It's seasoning, not growing older

I was looking down at my hands while doing some typing this week and noticed something stark. They look old.
Old hands. Old mind.
As you can tell from the outset, I’m doing a lot of reflecting this week. Reflecting of what was easily the most emotional general election campaign this country has ever put itself through. At least in my opinion anyway.
Promises.
Promises ensconced in what really, anymore anyway, is becoming a land of make believe.
In the past those promises have been to insure all Americans, or to wipe out college debt, pull the rug from underneath communism.
Now we’re promising to secure our borders and deport what in all likelihood will be an unproportionate number of ‘criminal’ immigrants. We’re promising to make America great again, but in my 56 years I’m not sure I’ve seen a great America.
I have a daughter who is so disenfranchised with America she’s seriously considering moving out of the country. My wife wants to join her.
In speaking with a friend of mine on Friday, I heard this for the first time.
“You have to give people time to mourn the election,” he said.
Mourn the election.
Never heard it put to me that way. People are very aware of my support for Stacy Weber for Sheriff.
They screamed bias, but no one, not one single person when I posted multiple times to prove the bias, could prove the bias. They just pivoted to something else. My friendship with that man is private, but based entirely upon the support he and several of his deputies who I would never think of dragging through the crap of public exchange, showed not only in the wake of my daughter’s death, but in the year leading up to it.
And then stood at the ready as I mourned her death, and the subsequent separation with my wife of 30 years, and then the death of my mother. It’s been a rough four and half years.
Whether Weber and those boys wear a badge has no bearing on our friendship. Those badges were just a catalyst to a brotherhood. The same brotherhood that exists in my family.
Readers won’t want to hear that, but it needs said because it’s part of my reflections of this campaign.
Lee County voters have spoken loudly again and chose a new sheriff, a new auditor, and two new supervisors. I have no problem with change. And a vote is a vote.
Promises were made. I have faith in those people to bring about the change they evoke because your word is your bond.
With these old hands and older mind comes cynicism and the turn of a head and shrug when we hear political parties espouse platforms. That cynicism is seasoned with years of listening at caucuses, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in messaging thrown at us over the last six months. It’s seasoned with generations of family values, and the influence of an ever-divided media landscape.
I remember the campaigns of Reagan against Carter and Mondale. They were campaigns of ideas and which idea was the best. Debates were cordial and pitted ideas against other ideas or how to move the country in the best direction.
I’m sorry, I know writing is as perishable as anything, but I can’t remember a time when it became so personal. Maybe they were just really good at covering it all up. I’m sure that was a big part of it. To think that one of the Bushes or Dukakises, or Sanders wasn’t in a back room talking smack about their opponents is more than naïve. But I’ve been naive about things in the past, I always just assumed as Americans we were a bit more noble than we’re showing.
I’m getting too old for social media battles and quite frankly, I think those are the beginning of the end of social media. So many people have told me they’ve turned off their networks because of exhaustion. X is already headed down that road.
On the other hand, maybe it’s not age. Maybe it's the aforementioned seasoning. Maybe we develop ourselves like a good recipe and we begin, with age, to perfect what we like in our own minds. We get a base of social values from family or friends or both, and then we tweak it based on what we see, read, hear, experience, and learn.
I’m not that old. Even thinking that an adult football league might be fun, but I’m absolutely sure that’s going to come with a medical bill. It’s not the bill I mind really, it’s the MRI. My age hasn’t helped me deal with sitting in a body-sized tube for 20 minutes. So I’m not sure reliving my youth is worth the claustrophobia.
What I do know is that age is what you make of it. And politics only have the value you give it. We’re far more influenced by the local and state governments than we are by the federal races, so let’s “mourn” this election for a few days and then get back out there. I guess I’m still young enough for that, and some out routes – But that’ Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.