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I’m convinced but remains unspoken that this was why she wanted to meet my folks. So do I emulate my ole man today? In some ways definitely yes and other ways no. I’m bald-headed and couldn’t hardly help that destination. I’m argumentative for sure. I think he was somewhat a contrarian I certainly am and I consider it one of my better instincts because it helps me to look more critically at issues. I inherited a non addictive personality which served me well in my youth when I associated with highly addictive drugs and when I came to those crossroads, I turned around, ,stopped and never looked back. Lastly, he was a chemist and disliked art so eventually became an art dealer go figure.

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To circle from your experience, strength, and hope, Bill, to the societal challenge we face today, your father likely did not intend to fall short in the ways you saw him do. Mine certainly did not. What stuns many of us today, however, is not that human deficit with which each of us wrestles.

It is in our confronting a national leader, not only sick in the head and in the heart to incline toward evil, but who also extinguishes his soul by manifesting that inclination without hesitation or shame. Many of us may view Trump as crazy because the rationality, and banality, of his evil frightens us into not contemplating it.

Decent people have enough flaws as it is; yet we aspire toward decency, albeit inconsistently -- sometimes with energy, sometimes in drift. Yet intentional evil, born of a reason absent conscience, is hard to countenance, let alone to counter-act. Call it "fight, flight, ergo freeze", if one will.

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