Trump KAG rally, Bossier City Louisiana

I took special interest in this because I lived in this spot for a couple of years during my formative years.

Shut up. I was forming, alright? And boy, was I ever forming. My feet grew like this: BLAM! My hands grew like this BLAM! My height grew like this: BLAM! Every body part grew, and I mean grew! Every body part stretched out like I was made out of rubber. And in no particular organized fashion. I was stretched out of shape. My shirts didn't fit. My shoes didn't fit. My pants didn't fit. I couldn't keep up with myself. I outgrew my own clothes each day. It was weird. I have anecdotes related to this spectacular growth but they're too rude and too outrageous to relate in polite company.  *looks around* Well, there's got to be someone around here who's polite. Let's say other people noticed particular things.

So Bossier City resides in my mind as an incredibly special place.

We went there from Tokyo and so far as Japan was a culture shock, Louisiana was even more so.

We just didn't expect to see in America the things that we encountered in Louisiana. It became our favorite state.

Tin roofs on shacks blew my minds. Sofa's on porches. Shacks that people actually lived in, along the edges of cotton fields. Buzzards circling on thermals high overhead. Huge flocks of pelicans low on the water. Armadillos killed all over the roads. Arma-f'k'n-dillos! I thought those animals were in Africa.

The racial thing was positively antebellum. Arrested in time. The racial-language unspeakable.

In the mid-60's the racial thing in the south was quite incredible. Nothing at all like what we were used to. This was during the school busing integration that caused so much social disturbance. But the truth of it was stranger than fiction. The black kids integrated into our white school became instant celebrities. Much to their surprise. They came prepared for the worst but were treated honorably by the school's white celebrity-like students. White punks, actually. They teamed up. The white star punk-students actually interpreted black lingo for the white teachers. And for the rest of us.

For example, one teacher assigned a heavy workload on Friday for us to do over the weekend. Contrary to statistics and to popular understanding, this southern school was singularly the most difficult academically that I've ever attended. When I transferred out in grade ten I already had all the credits needed to graduate from my new Colorado high school. So the rest of high school was coasting with electives compared to the Louisiana school. I don't know why Louisiana gets such a bad rap except that the ways things are measured must be different in different places. The two Louisiana schools were hard. They took intense concentrated effort. The one Colorado school was easy. Tons of homework in Louisiana. Nearly none in Colorado.

The black kid bravely complained, "Wee kends be lazydaze."

The teacher asked, "What?"

The tall skinny black kid repeated, "Wee kends be lazydaze."

The teacher repeated, "Excuse me, what did you say?"

The kid repeated, "Wee kends be lazydaze."

The teacher put on the spot said genuinely apologetically, "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are saying."

The tall skinny white celebrity punk-student, now the tall skinny black student's new best friend at the frighteningly white school interpreted for his new understudy. "He said, weekends are lazy days."

The teacher goes, "oooOOOOOooo."

The entire classroom cracked up laughing to tremendous comic relief. The tall skinny white celebrity punk-student saved the day. For the black kid. For the teacher. For all of us. None of us knew what the black kid was saying. He had us all completely stumped. Not just the teacher. "Weekends are lazy days." Who would even think of saying it like that? Besides, weekends are definitely not lazy days. That's when our parents really put us to work. Clean the house, mow the lawn scrub the carport, paint the shed, bathe the dog, wash the car, do the dishes. Parents were constantly on our backs. Constantly finding things for us to do. Plus all our other homework. Church. Shine our shoes. Get our cothes ready. Make ourselves spotless. Weekends were anything but lazy days. The whole idea was insane. No wonder we couldn't understand what the guy was saying. His culture was completely different from ours.

Weekends are lazy days. What a bizarre idea. I'll never forget that one sentence.

What they had no way to know was most of the kids were dependents of parents posted at the nearby Air Force base that dominated that entire area. Most everyone who lived in that housing area that this particular school serviced had a parent stationed at Barksdale. The kids bused in had no way of knowing the armed forces were already integrated long before the general society. And especially when compared to southern society. They had no way to know that school serviced mostly Air Force brats and we were already utterly integrated.

That meant the black Air Force brats spoke the same way as white Air Force brats. It meant there is no cultural difference. We were already friends. There is more difference between ranks than there is between races. The military is segregated by ranks. Not by race.

While the reverse did not go so well. White kids who were determined to be bused to black schools took other paths if their families could afford it. My friends, for example, hired tutors and finished their high school education at home. Their families refused to send their kids to a black school.

What a bummer!

How narrow minded.

How fixed.

But my friends, one in particular, loved it. The guy was overweight, like X10, morbidly obese. The other white kids called him "Haystack." How rude! But he did actually look like a walking hay stack. That's how fat he was. His hands waved like flags back and forth when he walked. He was extremely odd. So he was completely satisfied not going to school. White, black, made no difference to him. He was miserable either way. But the guy was smart, smarter than most, and hilarious, more funny than most, and talented like you wouldn't believe, much more so than most. He played classic piano and wrote his own music but his fingers were so fat they hit double keys. The fattest guy I've ever known. I have tons of stories about him that I'll tell you later. But for now, he characterizes the thing that was going on at the time that I lived where Trump was tonight.

And I'm so disappointed.

It's not a good rally.

The politicians that Trump is stumping for are all duds.

They're the kind of people you don't want to know. None of the guest speakers are interesting. The audience is not worked up. Trump is not at his best. The energy is middling to low. The whole thing is flat.

And I am reminded, maybe it wasn't all that great a place to live, after all.  Louisiana is incredibly rich in culture. Sportsman's paradise is no idle brag. But you cannot know that from this particular KAG crowd. If I went back there I'd most likely be similarly disappointed. I must say, Colorado is the best place that I've ever lived.

If you care to watch it, you have to find where to start near the end of the video.