Residents and concerned citizens turned out tonight to the Westtown Planning Commission at Stetson Middle School. Toll Brothers even got a Revolutionary War Soldier. Photo courtesy of nice people from SCOWT
Dear Robinson Family, it is never too late to do the right thing. Please consider that….unless you really don’t care about the legacy of Crebilly?
Photo courtesy of Ardmore Shutterbug on location in Ardmore at the protest.
This is a protest that was orchestrated by a Bryn Mawr College student who I am told hails from Indiana.
I do not care what side. What do people get from disrupting lives and affecting traffic and putting their own lives at risk for less than legitimate or well thought out reasons? Does all that enact change? And what has LMPD (Lower Merion Police Department) done exactly to deserve this at this time?
Fomenting HATE on any side of an issue does NOT enact positive change and I am sorry but I think it is total and utter bulltwinkies to say:
“The LMPD is our enemy…The people of Montgomery County are too comfortable. Folks on the Main Line aren’t forced to see protests in the city.”
There is nothing truly peaceful about the intent that bothers me. This summer there was a PEACEFUL march organized by a young lady with a lot more style. This is not peaceful.
What these over-indulged privileged college students at elite private (and very liberal) colleges ON THE MAIN LINE will be doing in actuality is scaring the crap out of residents and ordinary working people who have nothing to do with any of this. And given the time of day, people traveling on Lancaster Avenue who work shift work will have a hard time getting to their minimum wage jobs that the architects of this march know nothing about.
I am all for being the change you seek. But not with inflammatory rhetoric like this. That is morally and ethically reprehensible. Hate begets hate.
Again as per the screenshot the organizer is a Bryn Mawr College student. A white middle class college student from the Midwest, and what does she know in her limited life experience from strife?
And why did this Megan Murray organize this? Did she experience any issues with the police department where I used to call home and where West Chester’s former Borough Manager Ernie McNeely is not the Township Manager? My research and the research of others indicates no, so is this like “Oh it’s Wednesday, I think I will wash my hair, eat pizza for lunch, and protest before dinner to burn off calories”?
It’s ludicrous, and I do not respect this. This is like a recreational protest, or they had nothing to do. Hate begets hate.
If these spoiled, predominantly white college students think it is a hardship to go to elite private liberal colleges on the Main Line (which is not conservative held at this point and has not for years) let them transfer and go elsewhere.
Protest for the sake of protest is just silly. Those colleges need local police forces and other first responders like EMTs and fire fighters.
And for these colleges to allow their students to make full time residents uncomfortable just because some student decided that “Folks on the Main Line aren’t forced to see protests in the city. We will change all that by disrupting their communities…”
W.T.F.????
Do we come to your dorms with bullhorns and protest your existence?
Does this organizer even realize that (a) the top 2% she feels have wronged her live far, far away from the downtown Ardmore business district and the people whose lives they are disrupting are more common folk who do not breath rarefied air and actually WORK for a living? and (b) Even people in the city don’t necessarily see any protests, because why? OH yeah, Philadelphia is a very large major metropolitan city, isn’t it?
People actually protesting Trump or any other political figure I actually get. But picking on a police department where you go to college that has never done anything to you yet you call them all facists I do not get and I do not respect.
Update: Protest planned for Wednesday afternoon in Lower Merion
We get by with a little help from our friends. And this coming Saturday, November 19 at 1 PM sharp, thanks to the kindness of Captain Howard A. Crawford, USAF, MSC (Ret) who is the Commander of the West Chester American Legion Post 134 (Bernard Schlegel Post) there will be a simple ceremony courtesy of the Captain and other members of the Chester County Veteran’s Council including Kelby Hershey of the WCU Student Veteran’s Center.
Captain Crawford learned of Eagle Scout Luke Phayre’s project to clean up Ebenezer (Luke is part of Willistown Boy Scout Troop 78), and wanted to help those of us in the community who love Ebenezer to honor the USCT soldiers buried at Ebenezer. This honor will also extend to the old souls buried there. I am so thrilled this is happening as it was my black Civil War soldier, Joshua Johnson who first inspired me to write and care about the ruins of Ebenezer AME.
Captain Crawford can be reached at paamericanlegion134@gmail.com
At 1 PM the following will happen:
A small honor guard, taps will be played, a small dedication prayer by an American Legion Chaplain.
This might very well be the very first time the USCT soldiers buried here have ever been honored like this. We also expect some veterans of every branch of service throughout Chester County.
The address of Ebenezer was 97 Bacton Hill Road, Frazer, PA when it was an active church. For those not quite sure where Ebenezer is, they are next door to the Malvern Courts Mobile Homes at 94 Bacton Hill Road in Frazer, and not far from where Bacton Hill Road meets 401 (Conestoga Road).
Please be advised that there is not really off-street parking available, so park along the side of the road with care and caution.
Media and members of the public are encouraged to attend. In a nation currently torn asunder by varying political factions and beliefs, those of us involved at Ebenezer are humbled by this kind gesture on the part of Chester County veterans who believe in our quest to save Ebenezer and honor those buried here. So please, we most kindly request that people leave their politics at home if they choose to attend.
As a related aside, Ebenezer is in the news once again today:
For the most part, historic burial grounds do not get the same attention that is paid to birthplaces or battlegrounds. In Pennsylvania, some historic cemeteries have been relocated and the land redeveloped; other sites are neglected and overgrown; and some have been completely lost….
On the list of priorities for historic preservation, cemeteries tend to rank low. But there is some movement to protect the sacred grounds.
“These places deserve to be saved,” said Carla Zambelli, who is working to research and preserve a long-overlooked graveyard in East Whiteland Township, Chester County. “Those people meant something to someone.”
…While historic buildings and other sites have opportunities for government protection on local or national historic registers, cemeteries are rarely designated on such lists….Many of the older cemeteries have become wards of the state or their local towns because the original congregations or organizations that operated them have faded or moved on….Survival falls on the caretakers or institutions that may still run them and their “financial wherewithal,” explained Aaron Wunsch, an assistant professor in University of Pennsylvania’s historic preservation program….The Ebenezer AME cemetery is one of 42 burial grounds of black Civil War troops identified so far by the Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds Project, launched in 2009 to raise awareness of these cemeteries and establish ways to preserve them. The small volunteer group received a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to host annual gatherings of preservationists and caretakers who share strategies to meet the challenges of protecting the burial sites.
Above you see a 1930 era photo of another A.M.E. Church of some historical import. Founded in 1807 (have seen 1817 as the founding date too) in Westtown Township and eventually called Shiloh. Even earlier than my beloved Ebenezer (1831-1832) on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer East Whiteland (that I have written about since 2013, and most recently on November 12. )
Shiloh the church no longer stands. It also is true history lost because one of the early ministers with a calling to Shiloh was Jarena Lee. She was the first black female preacher in America. She was born a free woman of color in Cape May, NJ originally. Bishop Richard Allen granted her the ability to be a minister in 1819. Jarena’s memoir published in 1849 is eloquent and moving and you can read it online and on this blog:
( religious-experience-and-journal-of-mrs-jarena-lee-1849 )
She’s a pretty cool historical figure.
But back to Shiloh. In a sense, although the church suffered the same fate as Ebenezer we actually know more about it. It seems that the church had a congregation until the 1920s. Then it disappeared over time, I suppose.
But Shiloh’s graveyard, like Ebenezer’s still exists. But unlike Ebenezer which is still church owned land (unless the A.M.E. church can dispute that in writing, given the recent Inquirer article the A.M.E. Church still owns Ebenezer ) , Shiloh’s graveyard now lies on private property. And on that property there are confirmed 7 and believed up to 14 U.S.C.T. veterans buried there. All those black Civil War Soldiers.
I learned about the soldiers at Westtown Day this fall. The historical society folks had a display inside Oakbourne Mansion which fascinated me. It interested me enough that I took the below photo.
So I had received an e-mail from Kelby Hershey from the WCU Student Veterans Center. He is the gentleman who brought all those volunteers to Ebenezer this past Saturday.
Here is what he had to say:
I am Kelby Hershey, a recent History graduate here at WCU. I am currently working with the WCU Student Veterans Group and may have uncovered something that may interest you.
