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TRUMP VS CLINTON FEB 1/25

I first met Donald Trump many years ago. It was at the Preakness Stakes horse race for three year olds. I was with my late husband, John Sikura, who owned thoroughbred farms in Toronto and Kentucky. As always when we were at a big horse event, John asked me who I would like to meet. He knew everyone, movie stars, tv stars, anyone you’ve ever heard of who happened to frequent the race track. “The only person I want to meet is Donald Trump”, I told him. “Donald Trump?”, he asked. Trump was merely a developer at that time, not even close to entering politics. But I was intrigued by him and interested in real estate development myself. John said, “I can’t help you with that, I don’t know him”. So I took a little walk on my own, and along the way saw Mr. Trump with his entourage. Same expression on his face as he has now, no smile, looking straight ahead, doesn’t look from left to right, forging forward. I got in rhythm with his walk outside of his protective circle, and moved in the same direction as he was. I held out by hand, but I didn’t even look towards him. Next thing I knew, a hand grabbed mine and I was pulled into his circle as we kept walking, hand in hand now. “Mr. Trump I want to drive my husband crazy”, I told him, “would you mind walking past him?” 

“Sure”, he said, “where is he?” 

I pointed out my husband, and we started moving in his direction. When John saw us, he just shook his head, laughing. Trump upped the ante, raising my hand to his lips, sealing it with a kiss. It was really funny. I thought he was a great sport and so did my husband. I went back to John, and Trump went on his way. 

Later, we were in the saddling area, since we had a horse in the big race that day. That’s the thing with being a breeder. If your horse doesn’t sell before the sale, you take it to the track because you’ve already paid the expensive fees so that it is eligible to race, still hoping it sells beforehand. John would say that you’re apt to get a lot more if you sell before the race than after. 

As we waited with our entry, Donald Trump approached to greet the horses and their owners. I was excited because I had already met him. But when he came up to us, Trump ignored me completely, and, addressing my husband, conversed with him. I was embarrassed, blushing. I felt silly until Trump said to my husband, “by the way, you have such a beautiful wife” – an exaggeration, but easily forgiven, and very much appreciated. “Oh, Mr. Trump”, I said, “do you mind?”, as I motioned towards a photographer who was working the event and who I had standing by, in case we could get such a photo.

Donald Trump had a great way about him. He was a lot of fun, charismatic, and most importantly when he left, he had both me and my husband smiling. 

By comparison, I also met Bill Clinton and sat next to him during a big event. He was at our table of eight. He talked throughout dinner, holding court, but none of us seemed to know what he was talking about. Even though it was philosophy and politics, it was at such a high-level intellect, we didn’t understand. Or at least I didn’t understand. He was introduced to the larger group present, got up to speak, and was again fantastic. I thought at the time that every girl there would go home with him, and then it dawned on me, that probably every guy there would go home with him as well. Back at the table, I was with a boyfriend who was the reason we happened to be invited, he was in politics. He decided that it was time to leave and, as we got up to go, Clinton, who was on my other side, turned to me, took both of my hands in his, and stared deeply into my eyes. “You’re not leaving already, are you?”, he asked. He seemed distraught at my impending departure, even though up to this point he had not really acknowledged me at all. But this was very powerful. “Uh, I’m not sure”, I said. “No you can’t leave yet”, he insisted. He seemed desperate. I turned to my boyfriend and whispered, “do you think we could stay a little while longer?” The look he gave me was daggers and soon we were on our way home. He was mad as hell, but I was, well…wistful, quite moved by Clinton, actually.

So the difference was that after meeting with Donald Trump, my husband and I both left happy. But after some time with Bill Clinton, I surely left happy, but my man, well, not so much.  So Trump wins the day on that one because Clinton seemed to forget that men make up half of the population. Then again, he was past his election years…

p.s. This is not about Trump’s politics. it’s just an impression I was left with years ago when I first met him. I am as terrified as so many others about what he might do next… 

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STORY 2 Modern Love is likely the most popular column in the world, published in the New York Times, the most widely read newspaper in the world. 10,000 submissions a year, many from professional writers, and only 52 chosen.. as many as there are weeks in the year. I was the chosen one last November/24. I had sent in my essay several weeks earlier (Even His Parents Were Younger), and anticipated a 3 to 4 months wait until I heard back, as they advertise. Although my chance of being accepted was .4%, I wasn’t sending it anywhere else, this revealing story was risque for me and I had decided it was Modern Love or nowhere.

