Morning Walk In Florida (Photo Essay)

I really do see the good in people, and I don’t want to change that.

That’s really how I view things, so sometimes I’ll look past a lot of huge red flags because I see something else in someone.

Then, of course, it always comes back to haunt me in the long run. – Jennifer Morrison

The Human Science Fair Project. Seven months since my last crewcut.
Photo by Cassie Topaz Malone. Styling by Ragnar.

Been running, jogging, walking inside this development for fourteen years.

The place is huge, a former artillery practice range, I’m told. Still, a less crazy man might get bored.

Got four or five walks in different directions, so each week is not precisely repetitive.

Signs are not permitted by HOA By-Law, but it seems like flags are apparently encouraged.

Ironically, hyperbolically oxymoronic. Bigly.

The idea “flags are not signs” smacks of the reason I quit law school.

You see people move in, you see people move out.

The Iowa couple just moved a new home in. The lawn’s not down yet, but the flagpole’s up.

All I can tell you about them, they are old and white and hard working.

The wife and I were noodling the idea of moving to, I don’t know, say, Iowa, and putting up a Florida flag first thing.

I’d rather an Oregon flag, I said. She said, I might prefer a North Carolina flag. And we both laughed.

And we laughed.

The irony of Donald’s people stealing this concept should not be lost.

This from the Urban Dictionary.

Keep on truckin.’ An extremely popular 1960’s hippie saying that was made ubiquitously famous by the one-of-a-kind, extremely esoteric and eventually iconic comic strips and books which appeared and evolved from within the exquisitely unique mind of the mad-genius cartoonist R. Crumb. These three simple words of encouragement reinforced the then-prevailing idea that people should be able to feel confident about staying true to their own chosen life path and not allowing the outside world to get them down or force them to change who they wanted to be.

“Whether or not that peace march you’re going on does anything to stop the war or not, just remember to keep on truckin’!”

I don’t miss a thing on these walks, except maybe the occasional charging pit bull. Something I’ve noticed – white flight of Trumpites. Trump moved to Florida and because stuff floats downhill, his followers are doing what followers do.

This is one way the next civil war goes.

The saddest part about this Confederate flag is it’s new. Took down a Trump flag and replaced it with this.

A braver man than me. But he takes his flag in at night, while the Trump flags fly 24/7. Often illuminated with a spotlight.

This flag is new. To use a Trump phrase, I can only guess “herd mentality.” Baa…baa…baa…

Marines like to think they are Marines for life.

But it’s been a half century, so maybe lose the shirt, the hat, the license plate holder, the flag, too.

Thank you for your service.

And trust me, I am not an Airman for life.

I served so I could be free to wear a mask when confronted with bio-chemical warfare.

Let me remind you – and for those of you who are learning this new – patriotism is not about symbols, it’s about action.

Fourteen years. No friends.

It must be us.

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