numbers on election night, i was conscious not to voice any shock on the thread. acknowledging such an untoward outcome felt too much like baiting the baseball gods, like prematurely celebrating a victory or something. what was it max said? that he needed to reexamine his faith in mankind? something like that. i’d scroll back to find his precise wording, but it’s buried too deep in the thread. you can’t be serious, i wanted to say, but i didn’t, because i knew he was.
it is now friday evening. by the time we got up this morning, biden had taken leads in <quote-04>georgia and pennsylvania<quote-04>.
after therapy this afternoon i needed to keep talking. i threw casey under the bus earlier this year for admitting he’d called me after a session; well, that was me now. how was therapy? sarah asked, and that was enough of an invitation. sick of reading about the left’s disappointment in <quote-05>the margin of victory<quote-05> on social media, i embarked on a rant that might have lasted hours when ben began to fuss. this baby is having a tough day, sarah said. oh yeah? i asked. yeah, he cried the whole time you were in therapy. / why, do you think? i asked. i don’t know, she said. i’m guessing it’s because we’re hitting our next development leap. he ate a little bit and then he just, like... fussed and fussed.
she took ben into the bedroom to see if a change of environment wouldn’t help. i needed some air. i decided i’d go for walk, maybe give a friend a call. i didn’t want to take cooper, but if i didn’t take him out now, i’d have to take him out later, so i leashed him up.
you know, i’m struck by sarah’s description of ben’s fussiness as i relate it here. what a tidy representation of growth, both personal and societal: it’s slow, it happens in spurts, and it’s uncomfortable.
bless you, ben.
before reaching the end of the block, i decided to try my father. i was curious what he’d been hearing about the election, curious what his thoughts were. <quote-06>i mean, hey, what better way to celebrate democracy this week than a conversation between the colors, am i right?<quote-06> isn’t this what social media has hijacked? the conversation? we are the products now, bought and sold, <quote-07>our subjectivities objectified<quote-07>. as i’ve expressed many times on the dodger thread this year, i’m more wary of the landscape than i am of the people perched atop it. trump, like anyone who rises to power, is a person of his time. well, what times are these? what type of person might he presage? what dark aspect of ourselves? my thoughts lie here.
unfortunately, i felt like <quote-08>i already knew<quote-08> what my father’s responses regarding trump and the election would be: he’d humor me with minimal engagement then avoid the topic with a slew of anywayses and whatevers. i was frustrated at not having sarah’s ear, frustrated at ben for taking up the space sarah had offered me. perhaps there was part of me that just wanted to pick a fight, a part that knew my father would have to suffer me, same as i had to suffer ben.
just keep your mouth shut and listen, <quote-09>i told myself when he picked up<quote-09>. unlike with sarah, it is not your own thought you are trying to refine. / aha! there’s that true-blue sanctimony! a mouthier side of me responded. / oh, for christ’s sake, your father is not the red before he’s your father. / no no, of course not. the father above all, come now.
he was home by himself. debbie had taken grandma out to get her hair done. after some small talk i brought up the issues at hand. he said he’d kept the televised news off for the most part, favoring the numbers and articles on his phone. i should have asked what publications, but i imagine they are more of <quote-10>the fox news<quote-10> than the q-anon variety. when later in the conversation i offhandedly mentioned q-anon--was he aware of such fringe conspiracy theories? was i aware of the extent to which they’d become mainstream?--he quickly dismissed them with a sharp, “oh, no, no, no.” ok good, i thought.
i let him talk, and talk he did. i was surprised. you want to know why i voted for trump? i’ll tell you why i voted for trump. i voted for trump, not because of his personality, but because of his policies. a rachel maddow advert i’d been seeing on nbc came to mind: watch what they do, not what they say. he went on for thirty or so very inspired minutes, talking about the economy and the rise of the middle class--prior to the pandemic, of course. he mentioned how 401ks were up, unemployment--specifically minority unemployment, and again, prior to the pandemic--was at an all-time low, and how the middle class was six thousand dollars a year richer as a result of <quote-11>tax cuts<quote-11>. not me, i thought to myself, his tax policy fucked me hard. you’re an unincorporated actor with a manager and agent collecting on a w2, that’s twenty-five percent of your income you never get to see, and all of it taxed. this from trump, but i kept it to myself; it was anecdotal.
