Misunderstanding

FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS I have been decided that I would not attend my 50 year high school class reunion. Over the past few years, my relationship with several of my best friends from high school have deteriorated, for various reasons. We'v veen friends for sixty years, but Donald Trump, as he did for millions of Americans, and their friends and families, has driven a wedge between millions of people, demaged or destroyed many friendships. This, in a country already long divided ideologically, along progressive conservative lines, a situation which seems to be becoming worse, if that's even possible. Donald Trump made a bad situation much worse,damn him. I can with pride assert that in none of these situations was I the one who become angry and alienated and ended the friendship; the other person was. I never bring up the topic of politics, but when somebody else does, no matter who it is, I express my opinions in no uncertain terms. I noticed that many people who love Trump become angry and even end friendships if you tell them that Trump is a no good criminal, a traitor, and that everyone who still supports him is no better than he. That tends to really anger people, if you can imagine such a thing. About five years ago on Facebook one of my high school classmates, a beautiful blonde, evidently referring to the undocumented immigrant problem, posted the following message: "The bible says that there is a wall around heaven, but that hell is an open border. Let that sink in"... When somebdy says "let that sink in" in any context, I wax a mite wrathty, as David Crockett might say. But, I let it sink in, taking all of one microsecond to do so. Then, I unloaded on her. "Believe it nor not, not everything that happens in life can be explained by using the Bible. Some of our problems have nothing to do with the Bible. Immigration ia purely an economic issue, not a biblical one." Her response, roughly, was :"thank you for reminding me that I am going to unfriend you in about five minutes." Damn! The most beautiful girl in the whole class, and I just alienated her... When I added up all of my lifelong friends, my high school class mates, who seemed to be a bit, shall we say, "put out" with me, it started adding up, and I was reluctant to attend our 50 year reunion. I drove to my home town the weekend of the reunion, to visit my sister. I said to sis: "I think I'll get in my car and go right back home, and forget about the reunion". Always a sage big sis, she said: "why not give it a five minute try. You came all this way." So, I decided to drop by, and give it a try. One way or another, whatever happens, I'll stand up to my rack, fodder or no fodder, as David Crockett said. I intended to stay five minutes, but I ended up staying eight hours, and wanted more, much more. It turned out to be the best time of my life, or certainly as fun a time as any other experience I can remember ever having. One by one I approached or bumped into people I thought were mad at me, and would treat me coldly. every single one of them did just the opposite! They all treated me with warmth and love, and we had great converstaions. The girl with the wall around heaven I did not see anywhere in the rooom, and I asked about."She's right over there", I was told. I approache dher, and asked her if she was still mad at me over the immigration argument on Facebook. She looked at me as if I were crazy, making it all up, then smiled, and gave me a big hug. Either she had no memory of it, which I think is likely, or, she was willing to foret about it. Either way, I was a happy camper, and told her so. I go tthe same reaction from everybody. Nobody could seem to even remember the incidents I was talking about, and which I remembered (and still remember) so vividly. On the one hand, its amazing to me how poor most people's memory is. On the other hand, I shouldn't complain about it, I should be greatful; I still have my friends.