“I’m looking through you. Where did you go? I thought I knew you. What did I know?” — The Beatles
One of my oldest friends this weekend sent me what I believe to be a last minute olive branch.
Bob Moras, who lived here for for than three years and attended Wayland High School for two years, wrote on Messenger, “Just to let you know that I have been diagnosed with brain cancer and have Hospice care. I also wanted to thank you for those fine years we spent together and the memories we share. Bye David. Yes I still do love you.”
Despite all those years we knew each other, we grew apart because of different lives, geography and eventually different values. Bob Moras is one of the latest in a long line of old friends, family and aquaintences who became distant from me because of their support and love for President Donald Trump.
I’ve had many people admonish me for backing away from people simply because of our political differences. I’ve been told we should be able to disagree and remain friends.
But this situation has arisen from much more than differences of opinion. It reflects a crisis in values, integrity and core beliefs.
It is my firm belief that Bob did something akin to drinking the Kool-Aid, a reference to the 800-plus followers of the Rev. Jimmy Jones, who committed revolutionary suicide in 1978 at his direction.
I’ve seen, heard and read accounts of charismatic leaders somehow sucking in the loyalty of otherwise normal and caring individuals and signing them up for their causes or campaigns. We’ve seen David Koresh and the Branch Davidians and Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City, both of their campaigns ultimately resulting in death and destruction.
Then comes my lifelong interest in history. As far back as high school, I couldn’t understand how normal and intelligent human beings in Germany could follow and even worship Adolf Hitler. I believe the right conditions needed to exist, but I also worried that affirming comments such as “It can’t happen here,” were cautionary tales.
Bob Moras and I became friends in the fall of 1962 during my first few months living in Wayland. We both were freshmen at WHS and we enjoyed some good times together.
Though I later came to understand Bob wasn’t particularly impressed with my book learning, I appreciated his remarkable street smarts and quick wit. In later years he seemed to want to bring me down to reality, proving “You are not so smart.”
We hung out together during the 1962-63 and 1963-64 academic years until he let me know his family was relocating to Alpena. Since then, the number of times I’ve seen him could be counted on one hand.
Another reason was that Bob quit school in his junior year and joined the Coast Guard. So the chances to get together were minimal at best.
I had heard he was married four times and worked in the industrial sector while living in Gary, Ind.
We finally touched base in 1986 when my family and I moved back to Wayland and he came to the Class of 1966 reunion, where he could reunite with classmates, many of whom didn’t remember him.
That was the last time I saw Bob in the flesh. We resumed getting in touch via the miracle of the Internet until I began to notice he was fast becoming a MAGA devotee. I was perplexed by his posts making wild accusations and he was upset with me for being a steadfast proud liberal.
For me, it reached breaking point when he asserted that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford only wanted GoFundMe money when she tried to out Supreme Court justice Bret Kavanugh for sexual misconduct. I thought she showed tremendous courage in showing up at the hearings to make her case. And she had to move four times because she and her family faced death threats.
So I quit responding to Bob’s posts, even though there was one time he was only seeking information. I published an obituary of a women living in the Grand Rapids area that prompted him to ask if she was his former sweetheart from the mid-1960s. I understood her to be Bob’s first experience between the sheets and the romantic relationship didn’t last long at all.
So our relationship went nowhere for quite a few more years until I received his message this weekend. I was moved by his attempt to reconnect one more time. But I still have no desire to resume arguing about politics and current events.
So I can only return salutations and well wishes.
So now I am astonished at how many friends and family members I have lost relationships with over the last 10 years because I have a lifelong hatred of bullies. Trump is simply the most famous of that breed.
Did I mention that he’s a convicted felon?
