It doesn’t get uglier than Donald Trump

This Presidential election has oddly made think back to sitting at Grandma’s kitchen table eating a Jiffy peanut butter sandwich and listening to her nearly worn out eight-track of the Statler Brothers.

My Grandmother, on my father’s side was a woman who lived alone in a small house, walking to work as a nurse each day, hosting family dinners and helping raise several grandchildren.  I remember getting to know her better when she retired and moved a small but nice trailer into a lot in our yard. Grandma had a heart condition and had been alone since she “split” with my grandpa at some obscure point around the time of my birth but there was more to her story and a reason my father convinced my mother to let her live less than 100 feet from our side door.

As I grew older and grandma passed I heard the whispers of how my alcoholic grandfather had left grandma black and blue on more than one occasion; which explained my dad’s endless defense of a lady who seemed distant with her son and most men.

So, back to the kitchen table…as I finish up my favorite treat and the song “This old house” ends that side of the eight-track, grandma ask me about my day at school. I proceeded to tell grandma that despite being a good student and person, that I was not popular and needed to lose weight (did I mention I just finished an extra thick full fat peanut butter sandwich and glass of full fat milk). My grandmother then said something to me that I have thought of three times in my life; once in 12th grade sitting in a class assembly when I hear the most popular girl in class tell her friend that I would be a great guy to date…someday when we get old (I guess I was so invisible that she did not know her words would travel and cut like a knife the two rows down the bleachers, where I sat), the next time was when someone I loved and put before anything in my life showed me her true colors and the third time was today when I heard the audio of  Donald Trump describing how he could “grab a woman by the p****” and “go after a woman like a b****”.  Those words Grandma spoke are a lesson on how to spot true beauty and how I pledge to judge all people, both men and women. Grandma said people are ugly by the words they speak and the actions they take, not by their appearance or the brand of clothing that they wear. 

I went to a midnight rally for Hillary Clinton in the primary race on a winter night in Marshalltown, Iowa. The rally time was 9 p.m., but by the time she arrived it was nearly midnight, but she still came and talked in that small elementary gym. I listened to a master politician talk about her life and what she wanted to do for our country for about 45 minutes. Then, she started shaking hands and of course taking lots of selfies and I was no different, with my low-quality smartphone camera in hand, then she was right there in front of me. I asked her for a picture and as she forced another smile (see picture for forced smile) I took her hand and told her that I trusted her to help make things better for my three children, because I can’t do it alone. Hillary Clinton then stopped the robot politician moves that I had seen and yet admired all night and she put her hand on mine and I heard a flawed woman say “Thank you for that” to which I told her I meant it and yet again she paused and said, “that’s why I keep doing this”. 

Win or lose, I will never forget that moment with Hillary when she made me feel important and she became a beautiful person to me. Likewise, win or lose, I will never forget the moment when the sum of his remarks made me realize that Donald Trump is a truly ugly person. Tomorrow, I plan to pass along grandma’s lesson of what makes a person ugly to my sons and daughter in order to explain the remarks they are bound to hear on TV from the mouth of our Republican nominee for President of the United States.

Hicks is a 36-year-old father in Iowa.

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