By Robert Pembroke
Doreen Mary Carwithen was a British composer of classical and film music who died in 2003. While driving back from our annual trek to sunny California, my wife and I heard Carwithen’s classic 1945 tune “One Damn Thing After Another” and my wife said, “How appropriate.”
My wife has been a very vocal critic of Donald Trump since 2015 and every morning my son Nelson, who is part-dog, and I get an uninterrupted, 15-minute diatribe about Trump’s misdeeds. Yes, I’ve heard about Trump firing Tillerson, about Gary Cohn resigning, about the trials and tribulations of Stormy Daniels and about Jeff Sessions’ dismissal of Andrew McCabe. It is just one thing after another and if I had any courage, I would tell my wife to “just chill out.”
But I don’t have the courage and yet I do worry about what is happening, not only to my wife, but also to me. I have come to the conclusion that before I criticize anyone else, I better get my own house in order. I need to chill out.
Every Saturday morning, I look forward to having breakfast with a group of my friends. Before “Trump Time,” our conversations were mainly about sports, grandchildren, aches and pains and the homeless. Very seldom were politics brought up and if it was the subject of the morning, it was about local affairs.
Most of the guys in our group are lifelong Democrats and I am not. I am a liberal conservative who believes strongly that there must be a safety net for those truly in need. But my guiding principle, when it comes to politics, is that “people were born to be free.”
In high school, I wrote an essay on the Communist Manifesto and I believe that this, along with my parents' staunch Republican leanings, shaped my early politics. But this political philosophy only lasted until I was about 30.
I was a salesman whose largest account was Hill Air Force Base. One day I found out that they were not going to be buying their supplies from me anymore. I eventually found out that a bureaucrat in the Department of Defense decided to centralize all supply purchases and my pocketbook took a big hit.
I eventually got the business back by testifying in front of a congressional committee that centralizing purchases in Washington, D.C., was unfair to small business. Ever since then, I have been an activist for the rights of the American dream.
My latest endeavor has been to take on ObamaCare, which was very unfair to small businesses like mine. My theory is that politicians, insurance companies and hospitals came up with ObamaCare in order to line their pockets with silver and gold. But only one other person in our Saturday breakfast group believes the same. The big question now becomes: “Should I worry about the way they feel?”
When it comes to the survival of small business. you better believe I worry about what they think. But when it comes to Trump, I have decided that I really don’t give a damn what they think.
This coming Saturday morning, I’m going to try to keep my comments centered around sports, grandchildren, aches and pains, the homeless and ObamaCare.
“Right now, I am trying to be in a place of calm, a place where I can chill out and handle the chaos of life. You don’t get it overnight; you have to work at it. It’s a daily struggle.” - Jackee Harry, actress and television personality.
Robert Pembroke is the former chairman and CEO of Pembroke’s Inc. in Salt Lake City.