never in my lifetime

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8. "Never in my lifetime". . .

. . . Or words similar to that were said by a customer of mine at a former job. The man had been working for the Obama campaign in 2008 and he had racked up overcharges on his phone bill.

Despite his dismay about the costs, I could hear the pride and awe in his voice as he told me that he had a young son and until the year of that campaign, he didn't even imagine that we could have a black president in his son's lifetime.

It was a sweet victory, and Clinton's campaign ended in a bitter loss. But we're learning. We're growing.

I like to believe (perhaps foolishly) that the increased and intensified racism and overall hatred that we are seeing these days from certain segments of society are like the behavior of wasps at the end of summer.

Their time is at an end. They feel it by instinct, even if they do not understand what they sense. As a result, they become more hostile and engage in aggressions dangerous to themselves as well as to others.

I'm not a viewer of Game Of Thrones, but I understand that the phrase, "Winter is coming" is intended as a warning. Well, winter IS coming, and the change in weather will be the death knell for "wasps" of many different sorts.

Maybe their hatred won't be completely frozen out in my lifetime, but I will go to my grave believing that it will happen.