We’re one month away from the mid-term elections. Candidates have been spending millions of dollars saturating the our television and radio with back to back attack ads for weeks. The choices have never been been this stark or dark. I was shocked to see a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer over weekend on why some voters in Pennsylvania are still undecided. There is no gray area in the big statewide races here for the US Senate and governor. In the senate race, there is TV doctor, millionaire Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz endorsed by Donald Trump whose position on abortion has gone from pro-choice to anti-abortion just like Trump’s. Oz didn’t live in Pennsylvania until recently so he could run and has never held political office.  The Democratic candidate is Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. He is also the former mayor of the small western Pennsylvania city of Braddock. He wears a trade make hoodie and is accused of being soft on crime. A classic conservative versus liberal match up, and there are many other issues on which they hold polar opposite positions. How can you be undecided?

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Attorney General Merrick Garland is one of the most important and most scrutinized people in the country. He is under pressure unlike any Attorney General in history. He will make the decision on whether to indict former President Trump on charges ranging from interfering with and trying to overturn the election of 2020 to the violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice for taking classified, secret and top secret documents to his estate at Mar-a-Lago. This has never happened before in American history. It comes at a time when the country is seething with hate and mistrust between the political parties that are getting ready to start serious campaigning for the midterm elections. These elections will determine who controls congress and many expect will be followed by Trump announcing he will run again in 2024.

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It was the hug that captivated us. Made us tear up and we should all learn from it. It happened on a Little League baseball field in the heat of the Southwest Regional final playoff for a trip to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. Kaiden Shelton was pitching for the Texas team against a team from Oklahoma. With a two strike count on Oklahoma’s Isaiah Jarvis, the most frightening moment in baseball happened. The pitch was high and hit Isaiah on the ear flap of his helmet. He went down clutching his head as his helmet flew off. There was the horrified  gasp in the crowd and then the moment of silence as everyone prayed Isaiah would get up. The umpire bent down and the coaches ran out. After a few seconds, Isaiah sat up. The coaches helped him to his feet. He seemed to be fine and trotted down to first base as the crowd cheered in relief.

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They’ve taken away a woman’s power over her own body. They’ve allowed just about anyone to carry a concealed weapon in public making us all less safe. They’ve restricted the EPA’s ability to go after carbon emissions and fight climate change. Now, they may be going after the heart of the democracy, our vote. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case in the fall that could continue to lead us down the very dark path that we began walking over the last few weeks. It’s a North Carolina case, Moore v Harper, that could change how elections are run and who has the power over your vote. It’s being brought by the Republican controlled state legislature. If the court finds in their favor, state legislatures would have independent power over federal elections, which state courts could not review.

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Today is the last day of the current session of the US Supreme Court. It’s a day we will long remember and live to regret. Four of the many rulings handed down will touch everyone of us. Of course, the most infamous was the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion and the corruption of our right to privacy. While many saw this coming from this conservative court, this astonishing decision targeting a woman’s very basic right to privacy was a gut punch to most Americans and a day of rejoicing for many others. It will further divide the country that has people on either side of the political divide screaming at each other. This has resulted in chaos across the country as blue states try to pass laws and state constitutional amendments to protect abortion rights and red states are passing laws to turn women and doctors into criminals.

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It’s not often you witness a one in a million coincidence. My wife and I were working on the lawn at our Jersey shore house when a young man was riding by on a bike about ten feet from the curb. There are three sycamore trees along the sidewalk in front of the house. As the bike rider was passing under a branch which hung out over the street, it cracked. The branch jutted out from the trunk about twelve to fourteen feet above the ground. It was about ten feet long and six to eight inches around. The branch came down hitting the rider across the face knocking him and his bike to the ground. His backpack came off and his phone went flying. I ran into the street. Helped him up and got him to sit on the curb. Grabbed his bike and his cell phone before it was run over. That’s how we met Akon.

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When the January 6th Committee started laying out its case against Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and stage a coup, there is one thing that is at the center of this dangerous time in our history, truth. It’s something Trump couldn’t handle and he convinced millions of Americans his twisted view of reality were the real facts. In her devastating opening statement at the hearing Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney said it in clear terms, “…you will see that Donald Trump and his advisors knew that he had, in fact, lost the election. But, despite this, President Trump engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information-to convince huge portions of the U.S. population that fraud had stolen the election from him. This was not true.” We all know Trump had his own term for truth he didn’t like “Fake News”. But, history tells us of a warning we never heard.

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It’s here. Next weekend is Memorial Day. The start of the summer. After two summers of Covid, we’ve all been looking forward to getting back to normal. But what is normal? Inflation is at a forty year high. Everything costs more. Who predicted over $4.50 for a gallon of gasoline? Madman Putin is committing mass murder on innocent civilians in Ukraine on a level not seen since World War II. The world seems to be hoping he really is dying of cancer because we can’t figure out how to make him stop. Covid cases are back up. Health experts are suggesting we should keep wearing masks in crowded places. Most people are not listening anymore. And who would have predicted American mothers are desperate to find formula for their babies? Pass the sun block.

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No matter your views on abortion, we have all been shocked by the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion by Justice Alito, supported by five of the conservative justices, that would overturn Roe v. Wade. It would leave it up to states whether to allow abortion or ban it. About twenty states are almost certain to outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned. While every national poll shows the majority of Americans support a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, I’m not here to argue abortion rights. But rather the institution of the Supreme Court. It’s supposed to be above partisan politics and interpret the Constitution. That’s has been eroded. The court is very much a political body and it’s helping fuel the serious divisions in the country.

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I first met Phineas and Gene fifty-five years ago. I was sixteen years old as they were. Recently I was roaming around a used bookstore. It even had boxes of books on its front porch. As I scanned the titles of hardcovers and paperbacks, there it was, a well worn paperback of “A Separate Peace”. It was that one book of the many you read growing up that you never forget. It was written by John Knowles and published in 1959. It is a coming-of-age story of two teenage boys at a New England prep school called Devon in 1942. It’s told through the eyes of Gene Forrester who reruns to the school fifteen years after that fateful summer to tell the story of his friendship with his former roommate and best friend Phineas.

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