West Chester University Student Veterans Group has taken on an initiative this semester to ensure that the final resting places for 14 local Civil War veterans are no longer neglected and will be properly maintained. We are currently looking for local support. Here is what we know:On the corner of Shiloh and Little Shiloh road in Westtown there used to stand a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church founded in Westtown. Founded in 1807 it was one of the first AME churches in the country. Please read attached article titled “Echoes of Shiloh AME Church” for background. After the congregation moved on in the early 1900’s the building was abandoned and eventually destroyed leaving a large plot of unmarked graves. Within the cemetery continues to lie 7 verified Civil War veterans and at least 7 more probable. We believe there are over 14 veteran’s graves on this property and possibly even a Revolutionary War veteran. The names and units of some of the service members at rest here are attached titled “Shiloh AME Veterans.” I encourage you to look over the names, where they are from, and the units they served in. The property also holds an unknown number of freed slaves’ graves. The property containing the cemetery was acquired by private ownership at some time under uncertain circumstances and the current owner will not allow the public to enter to investigate the cemetery under threat of trespassing. The owner has allowed the property to go overgrown with heavy brush and thorns, refuses to care for the graves, and roughly rebukes all of the township’s efforts to seek resolution.It is the opinion of the WCU Student Veteran Group that we are currently failing our local heroes, American veterans who have been laid to rest in our back yard without receiving proper honors. It is additionally concerning that the owner will not allow visitors and has not taken responsibility caring for the graves.In 2014 several concerned citizens, veterans, and local politicians met to discuss our options. The township has had over two years to act and due to lack of public awareness it appears that nothing has been done. You can follow the link below to the 2014 Unionville Times article.So what are our options? There happens to be a Westtown Township Board of Supervisors meeting on the evening of Monday, November 7th that is open to the public, we would like to voice our support here on behalf of local veterans and this historic project. Every hand raised will have an opportunity to voice their support. All comments made will be officially printed in the public meeting’s minutes.Please attend with us and contact myself with any questions,
Westtown Township Board of Supervisors Meeting
November 7, 7:30-9:00 pm
Westtown Township
1039 Wilmington Pike
West Chester, PA 19382
Thank you very much,Respectfully,Kelby HersheyWCU Student Veterans Center
Of course this summer, yet another article appeared about yet another A.M.E. graveyard. It was in the Chester County Press and the subject is the ruins of the graveyard in Lower Oxford on Mount Calvary on 154 Bethel Road. It’s complicated but there actually is a church still attached. Somehow over the years it changed it’s name and I guess moved – Allen A.M.E. Church in Oxford on Market Street.
However, Mount Calvary is a story similar to Ebenezer because it was not the A.M.E. Church that started the drive to clean up Mount Calvary. The person responsible is a woman I have come to know recently named Kimberly Boddy. She discovered it while helping a friend research where certain ancestors were buried.
And Kimberly has a really cool Chester County heritage as she is the granddaughter of the late Lee Carter, who was a self-taught Chester County artist who also had what I think was called the Road To Freedom Museum at one time (I am not sure it still exists). The Daily Local wrote about an exhibit of Lee Carter’s paintings in Coatesville last year.
Kimberly is a quiet doer, and she carries on the traditions of community service that I believe she learned from her grandfather. (And no, she did not ask me to write or say anything, I chose to because there seem to be all sorts of people trying to save historic graveyards in Chester County.)
Anyway, the Mount Calvary story was one of the things discussed at the Pennylvania Hallowed Grounds Project meeting this fall. Here is the article from this summer:
07/05/2016 11:39AM, Published by Steven Hoffman
The Mount Calvary Cemetery stands at the intersection of Bethel and Calvary Roads in Lower Oxford and, until very recently, it was largely forgotten.
Kimberly Boddy, a resident of Kennett Square, was helping a friend research some information and learned about the Mount Calvary Cemetery’s existence almost by accident. When she saw that the cemetery was littered with trash, that the gravestones were in a sad state of disrepair, and that weeds had grown uncontrollably in some parts of the small cemetery, she was disheartened. She knew that the 100 or so people who were buried in the cemetery deserved better.
“It broke my heart,” Boddy explained. “This may be an historic piece of ground. This is not just African-American history here, it’s Lower Oxford history.”
