Those Dog Park Benches

I haven’t written one of these dog park politics posts for while. So in the waning days of the trump presidency, here goes:

Every afternoon around 3, a loose group of anti-trumpers with dogs meet at our expansive and really cool dog park. As soon as we come in the gate, we unleash our dogs, who run off to do whatever dogs do. We grab our poop bags from the dispensary and walk to the benches at the other side of the park.

I think of it as our area, that of the democrats and independents who recognize trump for the wanna be autocrat he is. Paula. Lloyd. Arlene. Jared. Nathan. Rob. Me. Our kids over the holidays. The occasional snowbird. Our dogs, of course. Paula always brings containers of cold water and a bowl so our area becomes watering hole.

But because the snowbirds have flocked to our area for the gorgeous weather and the equestrian season, we often get to our bench area to find other people there. As our friend Lloyd says, “As soon as we start talking against trump or our gov, Ron DeSantis, the trumpies leave.”

And he’s right.

The other day a young couple was hanging out in our area, with a dog small enough to be in the small dog park. A woman from Breckinridge, Colorado joined us and mentioned how maskless people in Breckinridge, were fined on the spot for being maskless. I said it would never happen in Florida because our governor, Ron DeSantis is an asshole, a mini me trumper.

And the man walking away shouts, “We live in America, not China!”

“What total bullshit!” I shout back, and then Rob shoots to his feet and starts hurling facts and statistics at the guy.

Their shouting fest lasts until the guy and his wife and their little pooch leave the dog park.
Throughout this whole thing, the woman from Colorado, Linda, talked about what she’d encountered politically since the death of her husband eleven years ago, when she’d started moving from state to state, looking for the right place to live. “Isn’t this town for trump?” she asks.

I’ve come to think of these benches as the place where truth lives. Where facts prevail. Where science and reason and the stuff of The Mystical Underground co-exist.