he talked about trump forcing nato to pay their fair share and about bringing factory jobs back to middle america after obama had sent them overseas. what he promised he’d do, he (pause for emphasis) did. that’s why i’m voting for him, ok? it’s not personality, it’s <quote-12>policy<quote-12>.
when i later said i’d bet the farm he didn’t vote for trump in the primaries four years ago, he confirmed that he did not. no, no, it wasn’t him. golly, who was it i voted for? he wondered.
he went on to mention israel and the president’s acknowledgement of jerusalem as the capital of the nation, something presidents had been saying they were going to do for decades now. he...did... it, my father proudly affirmed. and you want to call this man a racist? he gave funding to black colleges like they have never had before. full funding. how can you say this man is a racist when he does that? again, it’s not the personality, it’s the policy. it’s policy that matters to me, ok? he went on to gesture at abortion, saying i knew his views on the subject and that they were not going to change.
then he talked about the pandemic. he mentioned shutting down the borders and how the democrats were against trump doing it, but how he did it because he knew it had to be done. he cited a third quarter growth this year that he feels confident will be lost under a biden administration. he’s gonna shut the country back down, you watch, and people across the country are going to pay for it.
<quote-13>this is good<quote-13>, i thought. he’s talking, he’s sharing his views, and he’s excited to be doing so.
when i asked him what his thoughts were about the election, he brought up the lack of transparency he was seeing, how republicans were not being allowed into rooms to oversee the count, and how ballots from select areas were coming back one hundred percent in favor of biden, a statistic he found highly unlikely. yes, i said, that is highly unlikely, or--more likely than not--a <quote-14>false claim<quote-14>, no?
i explained what i had heard about these claims of foul play and what i’d gleaned from watching recent interviews with the secretaries of state in nevada and pennsylvania. here were folks who were obviously worn thin, doing their best to communicate clearly and effectively, displaying a deep concern for transparency, just trying to get the job done right. you know what i think about when i see these masked folks on tv tallying ballots? i said. i think about my time working at the census, about all those forms i couldn’t make heads or tails of, forms with simple yes/no questions, and i can tell you one thing for sure, the majority of the uncounted ballots will have nothing to do with foul play. you’re telling me a few thousand ballots were found in a river? this matters not. more care has gone into attempting to properly count poorly filled out ballots than went into filling them out, i’ll tell you what. and in the middle of a pandemic? socially distanced, in masks, and under those fluorescents? god bless these folks.
my temperature was beginning to rise. i was talking for longer and longer stretches without letting my dad get a word in. hell, after listening to his lengthy report on what he felt were trump’s merits, i felt justified in doing so. <quote-15>the wheels started to come off, or maybe not come off, but rattle around on their spokes as they sped over the rough terrain<quote-15>.
any suspicions of foul play should be fully looked into and ruled upon in the courts, no question, i offered, but i can’t imagine trump will accept any ruling that doesn’t go his way. can you? he didn’t respond. perhaps trump has to go because he is a threat to democracy itself. democracy above all, no? / yes, my father agreed. good, i thought. i attempted to qualify the personality that my father claimed he was able to overlook, describing how, despite dispersions from the media, there was something in trump that was indeed rotten, <quote-16>an irrefutable personality disorder<quote-16>. i didn’t want to discuss all the policy details because i didn’t know all the policy details, and while i was surprised by the list of talking points my father had hit on, they felt like just that to me: talking points, claims he’d offhandedly seen come across his news feed. politics is not a sport for which my father is willing to wear a hat; he gives the news none of the attention he gives the crossword.
although, come to think of it, it’s also possible that i’m overreaching here. <quote-17>perhaps he does identify within the sport<quote-17>. i do remember listening to hours of rush limbaugh during long stretches of our family road trips as a kid. hoke’s description of the calvinist ethic is here very useful, although i can see my father disagreeing with the leaders of his church as well, so the locus of the power doesn’t quite fit the bill. we could ask whether it isn’t the wrathful calvinist tone itself that appeals; however, i can see my father disparaging such a tone when used by the left.
what i do have a strong sense of is that there are questions my father refuses to ask, ideas he will not entertain. what scares him the most? i’ve often wondered. what would he <quote-18>sooner die than admit to himself<quote-18>?
to return to our conversation, it was dark out. i was pacing the perimeter of <quote-19>the neighborhood ball field<quote-19> with cooper tethered to my wrist, enumerating the reasons trump was bad for the country when my father interrupted me: i’m not sure what’s going on, but i’m seeing double. / what do you mean? i asked. / if i close one eye, i can see fine, he said, but with both open, i’m seeing double. my vision is not right for some reason. he tried to pass it off as a mere curiosity, but i could hear the fear in his voice. <quote-20>something was wrong, and he didn’t know what it was<quote-20>. he could label the effect but not the cause.