The cemetery dates back to 1852. At one time, the Calvary Church stood next to the cemetery, but the church moved. The cemetery itself does not even have a known address, Boddy said. The people buried in the cemetery—with family names like Jones, Moore, or Webster—were most likely members of the Calvary Church before it changed its name to Allen A.M.E. and moved to a location in Oxford Borough. When Boddy learned about the cemetery, she also discovered that some of the people buried in it served their country—including volunteers who died in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II.
But back to Shiloh. People went to the recent Westtown meeting to plead the case of soldiers who have no other voices at this point other than interested strangers. Shiloh was in a local paper in 2014:
WESTTOWN – At the intersection of Shiloh and Little Shiloh Roads sits a nondescript property with a unique and historically significant past. This same quiet property is currently the subject of a heated debate between its current owner and parties deemed responsible for the care of gravesites and the moral call of many to honor U.S. Veterans.
Monday, a group including two state representatives, veterans affairs and historical advocates as well as local and county officials met looking for options to honor and preserve this final resting place of soldiers from the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.
From approximately 1817 through 1920, this parcel of land was home to the Shiloh A.M.E. Church and cemetery (also commonly known as Westtown Burying Ground.) Shiloh A.M.E. was once a thriving church and its cemetery is believed to be the oldest African American burial ground in Chester County. Today, only prominently posted bright orange “No Trespassing” signage marks the property’s perimeter; while hinting at its importance and the brewing controversy….
The property was acquired by the current owner in 1977; and for approximately 15 years, various Veterans’ affairs groups have sought permission from the owner to enter the property to identify the graves, honor veterans, and provide proper care and maintenance to the gravesites.
To date, all such requests have been rebuffed by the land owner who is currently threatening civil and criminal action against anyone found trespassing.
So I am floored. I had no idea of the Pandora’s Box I was uncovering when I started to write about Ebenezer. Ebenezer keeps introducing me to like minded souls, people interested in the welfare of these departed soldiers, freed slaves, and so on. The history we are all interested in preserving is truly remarkable. And the common denominator keeps coming back to the A.M.E. Church. And the fact that those of us interested in preserving this history aren’t necessarily part of the church.
Thank goodness for groups like the Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds Project as it gives us hope that preservation IS possible. And at the end of the day, we need to respect our dead no matter the race creed or color and especially the soldiers. Those soldiers fought for our freedoms.
Because what was Shiloh’s graveyard now lies on private property, the only way you can see how the property looks is because of Google
Ebenezer AME on Bacton Hill Road has been my passion project the past few years as most of my friends and family and readers know.
If my sweet man hadn’t stopped that winter’s day so I could take photos, I wouldn’t have found my USCT soldier Joshua.
I wrote about this for three years straight here until things started to click. I am grateful for the help of so many, especially Al Terrell and those amazing Willistown Troop 78 scouts.
We went from a crazy overgrown site that no one loved to today at Ebenezer in Frazer!
Look at this and be happy – this is what it means to be an American. This is what it means to honor your history and the dead. This is what it means to honor some of our older veterans – as in from the Civil War.
A shout out to today’s guest star volunteers: WCU Student Veterans Group, WCU Men’s Rugby Club, and two WCU Fraternities, Sigma Epsilon (I don’t know if this should be Sigma Phi Epsilon?) and FIJI. About 50 students total. Kelby Hershey is apparently the super hero at WCU who brought these folks together today for us—and a new grave was discovered!
It’s a shame that The Daily Local News hasn’t covered this yet. And once again, I have to say thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer for giving us not one but two articles in 2016.
If any media out there can find it in their hearts to cover Ebenezer, kindly contact me. If there are those out there who want to volunteer, connect with Al Terrell.
Thank you everyone for your interest. This is 184 years of history, amazing vibrant and important history, and we are all so thankful that so many are starting to realize it.
Enjoy the photos!
I am closing with a quote that is a favorite of my friend Sara:
”Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Walk humbly with your God .”[Micah 6:8]
I love my stepson. I do, He is awesome. But like many other kids those manners you have been teaching since embryo stage applies most often when you child is a guest in OTHER people’s homes. It’s so not cool to use those manners where you live! It simply is not done!
“Oh he is so helpful!”
“How do I get a child who helps me clean up the kitchen, set the table, walk the dog, and helps make the salad?”
“He is the PERFECT guest! And so articulate and conversational!”
Yes, I love hearing all this nice things….but here I sit laughing to myself that I wish I knew that person inside the four walls of our home!
