Red tailed hawk siblings on the ledge

 

Having been a pretty outgoing person in Fallbrook who has lived here for over four decades, people sometimes ask me how I navigate the various groups and factions in town? It is a good question and one that it is hard to come up with an answer for.

I guess you deal with people as individuals, one at a time. If you can find common ground, beautiful. I try to. But there are times you have to go it alone and I have no problem there either. I have written a widely read blog for sixteenth years and I have many opinions, not everyone will agree with all of them, it is a necessary fact of life.

The time Leslie was attacked in her store and we got nine pages of online death threats was such a time. She could not answer the scurrilous lies, on advice of counsel, and we had to bite our lips until they bled. I am not sure that some of the bad feelings will ever go away. The criminal charges were dropped when the witness stepped forward and uncovered the bed of lies but people believe what they want to believe and there is nothing you can do. She saw some people's true colors when the chips were down and they will never be forgotten.

I got two nasty troll comments regarding my wife this morning. The anonymous asshole who sent them is actually baiting me, because there is not a chance in hell I would ever print them. Why waste your time fucking with me, I wonder?  Delete.

I went into a restaurant today and saw a guy that I used to work out with walk in. He was one of the people who was affable at one time and then a switch hit and he became cool as ice. Never sure why but probably politics. It was no great loss, believe me, he was never what you would call an intelligent man, never close and I don't work out at that gym anymore. But my antenna are still good.

I said hello this morning and it was all he could do to summon a painful, neutral grunt. So I filed a mark in my internal ledger, don't even bother being pleasant with this one next time. 

Enjoy your true comrades, try to be friendly to everybody, regardless of creed, color or class and don't sweat the assholes. Perhaps that is my philosophy. Not everyone is going to like you and those that don't you can live without. 

Anonymous trolls are cowards and if you leave them alone and don't feed them, eventually they slink back to the dank reptilian hovel they dwell in under some fetid smelly rock where they can indulge in their gluttonous coprophagia.