CONFUSED BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED

     Yesterday was great. Putting aside the thunderstorm in the early am, it turned out to be a beautiful day, perfect for walking the streets and the byways of the city. It was a family day, three generations out and about, together. All New York born and bred, we played tourist and discovered that Manhattan on a beautiful summer Sunday is filled with tourists from all over the world. And just as an aside, guess what they think of our President? Yup!
     We took a guided tour of the Manhattan subways, its history, and saw how we grew as a city, how we took pride in work with beautiful murals and tile work, how we let the work slip, how crowded it was on a Sunday afternoon - I recall empty trains on Sunday - and yet how people cooperated with each other, helped each other, gave up seats for each other, no rude, shouting, mean people, just people out for a day for whatever reason.
     So why the title? This was just so diametrically opposed to what else is going on in this country. This magnificent country, a nation of immigrants who built the country, who enriched it with their ideas and labor, with their culture, creating great wealth of all sorts, now has people wandering the streets and the subways in a most awful condition, worse than any I have ever seen before here in the city.  We have an underground movement almost with people working to help hunted and hounded immigrants.We have lost our way, lost sight of our values and principles and the results are clear.
     A man sat there on a seat, feet bare, misshapen, bleeding, pants torn open so as to seem more skirt than pants and he sat there talking in a coherent voice and words how he needed help. All he wanted was to buy a pair of shoes so he could heal his feet. Here in America a man was misshapen and wounded because he had no shoes. I am a native New Yorker and yes, I can be a soft touch at the corners where people collect funds but I am not easily hoaxed. This man's feet were for real. His pain for real. His need for real. So yes, I am confused, bothered and bewildered at the contrasts found here in the country.
     Why is there an orange haired, sometimes yellow haired man running around tooting that he is helping all Americans, that he is fixing America all over, even as he has unimaginable wealth and uses his Presidency to enrich himself, his family members and his cronies who toe the line of adulation and 'loyalty' of and to him? Why are we cutting the social safety net just at the time when the need for it is growing? Is it so we can starve these people out of existence, take away healthcare for them, shutter hospitals, overwhelm, the food pantries, further trash our schools, grow more prejudice in a dank and moldy kulture - and yes, I spelled it with a k for a reason.
     Why are we allowing a certain man and his cronies to give away our country. He is going into a meeting alone with a shark, one who certainly has bigger and sharper teeth, who can run circles around Trump before he strikes, and who the hell know what Trump will give away in this meeting. The entire store perhaps?!
     Why are we allowing a man almost certainly going to be convicted at some time in the future of collusion with the enemy, with accepting their help in return for what exactly, allowing him to remain in office? A man who is breaking the law every day with his profit taking from his hotels, touting his hotels as if he is a TV commercial actor hired for the role, with his refusal to openly share his tax and health conditions, with every nasty and cheesy way he misbehaves. With his refusal to answer questions and what is he hiding!!!!!
     I am bewildered how our country can be split asunder, families too, becoming almost rabid in defense of their positions Why are we acting as if we are in a dictatorial country, afraid to speak openly, communicating certain thoughts by physical expressions and gestures, rather than words Why are we allowing the detention of children to continue when the facts are exposed, and they were used as servants in their own detention, scrubbing toilets, being rousted out of and into bed using loud noises and water to get them going? What  have we done? What have we allowed this man and his ilk to turn us into?
     I am bothered when I see the rest of the world knowing the truth and yet so many here have yet to recognize it. He is paraded as a balloon, mocked by names such as The Apricot Toddler, and shamefully, is seen hustling off, running, away from a man who had given notice of his deed to be and yet this oh so brave man, he of the famed bone spur, ran away. We are shamed in the eyes of the world. Thousands upon thousands protest and gather in England, Scotland and yet the man has over 88 million dollars in his next campaign fund.
     Should this man not be impeached, should he not be taught that he is not above the law and will have to pay for his crimes, just like any other citizen - and if he does not like it, why then let him run to his buddies, Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin or whomever he pals around with. Should he escape justice and take over the reins of this country on a more permanent basis, then say good bye to the best experiment the world has ever had in the rights for humanity, for its hopes for humanity, for the future of humanity.
     Yes, I am confused, bothered and bewildered as to how we can have such awful contrasts, with people spending $125,000 for a Tesla, yet not afford a pair of shoes for a man. I do not know how far my $10 will go for him, but I did tell him several places to go for help, as I exited the subway car.
      I think more than confusion, or bother or bewilderment, I am heartbroken and frightened. Where will we turn as a nation, as a people? Who will we become? Who have we already become?