Perfect manners. Outside the house.
Here?
Here I have a mutant ninja teenager. He loves the inner sanctum of the bat cave, err his room. Enter at your own risk.
Or the gaming palace, errr I mean the FAMILY room.
Want to make a teenager twitch? Have the temerity to actually sit in the FAMILY room and use it for anything OTHER than video games. Or hide their phone for a few minutes.
And when said beloved teenager is in the FAMILY room, you see him practicing to be a future corporate mogul and reclining like Julius Ceasar. He has the head set on to communicate with his friends (and sometimes I swear they are more on the head sets to communicate than game). Then he has the super battery charger thingy in case he needs to plug in, text messaging/snap chatting/whatever on the phone, and for the technology trifecta, the tablet….with another game going on.
Teenagers contrary to popular belief can actually multitask VERY well and ever so efficiently….it just has to be something that interests them. (Which aren’t parental units, naturally.)
When a certain someone was a little boy he loved hanging out with us. He even showed interest in the kitchen. When he was 10 he used to make me his world class favorite snack: he would cut up an apple, put it on the plate and carefully like he was mortaring bricks, would spread on peanut butter and even drizzle a little honey. And we would make hot cocoa together.
But at 17, you do not get that. It is about friends, school, girl friend, gaming and not necessarily in that order. Parental units are to be tolerated and used for rides to get places or buy stuff. It’s not cool to hang out with the parental units, I do actually remember that much from being a teenager myself back in the olden days of yore.
Living as the only female human in the house I have resigned myself to a couple of things. One is socks form their own strange colonies along with random piles of dirty clothes. The second is laundry looks much better when artfully displayed on the floor around the laundry hamper.
Another thing is the male of the human species have their own special, often somewhat primal non-verbal language. They can move about the house essentially grunting to each other and well sometimes the female feels somewhat invisible….until you cook or bake something that smells REALLY REALLY good.
One thing that doesn’t seem to happen very much in my house anymore are family dinners. Teenager might turn into a pillar of salt or something if he couldn’t spend his time after homework on his games with his friends. So I have pretty much given up on that ideal. Which saddens me, but too many instances of teenager face (that special they are-bored-don’t-want-to-be-here-face), made me give it up.
But there is one thing I won’t give up on. If teenager wants to be master of his own universe after homework, fine, but it is not my job to be the maid. Yet somehow, I end up being the maid because teenagers never seem to know where the dishwasher is where they live…you are the maid and dishwasher.
Last night I cooked a lovely dinner. Teenager did not join us. But when he got off of his games and brought up his dinner plate (which was fixed and delivered to him by his father), it once again got deposited in the sink for the fairies or someone to take care of.
Proverbial straw meet camel’s back. Time to go on strike. I am not the maid.
So I decided to do to him what we once did to a summer beach house roommate who was a supreme kitchen slob: deposit his plate back in his room on a towel with a note (as seen above). Mind you I am being much kinder to him than I was to this woman once upon a time – we took a BIG beach towel and put it on her bed and onto the towel went a week’s worth of dirty dishes and glasses and detritus she had left trailing around for an entire week. We had thought if we let her stuff pile up, she would take care of it but when that didn’t work, it was time for towel on bed. That worked and the rest of the summer she didn’t leave a mess in the kitchen.
Whether this leaving the plate back for my teenager to find will work or just be perceived as another parental unit nuisance remains to be seen. I suspect I will have to go on strike a few more times. Sorry not sorry but when I was his age I could not only cook, my sister and I were expected to clean up or help clean up.
Parents of teenagers are reading this and laughing, because you have to have one to truly get this new parenthood club. I don’t ask for much, I just want a little help and cooperation once in a while. And I am waiting for the feedback from some of my friends who do NOT have teenagers. They feel free to liberally sprinkle parenting advice and while I appreciate their efforts, telling me what to do when they do NOT have a single teenager in residence is not helpful…and I will be sitting there with popcorn gleefully on the sidelines when their kids who “would never do that” become teenagers.
And I might get them the book by Dr. Peter Marshall titled Now I Know Why Tigers Eat Their Young
Thanks for stopping by!
