Becoming the Diaspora

"Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything."

-Willa Cather

A beautiful Corning morning, on this the day after Suckers and Losers Day.

What used to be Decoration Day was once special to me--I'd make an effort to remember each of the guys I'd known and lost when we were young aviators, starting with my USC classmate Pat Henry, who died when a helicopter in which he was flying after a simulated rescue flew into the side of a mountain outside Victorville when I was in my last month at F-15 school. Or my old crew chief Cisco Cisneros, who was crushed when a hangar door closed on him not long after we both returned from the Gulf War. That was the only time I had to write a letter to a mother grieving the loss of her son, and a thousand miles apart I wept with her.

But this year was different, as I pondered the futility of those sacrifices sitting at the kitchen counter of dear friends who'd invited us over for Memorial Day barbeque and wine. I stuck to very pale beer, personally, knowing I'd be muddle-headed if I started drinking cab at 3 in the afternoon.

None of these folks had ever set foot on a military base or the deck of a warship, so the vibe felt a little different than in years long past when the gathering would usually include a veteran or two. This assembly included a Jewish doctor and his wife, late in his career whose DNA cried out that it may be time to leave the country before it's too late, our constructive son who's here working as a designer on the new condo and staying in our guest room, and a recently married and retired gay couple. And of course the beautiful Peggy Bowen, very much in her element immersed in great food and conversation.

That conversation lacked a holiday lightness, however, as the topic gravitated to the madman in the White House and the collapse of the republic on every front. Some feared the day they'd get that knock on the door, and didn't want to let optimism about the resilience of the country cause them to stay just a little too long to escape. I have to say I don't really worry about that--a white, southern lawyer trained at a very conservative southern university, a former military officer--I'm the very embodiment of one of them, unless they stumble upon this blog.

But P and I have our reasons for considering selling everything and fleeing. I mean, who wants to live among people who think any of this is okay? Our neighbors' tacit approval of the MAGA agenda have reminded us of a very malign streak in the American psyche, the one that brought us lynchings and Father Coughlin and, of course, the Confederate States of America. For every MLK or Lincoln moment reminding us of the better angels of our nature, there's Goldwater at the 1964 convention or Nixon on any given weekday. That's all us.

And the bad guys are clearly winning right now, even as the public either ignores them or turns its collective back on the spectacle. White males only comprise 30% of the population of the United States this morning, but our leadership tells us publicly that's the only demographic capable of running the country.

That's your SecDef, second from the left, who claims military bona fides but wore tan shoes to the event laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and doesn't know to have his heels together and feet at 45 degrees when delivering a salute. Fucking reservists. His boss doesn't have his heels together either, probably because of the perpetual pain of those bone spurs. Vance may be full fash, but at least he stands loke a soldier.

I digress.

So, where to go? Our friends recommend the Algarve, in Portugal, which they've visited several times and love. Crowded with drunk Brits? Yes, but mostly in the summer, and we'd be there in the offseason when New York is at its snowy grayest. We suggested Greece, wanting to be closer to the kids when the bad thing arrives, and our friends committed to looking into that option. There are just so many possible places to land there, I don't know that you can just say "give Greece a look" and figure they'll know what you're talking about. Corfu? A condo overlooking the Piraeus? Maybe Crete?

One of the guests had recently sold his place on the Bear River in Nova Scotia, and raved about the natural beauty and artist community that's gathered there. This doesn't strike me as a winter option, however.

The sad part of all this, of course, is that it's not a group of aging, comfortable geezers talking among ourselves about a fun way to spend the last part of our lives. It's an escape plan we're forced to consider as the country slips into madness. More than one of us expressed the sentiment that we never thought we'd be sitting here at this moment exchanging ideas for the best way to flee the country.

But here we are.