LISTENING TO MY BARBER
Today I had my first haircut in two months. I got one just before heading to Bogota two months ago, tried to get on there but couldn’t find a barber, and then when I got back the Swannanoa river flooded and destroyed all the shops on Route 70, including, I was sure, my barber’s shop. But miraculously, while the Post Office across Route 70 from the river and the barber shop was filled with 7 feet of muddy water, his shop escaped with only 2 inches of water that seeped under the door. I went by the Post Office today to collect the mail that they had held for 30 days while I was in Bogota, and discovered it had been enveloped by mud and then condemned, including a letter from the Bank of Omaha saying that I had a deadline to pay the yearly fee, which I wasn’t aware of and finally, when warned by email, paid on line a couple of days ago.
But the barber’s shop had only a couple of inches of water that came under the door with almost no damage. He attributed it to the good Lord watching over him. He prayed, he said, and God answered. I asked him whether maybe his next door store owner neighbor whose store was destroyed, had also prayed. He conceded that he might have but that his neighbor’s faith perhaps wasn’t as strong as his own.
My barber is my only contact to the MAGA world. For perhaps an hour I listened to him talking with an elderly gentleman, a friend, whose house had been spared but whose daughter’s house, who was now living with him, had been destroyed. They agreed upon a great deal: that Trump was sure to win the coming election and with majorities in the House and Senate would cleanse the swamp in Washington. They both agreed that Kamala Harris was Marxist and a communist, both being the same thing, and a radical threat to America and that the illegal immigrants would soon all be sent back home. My barber said that three days after the hurricane swept through he caught illegal aliens from the trailer park close by looting the flooded out stores beside his and with his pistol in hand stopped them and was thanked by Border Patrol people from Texas who were here doing relief work.
My barber said that the difference between Swannanoa MAGA people and Asheville people was that native Swannanoans worked hard and had common sense while the college educated Asheville elites lacked common sense and prospered while not having to do a thing. He has great disdain for Asheville people.
His example of a hard worker is his wife who went into insulin shock from diabetes 1 when cut off from her medicines. He saved her by going to Old Fort and getting antibiotics and insulin to revive her. She was in a coma for two days and then went right back to work caring for old people at a nursing home. While he, himself, used his tractor and a chain saw to make it possible for people to get out of their homes, which saved the life of an 80 year old man who after his road was cleaned had a heart attack and was saved because the ambulance could come right up to his home and take him to the hospital. Before Trump came to Swannanoa a couple of days ago he placed a bunch of Trump signs in front of his barber shop.
I listened to his stories and didn’t say anything and then finally thanked him for so forcefully conveying the MAGA perspective to me, the truth, as he put it.
So where does that leave me and my liberal perspective? I could not argue with him. What he had seen with his own eyes he had seen and what disturbed him about outsiders and liberal elites was so deeply felt that there was no point in arguing.
The story about illegal aliens looting is a story that hasn’t appeared in the Asheville Citizen Times although looting in Biltmore Village was reported without saying that the looters were illegal aliens. The liberal press wouldn’t tell the truth about illegal aliens he said. But he did say that he had seen the illegal aliens himself and scared them away.
What do I make of that story?
What do I say about college educated liberals having no common sense and not working to help others. Swannanoa people take care of themselves, he said. Although I knew that almost all of the hard working volunteers in Marshall were liberals and artist types.
What I do know is that the barber and I are living in two completely different worlds with almost no contact or communication or understanding between the two. The upcoming 50/50 election is being bitterly fought between these two polarized communities, each demonizing the other through stoking anger at every perceived failure. I empathize with his strong feelings of grievance and distrust and anger but have no suggestion about how to deal with these feelings except by listening to each other. I only listen to him every two months and he doesn‘t show much interest in listening to me. But, even if we listen to each other, what we do next after listening, I don’t know. But I do know that there is no point in mocking his heart felt feelings.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 