July 20, 2015 I said Trump as the future of American politics is terrifying. Well, here we are…
Yesterday, if I am honest with myself, I went to the polls not really feeling I had a candidate. But as a woman, I thought well maybe the time for a female president had come, although I know full well the political history of Hillary Clinton. But also as a woman with a brain, I knew in my heart of hearts Donald Trump was not my guy.
I went to the polls an Independent. I woke up still an Independent in what feels like almost a skewed reality. Like everyone else who couldn’t stay awake last night, I woke up with the most unlikely U.S. President since well…Andrew Jackson. No, I did not invent that comparison. Truthfully I first ready about it in The New York Times in February (February 16, 2016) when they said:
….Mr. Trump’s rhetoric resonates with a particular American political tradition. Voters may not know the details of that tradition, but they feel it viscerally when a politician taps into it. Mr. Trump has done just that by emulating a classic model of American democratic leadership….
Consciously or not, Mr. Trump’s campaign echoes the style of Andrew Jackson, and the states where Mr. Trump is strongest are the ones that most consistently favored Jackson during his three runs for the White House.
What Mr. Trump borrows from Jackson is not an issue, but a way of thinking about the world. Mr. Trump promises to fix his supporters’ problems, no matter who else is hurt. He’s a wealthy celebrity always ready for a fight, a superpatriot who says he will make America great again. He vows to attack government corruption and defend the common man. All this could be said of Jackson….
Riding his fame to the White House, Jackson captured the imagination of ordinary citizens who’d never voted in such numbers before. He crushed rivals who considered him crude, barbaric and even a danger to the republic.
Jackson had a captivating style, and not just because of his wild hair. He did what he wanted, and demanded respect. In an 1806 duel, he shot and killed a man who had insulted him in a newspaper. Mr. Trump’s Twitter broadsides at his critics are gentle by comparison.
Like Mr. Trump, Jackson made his fortune in real estate….And again like Mr. Trump, a former Democrat and independent, Jackson did not worry about consistency.
Other political pundits and television talking heads prattled on about the same thing last night as the returns came in, but I first read about it in The New York Times.
Last night the results and the election were described as a “rejection election” as well. And I do not think honestly that America rejected Hillary Clinton because she was a woman. They rejected her because she’s Hillary Clinton, with (like it or not), a literal path of bodies in her political wake.
But Donald Trump? As a friend texted this morning:
No other US Presidential candidate in memory has given offense so freely and been so battered by scandal, and lived to fight on and win.
Well…except for Andrew Jackson. Now one thing about the Andrew Jackson Presidency is during it there was a major financial crisis that according to a historian I know, historians are still trying to figure out. Of course we can also thank President Jackson for the Indian Removal Policy. Yes, think Trail of Tears.
Back to the banking and financial crisis of Andrew Jackson’s tenure in office. Wikipedia sums it up nicely:
Removal of deposits and censure
In 1833, Jackson removed federal deposits from the bank, whose money-lending functions were taken over by the legions of local and state banks that materialized across America, thus drastically increasing credit and speculation.[106] Three years later, Jackson issued the Specie Circular, an executive order that required buyers of government lands to pay in “specie” (gold or silver coins). The result was a great demand for specie, which many banks did not have enough of to exchange for their notes, causing the Panic of 1837, which threw the national economy into a deep depression. It took years for the economy to recover from the damage, but the bulk of the damage was blamed on Martin Van Buren, who took office in 1837.[107] Whitehouse.gov notes,
Basically the trouble was the 19th-century cyclical economy of “boom and bust”, which was following its regular pattern, but Jackson’s financial measures contributed to the crash. His destruction of the Second Bank of the United States had removed restrictions upon the inflationary practices of some state banks; wild speculation in lands, based on easy bank credit, had swept the West. To end this speculation, Jackson in 1836 had issued a Specie Circular requiring that lands be purchased with hard money—gold or silver. In 1837 the panic began. Hundreds of banks and businesses failed. Thousands lost their lands. For about five years the United States was wracked by the worst depression thus far in its history.