<pull-quote>the networks<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>This, of course, started our semantic dispute on the aforementioned text message thread--Kenneth Copeland's strange and maniacal fake-laughing in response to himself: "The networks said what?! HA HA HA HA."<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>growing up, the trinity broadcasting network was on in our house a lot. our pastor was on the show once, and we all went down for the taping; we were very excited. the camera cut to me in my jeff fenholt t-shirt at one point. it was at once thrilling and embarrassing.<p-comment>
<p-comment>i forget what the exact scandal was, but something unseemly came to light about the network, and we stopped tuning in.<p-comment>
<p-comment>once, maybe ten years ago, i went with my parents to the mega church my parents now attend. it was white bread, but it was no copeland.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Was it a relief to see only white bread, bland megachurch porridge on the platform--and not the magic show of your pentecostal/FourSquare childhood church?<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>meh. once you’ve seen the power team, it all sort of pales in comparison.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Man I'd love to read a letter from you all about Little Wuck watching The Power Team in Mrs. Webber's living room: the lightning bolt jogging suits, the preacherly cries of God's victory as these guys broke cedar planks with their praying foreheads.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>my folks gave me my first weight set when i was, i don’t know, in the third or fourth grade? i tried to bend the barbel in half through calling on the lord. when no one was around to hear me, i’d scream out jesus’ name and give it all i had. my faith just isn’t strong enough, i told myself.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Holy mackerel.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>staying awake for hours, secretly monitoring the count on his phone<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Conch and I kept texting back and forth from our respective floors. I wonder how much of my night-owledness is nature and how much is nurture.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i always imagined you the fearless leader of the murphy charge into the morning.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Your mom was a night owl?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>You are asking if Conch is a night owl?<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>If she WAS as you grew up.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>If she doesn't have any reason to get up at a certain hour, she stays up. Her hours have become outrageous like mine during the pandemic, but even when I was younger, she'd always be up well past midnight in the summer. Her mother was the same way. Actually, I don't ever remember my grandmother going to sleep when I was little. Those few times she watched me for prolonged periods, she'd be up in family room when I went to sleep and in the same spot when I woke.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>This makes so much sense. Why have I never asked for the family tradition of the Murphy House schedule?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>This is my Spanish grandmother, by the way, for additional cultural context.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I can now see your schedule as decontextualized paella parties on the plaza till 4am.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>georgia and pennsylvania<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I saw them both turn powder blue before turning in after 6am over here.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Your Murphish hours felt helpful as our friends all processed the wait this week: like you held the nightwatch for us, letting us all go to bed. I'd wake up and read the text "log" and not feel like any of us missed anything in the wee hours.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i woke up one morning last week to 370-some-odd unread texts on the dodger thread alone. some teenagers must wake up to thousands of missed texts and dms on the regular.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>So that's why they're always on their phones.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>well, that and porn. that, porn, and minesweeper.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>These fucking kids and their minesweeper. I'm like, "Toni Morrison, right?!" And they're all like, "She's no minesweeper, Prof."<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>the margin of victory<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>History, I think, will remember 306-232 as a tidy defeat despite the experience for those of us who watched, say, the runs score. I think of the many Dodger games this year that ended in lopsided fashion with the runs coming in the 7th or 8th innings (and probably with two outs).<p-comment>
<p-comment>To continue a flawed baseball analogy: it would have been nice to sweep through the playoffs with nary an anxiety, but you don't give back the trophy because the going was tougher than you'd hoped.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>i mean, hey, what better way to celebrate democracy this week than a conversation between the colors, am i right?<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I can think of one or two. Build something out of Legos maybe?<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Good call. At my "baby shower for dad" gathering last week, the guys gave me a whiskey bottle and a wrapped Star Wars LEGOS box to open with Abram when the baby comes. I wanted to open it and play right there, with whiskey by the bonfire. Sorry, Abram.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>List and describe for me these guys.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Nate R: elementary school teacher, loves sailing and poetry and big ideas and has two boys whom Abram adores and looks up to. One of my favorite guys in Skagit. Grew up the youngest brother of a Dutch immigrant boat shop family in the little bayside hamlet of Bay View, and was the odd duck who liked tea with Mom more than woodshop with the hulking older brothers. He teaches ukelele and rock music and history and video design to rich 6th graders in nearby Anacortes.