Story 3 Everyone knows how much I love my birthplace Cape Breton Island. I have land on the Bras D’or Lakes there, inherited from my mother. It’s on a bank overlooking the sea where I almost soar with the eagles, the most gorgeous place I’ve ever been. Because I’m right on the famous lake, now a biosphere, and also on a running brook, getting the rights for indoor plumbing are complex and could be a hassle. Not that the officials are being unreasonable, it’s more my family, think the Hatfields and McCoys. But my dispute only involves one family – my own. Why there’s enough animosity to slay a dragon, I suspect. My brother in the cottage next to mine has indoor plumbing, but I see him sneaking off to the outhouse a lot, so I guess it’s not working and he’s trying to keep that from me. But if I make any move for indoor plumbing, all hell will likely break loose and I’ll be reported to authorities from the prime minister on down. So I decided to just build a state of the art outhouse to take care of the problem. But it didn’t take care of the problem because I want comfort. So, I bought a six bedroom house, with two washrooms, in Sydney to solve my issues. That’s a 40 minute drive each way.

When I leave for town and drive up the path, my kind cousin Peter, will generally stop me and say, “are you going to the bathroom? You can go here”. He does have plumbing because he’s not on the waterway. Very generous and kind of him, but I’m not ruining everyone’s breakfast by running in and announcing, ‘I need to go’. So I continue on to Sydney. You have to admit an 80 minute drive is a long way to go for a bathroom. So I decide to try the golf course restaurant in Ben Eoin, which is only 15 minutes from my cottage. But always, after skulking into the washroom there, I feel guilty and order a meal in their delicious restaurant immediately afterwards. And by the time I’m almost back at my place, well, you know, and I feel like driving the other way to St. Peters to slip into another great restaurant, and do it all over again. I could always try visiting Philip Glass, the American composer and pianist who winters in New York, but who, like me, enjoys his summers in Cape Breton. Widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. But Glass’s work has been associated with minimalism, so maybe he doesn’t have plumbing either..humm.. But I can only hope… “Mr. Glass, my name is Sharon Dunn, I’d love to write a story about you twice a day, each and every day, but before we get started, do you mind if I use your facilities?” 

I’m sure you’re wondering about my ‘state of the art outhouse and why it isn’t doing the trick? Well, maybe because the ‘state of the art’ part is three ply toilet paper. Let’s face it, an outhouse is an outhouse is an outhouse. Since I don’t use it anymore, I’m thinking of turning it into a sleep cabin for guests. That’ll keep them away.  

LOL

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Story 4 WOMEN AND CARS

 I am a woman who has been passionately attached to her cars. My first car was a 1971 red Chevy Vega. Dad got it off the lot for only $400, since the Vega, right from the get go, was not a very popular model. Here’s a description from Hagerty Media: “the Vega was not really a bad car, it was a breakthrough domestic small car that was sadly cost-cut, poorly executed, under-developed and hurriedly launched to a sorry result, well beyond Chevrolet’s and GM’s ability to save it”. It had as bad a reputation as the Edsel for unreliability. But still, I loved that car. I would come out from my first job in TV, to the parking lot, and there would often be a red rose thrown across the hood, from my very romantic boyfriend Ted. The rose looked so good on that little red sports car. If the rose wasn’t on the hood, it would be splayed across the windshield or inside on the dash.  Vega lasted for several years, a lot longer than Ted actually. Our last trip (me and Vega’s, that is) was a four and a half hour drive home to see my parents, which I often did, but this night the car conked out as we were coming down Oxford St. in Sydney. We coasted to Cottage Rd, I turned right and then left into our driveway. The Vega never started again, but it got me home safely. Even in its final moments, it had taken care of me. The Vega was my first… we learned together, so I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for it. It had an undeserved bad reputation, just like the wild looking boyfriend who you’re not allowed to date when you’re a teenager, even though he’s so good to you….if the Vega ever comes back, I will be the first, and probably the only one, in line to buy it…                           

My second car was an ungodly lime green coloured Volkswagen Beetle. Semi automatic, shift but no clutch, it was fun to drive and it always started, even on the most bitterly cold days. When much better cars weren’t able to turn over, the Beetle hummed, never with heat, mind you, as I don’t think the heater ever worked. And the Blaupunkt radio never functioned either, but the sound would have been really great, if it had, I was told, so that made me feel better. I bought that car for around $500 and painted it a bright yellow. I sold it to an Air Canada stewardess, as we called them back then, who paid me a lofty $850 for it. I got a call from her a few months later, telling me that she was stopped by the police in Toronto, and when she showed them her ownership, it said Vega. Oops. The police weren’t worried though, she was a really cute flight attendant, so they helped to get her a new ownership slip.