— Whitehouse.gov official biography of Martin Van Buren[108]
The U.S. Senate censured Jackson on March 28, 1834, for his action in removing U.S. funds from the Bank of the United States.[109] The censure was a political maneuver spearheaded by Jackson-rival Senator Henry Clay, which served only to perpetuate the animosity between him and Jackson.[110] During the proceedings preceding the censure, Jackson called Clay “reckless and as full of fury as a drunken man in a brothel”, and the issue was highly divisive within the Senate; however, the censure was approved 26–20 on March 28.[110] When the Jacksonians had a majority in the Senate, the censure was expunged after years of effort by Jackson supporters, led by Thomas Hart Benton, who though he had once shot Jackson in a street fight, eventually became an ardent supporter of the president.[110][111]
Well, the financial markets were already reacting to the real possibility of a President-elect Trump last night when I went to sleep. They are terrified of him.
I said to friends on Facebook before I went to sleep to never discount the power of Pennsyltucky. Hold onto your hats as financial markets react. From one extreme to the other, here we go. I kinda felt Clinton had lost when I went to bed a little after midnight. When I woke up it was confirmed.
So here we are.
I am uneasy. I am uneasy primarily because of healthcare. Obaamacare is seriously flawed, no doubt. But repealing it will cause millions of us to be completely and utterly screwed. Including people like me who has always kept myself covered even if through self-pay before there was even an Obamacare.
But I am a giant pre-existing condition as a five year breast cancer survivor. I was already screwed this year by Aetna who officially dumped all those people on the Exchange in PA, and then dumped those of us who were self-pay by removing all of the plans that allowed us any kind of acceptable care for one low tier bullshit plan at premium prices that was once basically their lowest of the low covers nothing plans. When I contacted them they told me in spite of my desire to keep the care team which literally saved my life, as an active cancer patient still in treatment because I am on breast cancer meds for five more years, I was told I could pick new doctors.
I couldn’t. So I got forced onto the Exchange. In Pennsylvania, so our part of the state unless you are on a larger corporate plan (and if corporate plans don’t allow for spouses or domestic partnerships you also end up on the exchange), pretty much we are all Keystone or Keystone. So I found an Independence Blue Cross Plan I could afford for 2017, but what will happen to all of us once Trump becomes president?
So Trump is the hand political fate has dealt us.
I read an essay in The New Yorker when I woke up. It was published at 2:40 a.m. I think people should read it. I am only going to excerpt a couple of brief bits:
The New Yorker NEWS DESK
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
…Trump ran his campaign sensing the feeling of dispossession and anxiety among millions of voters—white voters, in the main. And many of those voters—not all, but many—followed Trump because they saw that this slick performer, once a relative cipher when it came to politics, a marginal self-promoting buffoon in the jokescape of eighties and nineties New York, was more than willing to assume their resentments, their fury, their sense of a new world that conspired against their interests. That he was a billionaire of low repute did not dissuade them any more than pro-Brexit voters in Britain were dissuaded by the cynicism of Boris Johnson and so many others.
….Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate but a resilient, intelligent, and competent leader, who never overcame her image among millions of voters as untrustworthy and entitled. Some of this was the result of her ingrown instinct for suspicion, developed over the years after one bogus “scandal” after another. And yet, somehow, no matter how long and committed her earnest public service, she was less trusted than Trump, a flim-flam man who cheated his customers, investors, and contractors; a hollow man whose countless statements and behavior reflect a human being of dismal qualities—greedy, mendacious, and bigoted. His level of egotism is rarely exhibited outside of a clinical environment.
So here we are. A new President-elect, but still a country divided. American politics which I used to love is now something I find exhausting.
And I still feel left out. Where do those of us in the middle go from here? Where is that place for those of us neither far right, nor far left?
I think I am going to try to take a page out of a friend’s book. My friend Gwen says the following this morning:
What do we do? Take a day to cry or gloat, as the case may be. But then we have to move on. The popular vote was split–there are just as many people on both “sides.” But the secret is that the vast majority of us live in one middle ground, with the louder people on either edge purporting to speak for us.
I think the next few years are going to hold stark realization for many. Whether you’re hoping for wholesale regulation repeal and a giant wall or you think that you’re going to lose your livelihood, rights and health insurance, you’re going to be surprised at what you do and don’t get. (The exit song was “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” which I believe was prescient.) None of us really knows.
