April 19, 2023

If I was a gutsy journalist I might have interviewed these next door neighbors.

By Hal Brown, MSW

This is a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and other subjects. My posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky. I'm a retired MSW clinical social worker/psychotherapist and mental health center director who was also a cranberry farmer. Scroll archives on bottom of page to see previous blog stories. There are new ones added almost every day, although if I don't have anything original to say I try not to say anything at all.

Click below images to enlarge them.

I frequently drive by a corner where there are two houses next to each other. One always has a Trump flag flying on a pole and the other has two Pride flag on the side. I've always wondered about how these neighbors get along with each other. I've thought that if I was a real journalist I'd interview the residents of both houses and find out more about them, what they feel about living next some someone with opposite political views, and whether they ever interact with each other.

I could even set up a meeting where they could talk together about how they felt. After all it's not like I haven't sat with people who were very angry with each other. I have done marriage counseling with lots of couples who had all kinds of conflicts.

On the other hand, having had husbands drop out of marriage counseling feeling very angry with me for not taking their side and sometimes having their wives divorce them I've told friends and colleagues that I wouldn't be surprised if the way I met my end was having one of these men shoot me.

Yesterday I was driving in the rain and noticed that the Trumper house had a new flag. It was one I had never seen. I managed to take the photo below before the traffic light changed. You can see the rain on the window. The insert is from Amazon where the flag can be had for $17.99.

If I was both gutsy and reckless and wanted to risk getting beat up or worse I could have snuck onto his video surveilled property, lowered the flag, and written my opinion to it.

Here's my version of the flag:

When I decided to write this I thought I could drive back there, park, and take some better photos. Then I realized I could get my photos from Google Earth's street view feature.

The houses above and below are next to each other

There are warning signs about 24 hour video surveillance by the Trumper's driveway and one that says "Mercury Parking Only" since from what I can tell this person specializes in working on Mercury cars:

I hadn't seen the LGBTQ+ Pride flag with the clenched fist before so I looked it up here and learned what it symbolized:

As a representation of Queer People of Color, it's not known who the original creator of the flag was(opens in new tab) but represents solidarity with the BLM movement as well as the intersection of the queer and Black communities (including the importance of figures like Marsha P. Johnson(opens in new tab), the Black drag queen who may have thrown the first brick(opens in new tab) at the Stonewall Inn riots) to the movements. No surprise, the flag has become more popular in 2020 and beyond. The raised fist is a sign of unity and support as well as defiance and resistance, and the various colors on the fist represent diversity. Sometimes called the Resistance Flag(opens in new tab), according to Them writer Matt Baume: "The modern LGBTQ+ liberation movement was touched off by queer and trans people of color and their struggle continues to this day, with both communities seeking justice, equality, and freedom from oppression. And because many people belong to both communities, they’re not two distinct causes but instead overlap."

The flag with the pale pink and blue colors seems to be version of this:

I think it's a faded one of of these:

About the transgender flags.

In the window there's a video surveillance warning sign next to a Black Lives Matter poster, below:

This is the second time I've written about neighbors who have opposite political views, and even had two or three chances to talk to the pro-Trump residents. I wrote about this here:

While walking around the lovely historic town of Aurora we actually saw and waved to a couple of men who were in front of the Trumper house. I could have gone and chatted with them and then knocked on the door of the historic home owned by liberals to talk to them. What can I say? I chickened out.

Related: These are from Facebook from the Methodist church and the school in the the Oak Grove community where these people and I live:

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