Well, we have all gone through a lot over the time this board has existed and we did, in our conversations, sort of document what the country has gone through. 

It's very strange and sad for me when I read the archives here. I was so sure George W. Bush was the worst president I would experience in my lifetime. It seemed so obvious. Now, somehow, we are here. Trump makes Dubya look like George Washington. How the hell could that happen?

Having you around is really helpful, because you make me feel that I am not alone in it. The people here make me feel I am not alone in it. 

I actually don't talk politics in my house, Julia can't stand it since Trump arrived. I have to go out with the guys to talk politics. My mother used to yell at me not to talk politics with my dad, because he would go on a profanity laced tear which would continue after I left. He could not stand Dubya and his mind was blown that we elected Trump. Could not believe we did that. He lived to see Biden elected, thankfully died before he saw what happened on January 6th. I can only imagine how furious he would have been at that. 

To some degree I think my takes on things, the way I discuss them come in part from him. He always made things sound so simple and obvious. We did not always agree. He kept saying to me that Biden, if elected, would get stuff done. That he knew how to accomplish things. I was never a Biden guy. However, he appears to have been correct about that. In his single term so far, he just keeps getting things done. He's not going to blow anybody away with his speeches or personality...but the job keeps getting done even while the rest of the world seems to spin wildly out of control. I think my father would have said "See, what did I tell you?"

I've never delved into my family history the way you have yours. My father's side of the family came from Germany, my mother's from Scotland through Nova Scotia. A friend of mine, also with German heritage decided to research his family's history. What he discovered shattered him as one of his relatives was a horrific murderous Nazi. I suspected that may be the case due to his last name. The stories he uncovered were gruesome. He has never been able to bring himself to tell his daughter what he found. He's had conversations with me, very emotional, about if I think he could have inherited the nature of his relatives. The impact on him has been terrible. 

I joke with him that he should do an ad for one of those ancestry companies. Looked up his family history, ended up in therapy.

I'm not concerned about that being the case for me. My father's father fought for the US during WWII. So, I did not have, as far as I know, a generation of relatives in Germany during Hitler's horrific run. I think my family history is Nazi free. My mother's father, a Canadian, was staunchly anti-war. Anti-violence. An amazingly kind and generous human being. My patience and understanding, I think I inherited from him. 

I was listening to an interview with Francis Ford Coppola the other day in the car. He said if you were lucky enough to be born, you are a million to one shot. It is a near miracle if your parents got together and created you and you have come however far you have come at this point. I think that is true. When I think about how my life has fallen into place to bring me to where I am now...it all sounds like a miracle. That's not even looking up how my family all got to where they were before I was born. 

Hell, my marriage is actually courtesy of the CIA. History is such a twisty turning road, trying to make sense of it in the moment can be a fool's errand but when you look back at it...things can seem to have an incredible symmetry. I'm very glad you have taken the time to look back at yours and are sharing it with us. There is so much to take out of that.