Our problems didn’t disappear overnight, and they’ll need hard work and compromise to overcome. All we can do is control what we can control and work for what we think is right. Treat people with respect. Stop reading garbage, divisive websites. Listen to the other side, learn what you don’t know, and try to find common ground. Get involved in the process. Raise your kids to be good people. But, if you really love this country, you can’t give up, live in hate, or ruminate. We’re better and stronger than that.
Her words are wise and measured. Change can be a tough pill to swallow. But we are still Americans, right? Do we really need politicians to help make America great again? Or are we already great because we are Americans?
We need to be our authentic selves. We need to try. We need to stop hating each other because of political perspectives. We need to remember those who died to give us those freedoms to squabble over politics.
Today, no matter what side we are on, we are experiencing a literal political hangover. It’s a damp and rainy day and we all stayed up way too late watching the returns come in.
It’s time to take down the signs, put away the sharp and nasty words and breathe and be. Democracy spoke, and like it or not we have our new president. While he gets to celebrate victory, we still have lives to lead.
Time to get back to it. Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party, Libertarian. We are all Americans. We are still free. We are still us.
That’s all I have got. Day after, we are still us.
My friend Minter Dial with my copy of his book which he autographed for me tonight
Since then it has been locally featured in articles in both the Main Line Times and this past weekend in The Philadelphia Inquirer. It also won best foreign film at The Charleston Film Festival over the weekend. It airs this Friday, November 11 on PBS – at 7:30 PM on WHYY.
Tonight Minter Dial joined family, friends, and many others as we saw an advance screening of the companion documentary to his book at The Bryn Mawr Film Institute. Some of us also had the good fortune to spend some additional time with Minter beforehand at Xolo Tacos in Bryn Mawr. The opening photo was after he signed my copy of his beautiful book which I read cover to cover in one sitting.
It is a sad, beautiful, bittersweet tale of his own journey to learn about a grandfather he never knew and his grandfather’s tale.
His grandfather survived over 2 years in a Japanese internment camp in World War II but never made it home.
There are other stories within the stories including of his grandfather’s US Naval Academy ring (Class of 1932). I am not saying any more because I want people to buy the book AND watch the documentary on Friday.
We have had such a brutal campaign season and tonight was a welcome respite and a tangible reminder of what it is to be an American, and a reminder of what our members of the armed forces have fought and died for since the Revolutionary War.
At the Q and A after the film, Minter read an excerpt of a speech given by his great grandfather who was a United States Senator from South Carolina 1919 to 1925. Senator Nathaniel Barksdsle Dial’s last speech while a U.S. Senator was eerily timely today, in 2016. He spoke of how he was sick of the then political divisiveness he saw in his day. It was astounding.
Seeing this film tonight was the perfect reminder of who we should all want to be as Americans. In that vein, I am going to mention there is a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to get The Last Ring Home on PBS from coast to coast. If you are so inclined, there are a little over 10 days to raise the rest of the funds.
I know I have readers down in Washington DC and you have an opportunity to see The Last Ring Home tomorrow November 9th at noon at the U.S. Navy Memorial.
Ok off to see if we have a president yet.
Thanks for stopping by!
At The Bryn Mawr Film Institute this evening
I voted. Who I voted for in any race is my business. But I got off my rear end and voted. I hope all of you go out and vote today.
One of the greatest rights we have as Americans, male or female, is the right to vote. It is ultimately our best way to be heard. And you don’t have to vote a straight party ticket, you can split it up any old way you want –it’s your business.
I will tell you that I also made a call to Chester County Voter Services today. And it’s not because I saw voting shenanigans. It’s because there’s a flaw in the system of getting people to the polls.
While there are many volunteers to drive the elderly and infirmed to vote, a lot of polling places in Chester County have paths that are long enough that it is hard for some of these people to get from the parking lot to the actual voting booth.
I saw this at my own polling place today. There are plenty of handicap parking spaces, but the paths although perfectly level are long enough that I watched some elderly people struggle.
Now you don’t want to presume, and a lot of them would rather walk on their own steam even if it takes a long time, but I think it would be helpful at some of these places if there were golf carts or portable wheelchairs if needed. It would also be helpful if there were some folding chairs at the beginning of the paths and the end of the paths in case these people want it to sit a minute before going into vote.
Anyway, it’s a beautiful day there are no excuses – GO VOTE! And if you can help someone elderly or infirmed even more the better.
Have a great day!