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Nate Y: electrician, quiet, humble, almost died of kidney stuff years ago, works late hours helping migrant families with electrical or plumbing projects and I only learned this around the fire (he would never ask for attention about the amount he supports other families). He also has two boys--older than Nate R's two--one long-haired and already an emo kid, the other pure energy who wrestles and builds tree houses with their dad.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Grant: school district leader about to become a principal for bilingual education. He got deep into sailing with his 8 yr old alongside Nate R and his two boys the last few summers and I wish Abram was old enough that we could get in on that. Grant is super chill, easy going, funny, incredibly competent and generous (he put this "baby shower thing for the dad" together quickly and is now overseeing our church's transition since our badass pastor Bethany just bounced to Texas).<p-comment>
<p-comment>Ryan: works inventory for electrical regional supply, is very shy and heavier and his boy is just as incredibly sensitive. I get the feeling he's never been part of a group of guys or friends, but his wife has encouraged him. His emerging honesty and timid vulnerability--which only appear very late in our conversation--is a gift.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>love this, hoke. good call. murph.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I so badly wanted there to be a third Nate.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>our subjectivities objectified<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Phil Klay, Pulitzer-winning short story writer of the Iraq Wars, just wrote a piece in the NYT this weekend about this: that trust in online aggregate data about us is, in the end, false.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i’m gonna read it now.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>a great read. i’ve heard the declamation of data described as the religion of our age: survey says, studies show, the numbers suggest, etc. so while our personalized media platforms serve us the data that best supports our values, the nature of data suggests we deny the very existence of the values we use to make sense of the data itself.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>We must treat "social media" like we do "Wikipedia." Nothing derives from either source. We must trace all information to its origin, scrutinize that origin and the information both. To trust something we've read only on social media, only on Wikipedia, to base a worldview on such, is unacceptable.<p-comment>
<p-comment>This is the first step, at least. Don't do this? Don't get an opinion.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I picture myself standing in the schoolyard next to you and your bold claim to all listenders, and me shouting "Yeah!" from behind your shoulder. "Take that!" Then looking down at my phone and thinking for a sec. Man, I'm gonna have a lot fewer opinions.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>i already knew<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I haven't spoken to my parents about this at all yet. Because I know. I wait, some days, hoping, for the first sign of a shift in them. Something like, "I'm rethinking a few things these days."<p-comment>
<p-comment>I like to think this waiting is in line with the father of the prodigal son, who doesn't go chasing and badgering the wayward beloved, but hopes and wonders with an eye out the window.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Is this deferred confrontation with your folks anything like your long deferred confrontation with Lulo?<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Sure. My parents, of course, haven't wronged me in any way like Lulo. But my avoiding confrontation is similar in that I have given up trying to force a conversation when I know they haven't had a turn in their self-assessment. Lulo I now hold at a hard, boundaried distance; he's too manipulative. My parents are dotingly loving toward me, and I try to stay in better touch with them as they've moved to Florida this year. I just don't bring up politics anymore. It just makes me too sad.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>i told myself when he picked up<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Seriously, Wuck. Shut it.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>the fox news<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>There's one Republican in our English department, a sweetheart of a lady and an insanely devoted educator utterly committed to equity. She always has The Drudge Report on a visible tab whenever she shares her screen during meetings or whatever. I suppose if Mrs. Webber can vote for Trump, she might have too.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i’d imagine so. afterall, we are not required to explain our vote; we simply check a box. perhaps framing the choice as a moral one helps us stomach the corruption we endorse behind our box of choice. for the informed, a certain courage is required, seems to me—a willingness to choke down that pill. trump helped that blue pill go down real easy for a lot of folks this time ‘round, and that’s something the left should be grateful for, insofar as a political victory is of interest.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>tax cuts<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Like reciting the Bible from memory here.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>perhaps in some ways. say more.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I don't know what more there is to say. He's clearly parroting things he's heard on the radio or the TV or from wherever he mainlines his partisan news.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Like, I'm guessing he doesn't have his own take on, say, the Cleansing of the Temple.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>is there something you sense anthony does have his own take on?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Installing a tetherball pole, for sure.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>policy<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I think the saying is, bill of goods.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>zip it, wuck.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>this is good<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Good on you for listening and waiting to reply. Your love for your father is maybe the model I--we all today--need to follow? <p-comment>
<p-comment>I dunno. I wouldn't ask people suffering under the boot of conservative policies to patiently listen to the person with the boot on their neck. I don't know. Don't listen to me.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Zip it, Hoke.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>false claim<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>You think?<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Zip it, Murph.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>the wheels started to come off, or maybe not come off, but rattle around on their spokes as they sped over the rough terrain<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>God, I know this feeling.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>an irrefutable personality disorder<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>The only president in recent memory without a dog. That man has no dog!<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I didn't realize this till I saw a news bit this morning on Biden's dogs. And I thought in hindsight how important this is. Lulo hated dogs and cats. It may even be part of diagnostic criteria. I'll check.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i heard this tidbit on the axios today news podcast: biden will be the first to bring a shelter dog into the white house, but not the first to keep a rescued pet. in 1926 the coolidge’s were sent a raccoon for their thanksgiving dinner (pretty gross grouse, you ask me) and they decided to keep her around. rebecca the raccoon.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Your sister's namesake, no?<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>that's it.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>perhaps he does identify within the sport<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Maybe it's fitting that Trumpers 4.5 years ago started a new GOP brazenness with a red ball cap, of all signifiers.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>sooner die than admit to himself<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>What a great question. For anyone.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Sooner die?! Die?! Just admit it. Who gives a fuck? Don't die, dummy!<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>the neighborhood ball field<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Hi, Wuck's neighborhood ball field! Been a while. Missed ya!<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>you remember playing frisbee here the first day you all landed in new york for my wedding, yes? i had to avoid the house because sarah was asleep so we all went here to toss the frisbee for a while?<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Of course, dawgy.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Do I remember? DO I REMEMBER?!<p-comment>
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<pull-quote>something was wrong, and he didn’t know what it was<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Extraordinary. So many possible causes. The most delicious for me: knowing his son is right and he is wrong. And yet, I like Anthony too much to really revel in a spell like this.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Proof?<p-comment>
<p-comment>At your wedding reception, and on the heels of my preamble in which I suggested that sincere marriage thoughts from great novelists are few and far between, your dad got up and, before giving his toast, made some remark that I had overlooked the Bible in my search for a quote.<p-comment>
<p-comment>I almost interrupted, "Anthony Webber admitting the Bible is fiction, ladies and gentlemen!" I just caught myself. And not for you or Sarah either, but because I really do like the guy.<p-comment>
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<pull-quote><pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
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<pull-quote>closure<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I can sympathize. God bless you, Hoke, for returning to the text message thread last night and letting us conclude our back and forth about the religious right on shared ground.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>That means a lot, man. Thanks. I too was pretty worked up--without closure--by that thread last night. I could write a whole letter on it, and our group of friends. But these letters helped ground me, that I know you better than whatever text spat happened. And I can always call Wuck to process. Reading this note this morning is sweet. God bless us all.<p-comment>
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<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>trying to prove a points on a text thread is a sport i’m becoming less and less interested in engaging in. not only does the format facilitate talking both over and past one another, it also augments implication. the debate with max over the election demographics charts? his suggestion that i was in fact the one who didn’t understand statistics and was ignorant and then going so far as imply that my position was racially motivated? i was all aflame. i was fixing dinner at the time, the kitchen was hot from the oven, the air was off because i was using the stove, the baby was fussing and needed changing, sarah was hungry and tired and couldn’t attend to ben because she was pumping, biden was about to give his acceptance speech, and i was worried the entirety of the guy thread was confirming in their minds how wuck was a white supremacist.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I know that feeling, that the text group suddenly thinks I'm in a cult because I'm using theological language to clarify between an evangelical and a televantelist.<p-comment>
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<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>If the two of you think you have represented yourselves in these letters as anything but a white supremacist and a cultist, respectively, you are sorely mistaken.<p-comment>
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<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Whelp--when you hear the voice of the Lord through your friends, in an intervention like this, do not harden your hearts.<p-comment>
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