By Darren Johnson
Journal & Press
My mother had a career as a deputy sheriff, which made her, like many of her allies in law enforcement, paranoid.
But one of her colleagues, a burly midlife guy whose dark blue uniform didn’t fit so well anymore, summed it up nicely to me as a younger lad: “Some people are paranoid for a reason,” he said.
I always loved this play on words because the definition of “paranoid” is without reason. But I totally understand the point — if one sees enough bad things, this could affect their overall worldview to the point where everything is suspect.
Sometimes my mother’s paranoia was based in reality. Sometimes not. One year, we were tight on money so some relatives decided to “break into our house” on Christmas Eve while we were out and put presents under the tree. But for some reason this panicked my mother upon coming home — she wouldn’t enter the house. Said the wrapped presents could be “bombs.”
So I’ve done a couple of vacations this summer, but raised by someone who was paranoid — for a reason — I didn’t announce them in advance in this daily newsletter.
I just got back from one to Disney World — and got Covid, likely from a person coughing all over the plane — but to keep this daily newsletter going, I had just pre-programmed a bunch of columns from The Journal & Press to hit each day. Hit counts were fine.
Which brings in the paranoid part. I’d hear stories of people who announced their departures publicly and their houses were robbed while away. It wasn’t uncommon for thieves to read obituaries, even, and hit the houses during the announced funeral time.
My mother wouldn’t allow our name and number to be in the phone book. I wonder if I ever had any missed opportunities because of that.
One rule I used to have with my publications was to use a PO Box so that the occasional crazed reader doesn’t just show up at your house. I was going to take over the old PO Box for The Journal & Press when I first acquired it, but then Covid happened and I forgot, and then someone else got the number.
In any case, in our politically charged culture, I do think it’s helpful to know people come from a lot of different experiences.
A lot of law-and-order types may be fearful, some might call them paranoid, but their reasons are based on their perceived life experiences, thus they vote a certain way.
If one were a strategist for the other side, the key is understanding their fears and assuring these voters that, while, yes, there are certainly things to fear in this world, the opposing party isn’t one of them.
In Florida, the TV channels were filled with all sorts of political ads — they were crass and cynical and merely hit jobs on their opponents, playing on people’s fears of society becoming lawless.
While Florida could be a swing state, we don’t see as many of these ads here in New York because most national pols don’t view the state as winnable for one party over the other. Even at the congressional and state rep levels, the districts lines are so fixed, most races aren’t really in question — so the ads don’t need to go that dark.
I wonder what’s better — competitive elections, but dirty; or feel-good elections where the favorite almost always wins without much of a sweat?
In any case, it wasn’t a bad vacation — they do keep it hot down there. And I didn’t get the Covid symptoms until I got home. We’ll get back to our usual newsletter format soon — plus the comics!