Things changed after I got married and my husband John brought me home a gift. It was a brown car. With our relationship as passionate as it was, I asked, “Why would you get me a brown car?” 

“Did you notice what kind of car it is?”, he asked. 

“Of course”, I told him,  “it’s brown”. 

“It’s a Mercedes Benz”, he said. It was a 1984, 500 SEC coupe to be exact. List price was then $57,100 US, in today’s dollars, about $174,000 US. 

“But why brown?”, I persisted. John rolled his eyes. A few days later, he was off to the Keeneland horse sale in Kentucky, and I decided to give him a surprise when he got back. 

 I picked him up at the airport a couple of days later (this was when you could just pull up at the curb to wait for a passenger), and when he came out, he looked around and said, “Where’s the Benz?”

“What do you mean, ‘where’s the Benz’?”, I asked, “it’s right here in front of you”, I gesticulated towards the now gold colored car. “I had it painted when you were away to surprise you”, I added. He stopped in his tracks.

“Are you surprised?”, I asked.

“Help me to the car”, he said weakly, “I don’t feel well”.  He wasn’t kidding, he was trembling and a little ashen. 

“Don’t you like the color?”, I asked, disappointed, “I call it Goldfinger”. John raised his hand, “just let me rest”, he said, closing his eyes. John was quiet as I drove home, but by the end of the trip, he had almost regained his composure. Trying to accept the new reality, he asked optimistically, “at least they used Mercedes Benz paint, right?”

“Mercedes has their own paint?”, I asked. Who knew?

I stayed with Benz, but never bought new and that brings me to my all time favourite car. The steady, and some might say boring, C230. I picked it up on Christmas Eve 2009 after closing on my home, a deal that included all of the furniture and my then current old Benz.  My new car, the 2007 Silver C230 cost me $23 thousand Cdn., and had under twenty thousand miles on it. 

This car and I had a lot in common. We were both kind of cheap and run of the mill, but we were definitely better than our reputations, and we were also very reliable. We looked pretty good, as long as you didn’t get too close. And although we both got a bit beaten down and weathered over the years, we still ran just fine. My sons would make fun of Silver, as I called him,”first you put tape on the fender grill, and now the grill is gone”, Luke accused. “A friend of mine pulled it off, it looks better”, I insisted. Getting it fixed hadn’t even dawned on me. “Get rid of that old thing”, Jay would say. “How dare you”, I countered, adding, “Is that what you’ll be saying about me one day? ‘Get rid of that old thing?’” 

 I stayed completely loyal to that car, as it did to me. Oh, I would occasionally eye other cars, but never, ever would I consider making a trade. I didn’t care if another car was faster, sexier, or sleeker, no one was taking me from ol’ Silver. I have never been so loyal in my life. Maybe I should have chosen men the same way I chose that car – steady and boring, with a good pedigree… but alas, I never did. Silver made me understand how people can stay in long term marriages. He was so true, so reliable, so damn good to me, I could never stray. 

In 2022, disaster struck when a deer ran onto the road and leaped onto the hood of Silver. I was fine, the deer was fine, at least I think it was, it ran back into the woods, but the Benz, although it limped home, was a goner, it was totalled. 

“It saved your life”, the cops told me, saying that without the sturdy Benz hood, the deer likely would have landed on my lap, flailing about, and that could have been a really bad scene. 

Ol’ Silver and I were together for almost fourteen years. It was the longest and best relationship of my life, hands down. Teary eyed, I flew back to Toronto after its death and headed to my mechanic Bobby, who also fixes and sells Benz’s. “I have one I think you’ll like”, he said. I shook my head, no one could replace Silver. But lo and behold, there in his garage was what seemed to be my old car back from the dead. I couldn’t believe it! 

“Just like your Ol’ Silver ”, Bobby said proudly.

I got in the driver’s seat and turned the key, it hummed nicely. Then the engine light lit up. I turned to Bobby, amazed. “Bobby, is the engine light going to stay on?”, I asked. He smiled and nodded. “Just like your old car”. I sighed, and with misty eyes, told him, “I’ll take it!!”

By the way, you might notice, below, that I’m not the best parker in the world. 

the end …