“PARDON ME, JIMMY!”

FEBRUARY 19, 2020 – With his pardon binge, Trump crossed the line.  In my mind, the crazy guy has become “Jimmy,” a kid in my grade school who terrorized the teachers, the principal, and all the other grown-up staff, not to mention us normal-to-semi-normal kids.

Jimmy (not his real name), was in the “special class” at Franklin Elementary School—kids who “didn’t fit in” with the rest of the students.  But Jimmy didn’t even fit in with the kids who didn’t fit in.  He suffered from multiple mental and physical challenges.  One of the most striking was his eyesight, which required glasses that made his eyeballs look huge.  They scared the dickens out of us.  But the scariest thing about Jimmy was his aggressive behavior.

He had tons of energy and zero self-control.  He picked fights and stole stuff right out of your hands. When Jimmy talked, he shouted, and a severe speech impediment made his voice even scarier.

The “kids who didn’t fit in” were generally segregated from the rest of us, but out on the playground, Jimmy often escaped and terrorized the other kids before teachers could chase him down.  Jimmy lived outside of town, far enough from school to be a “bus kid,” except Jimmy didn’t take the bus.  His mother dropped him off and picked him up.

One hot summer day, my mom had to drop some papers off with a woman who lived out in the country.  The woman, Mother explained, was a “pillar of the community” and head of a civic organization in which Mother herself was heavily involved.  My sisters were visiting our grandparents, and I was too young to left home alone, so Mother took me on her errand.

I remember the woman’s place—a nice country home, gardens, and some well-built out-buildings.  Mother said something about it being a hobby farm.

“I’ll be just a minute,” she said. “You can come in with me or stay in the car.”

I opted to stay in the car . . . until it got too hot, even with all the windows rolled down.  As usual, Mother’s minute was a lot longer than a minute. I decided to go up to the house to see if there was any sign that Mother’s minute was winding down.

Mother had parked her old DeSoto coupe about 100 feet from the front porch of the house.  I strolled across the shadow of a big oak tree and emerged into the sunlight that bathed the flower gardens in front of the dwelling. Just then, a kid came screaming around the corner of the house, heading straight for me.

I froze.  It was Jimmy! How in the world could my own mother have put me in this predicament?

I turned and dashed back to the DeSoto.  Would I make it before Jimmy murdered me?

Jimmy reminds me of Trump.  Will our country make it to safety before it’s too late?

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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson