To Share Or Not To Share

Last week, Islay the Scotty and I were out on our ride-walk (I ride my geezer trike, and she trots alongside), and we ran into our neighbor out walking her beasties in the more traditional way.

She had just run into a couple of neighbors who, in the course of their conversation, discovered that their neighbor, once a Republican and morphed into a non-Republican. The neighbors were surprised and chose to pursue the matter - an unwise decision knowing my neighbor.

In summarizing this encounter nearly three weeks before the election, with heaven-knows-how-much-mud-yet-to-sling, my neighbor said,"You know, a lot of Republicans just don't like to share."

Now I know a great many extraordinarily generous Republicans, regardless of whatever other faults they might have, but I don't believe that she was necessarily talking about the sharing of money; instead, I think that she might have meant that they lack a generosity of spirit or of participating or collaborating.

But whatever she meant and whatever you might think of her observation, I was rather startled by it and will continue to think about for a long time after this particular election is over because the times in which we now find ourselves will require a much broader definition of generosity, and we shall all need to participate in helping each other through the difficulties which lie ahead for all of us, but more for some than for others.