Hi all. Since we're missing a blog today, I'm taking over.


I have written this on my Substack and shared it to Bluesky. I am also posting it in its entirety here. Please share or direct folks to my contacts elsewhere if you can.



What Trump Did For Me!

Incredibly, I am closing in on my 60th year. I just had my annual physical, and was pronounced with a reasonably clean bill of health. (I could lose a few pounds, but who couldn’t?)

Mrs. TriSec is a few years older than me, and so we are both making progress towards that seminal age of 65. Retirement of any kind is the remotest possibility of all. Like the old joke says - “I plan on working until noon on the day of my wake.”

We’re also celebrating our 30th year of wedded bliss this summer, for a grand total of 35 years together. Some days that seems incredible.

The subject of my diatribe today is our son. We did not create him. Back in the days when insurance was not as restricted as it is today, we tried all the fertility treatments available to us in a Liberal, Northeastern city…alas, to no avail.

We adopted our son from the Philippines in May of 2002, when he was a precocious lad of just seven months.

Fast-forward through a few major life events that many of my gentle readers may have been involved with….he went to his first Scout meeting the same week he came home, at that same age of seven months. He stayed with the program for his entire boyhood, eventually reaching the then-coveted rank of Eagle Scout. He went to both a National and World Jamboree, and was the Senior Patrol Leader in his last year.

Academically, he excelled throughout High School, graduating as a member of the National Honor Society, and then getting accepted to the college of his choice with a pretty decent scholarship, too!

That phase of life was interrupted by COVID. In the spring of his freshman year, all hell broke loose, and IMHO, the world has yet to recover. In any case, he was able to get through that nightmare. He managed to land a coveted internship at Disney World in the fall of his Senior Year, as a part of the Culinary Program there.

Finally graduating Cum Laude, everything seemed to be lining up for his success.

Reaching today, my son has a good job in Corporate America, being a Corporate Chef at one of the many world headquarters in our neck of the woods. He’s got a nicer car than me, and he and his lady are rapidly becoming serious.

I finally convinced him to become a Freemason, just like his father, and he will soon be raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason. Which means a lot of fellowship time in the car going and coming back from our meetings.

He is going away with his lady to a remote cabin in Maine for a time this summer. I only half-jokingly asked if he was bringing a ring.

This stopped him cold; the mood in the car instantly changed.

“We can’t afford to do that.”

Neither of them can afford to get an apartment together. My son has already asked about the possibility of taking over his grandma’s house and mortgage when the time comes. (She is 92 and in declining health). Point-blank he told me that is the only way anyone in his friend group could even think about buying a house.

President Trump has done more than destroy the United States and our reputation abroad. The Hopes and Dreams of all future generations seem to be put on hold. As my own clock is starting to wind down, my son still has an entire lifetime ahead of him.

The Tang-Coloured Tyrant has destroyed all that. Mrs. Trisec and I have sacrificed nearly everything for the sake of our son, so he could have a better life. It is increasingly appearing that that was all for naught.

“There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both - taken and taken and taken, until there's nothing left but hope, and you've given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.”
? N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate