The 9-year old twins came over for Camp Granny this weekend. On Saturday, the New York Times published photos of the people who’ve been arrested (so far) for their part in the deadly Jan. 6th insurrection. When the grandchildren have asked, we’ve discussed what it means to try to overturn a fair election with riots and guns — and, on a more kid-applicable level, what it means to be a sore loser.
While the boy was off hunting a Netflix movie for us, the girl sat and read the newspaper with me. When she saw the insurrectionists’ photos, she said, “This is history! I’m going to read this!”
I asked her what she noticed about the Times’ photos, and she said, without blinking, “They’re mostly white men.” I asked her what else she saw, and she said, “They’re mostly over the age of 20.” She also said there were a lot of veterans.
We’ve known for a while that parts of the insurrection were planned, though that might not help Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial this week when the U.S. Senate weighs whether the previous president’s words pushed the crowd into insurrection. In their 80-page brief filed last week, U.S. House of Representatives managers said:
President Trump’s responsibility for the events of January 6 is unmistakable. After losing the 2020 election, President Trump refused to accept the will of the American people. He spent months asserting, without evidence, that he won in a “landslide” and that the election was “stolen.” He amplified these lies at every turn, seeking to convince supporters that they were victims of a massive electoral conspiracy that threatened the Nation’s continued existence.
The grandchildren and I do not talk about any threats to the nation’s continued existence. They’re 9 and if I thought we were actually near an end, I would figure out a way to frame it for them as an opportunity. Or something.
On Saturday, after she laid the section onto the counter, my granddaughter settled in to read aloud each suspect’s name. I didn’t ask her why she did that. Instead, I sat and bore witness. When she stumbled over a pronunciation, I helped where I could. Think about it, she told me in that excited voice only a child can muster: She has lived through two impeachments (which she mostly understands), an insurrection (which she can pronounce), and a pandemic. She says these are all stories she’ll one day tell her grandchildren.
When their father was their age, he and I were traveling back from a trip to see family in Missouri. On a lonely highway in Kentucky, I rear-ended the car of a man who’d stalled out just over a rise in the road. I tried to swerve, but I hit his car, which flipped over, while my car, with my son and I in it, went into a spin. I remember reaching over to hold my son’s arm and I remember hoping for the best. When the car came to a rest, my door jammed, so I kicked open the passenger door, and we climbed out, a little sore, but OK. The other car was resting on its roof, and I sat my son on a guard rail, and ran over to find the driver — a Mr. Ellington — crawling out of the window. The man had a healthy abrasion on one hip but that was it. We all walked away from what was a pretty nasty wreck. As my son and I sat on the guard rail to wait for the highway patrol, my son said, “Well, at least I’ll have a story for show-and-tell.”
I love that attitude. As tough as this has been and will continue to be — and there’s every indication things will get tough and then good and then tough and then good again — these are the stories we’ll tell.
When I was a kid, living in Missouri, our family lived through the worst tornado in the state’s history. (Maybe it still is?) That event became the family’s defining moment. Everything was defined as pre- or post-tornado, and continues to be 60 years later. These times will resonate in the minds of most Americans in the same way - pre- or post-COVID, insurrection, impeachment. At least I hope for it to be so. There is so much to be learned from these times.
Keep tellin’ it like it is, grandma! We’re all listening.