(Before you read this just know it’s mostly a mundane recounting from my memory of a conversation with my mom. There isn’t some dramatic event or a real “point.” Reading it is almost assuredly a waste of your time.)

I got invited to (free) lunch with my family for my brother’s birthday. The price of admission is seeing my boomer-ass parents. I’ve just made it a point now, in my middle age, to annoy the shit out of them by pressing their buttons on politics. My dad basically totally disengages, and my mom will sit quietly until I’m done and then bring something else up. Classic move. Never works. I always go back. They’re my parents after all. If I have the right to press anyone in the world on their shitty politics, it’s them.

So, just to mess with my personal NSA agent, I may or may not change some dates and stuff. The overall information will remain intact.

My parents were both in the US military. I knew since I was a kid that my mom had spent some time in Israel before I was born. At least that was how I remembered it vaguely. “Mom was in Israel.” I always meant to ask her about her time there out of curiosity. Look, she’s in her 60s, a veteran, from the US south. We all know without asking that she supports Israel’s existence and probably everything they do. So I knew that if I wanted to get anything more than yelling at my mom for shit she did 40+ years ago I had to kinda “just ask questions.” Don’t purposely offer my opinions, just ask pointed questions and let her talk.

She told me she was stationed on the Sinai peninsula in Egypt in the mid-1980s. I always just thought she was “in Israel” so I asked her first:

“Egypt? Why? What did you do there?”

“I don’t know. Just drove a truck. A mail truck.”

“So you were in Egypt? Why was the US there? Were you working with the Israelis?”

“No, no. There were a bunch of soldiers from different countries there. The soldiers in the south were there for protection. I was support. (She was a truck driver basically from my understanding)” [I actually don’t know shit about this, so I need to look into it more at some point]

“Was this a remnant of the 1967 war?” [Just my in-the-moment thought]

She nodded “Yeah! Yeah that was why. Carter signed some agreement. All these countries agreed to defend the peninsula.”

“Oh, ok. So did you ever visit Israel then?”

“Oh yeah. I went all the time. It was beautiful there. I went and saw all the places from the Bible. I went to Bethlehem where Jesus was supposedly born…”

[I kinda cut in] “Nazareth? He’s called Jesus of Nazareth all the time.”

“Yeah, yeah. I went there too. I went to the wailing wall. You know what that is?”

“Yeah. I think that’s more important to Jews though. Do Christians really care about that?” [She didn’t really answer, so I started doing a little joke/bit] “I’m pretty sure Trump went there and did the prayers. I remember seeing him. “Look at the wall folks! The best walls.””

“Yeah, it was beautiful there. I’ve wanted to go back, but I couldn’t because of you.” [referring to my birth not long after]

“Did you go to the ancient city of Jerusalem?”

“Of course!” [This is the part that got actually a bit more interesting. Remember my mom is in her 60s.] “You know, they have all these border stations. They check your ID and they ask where you’re going. They all speak English there, you know. And they’re nice and they say “ok, go go” but you can’t just cross back and forth in certain areas.”

“Oh yeah. You know, some people in this country [me referring to the US] would get angry and debate you over what you just said. They say there are no checkpoints, that anyone can cross freely anywhere. Of course you can if you have a US passport or from Europe somewhere. Not the Palestinians though.”

She just kinda nodded. She didn’t disagree. I think she was in her mind and remembering back 40 years.

“Did you see the River Jordan?”

[she thinks for a moment] “No… no, I don’t think I ever went there.”

[Then she offered this other interesting, to me anyway, nugget from her memories] “I remember flying in one time late at night.”

“What airport?”

“uh… I don’t know.”

“The one in Gaza? It used to be there anyway”

[She didn’t respond to that, still thinking]

“it was an Israeli one?”

“Yeah. And there was supposed to be a driver to pick me up and take me. But no one was there, and it was so late at night. I remember I could see planes flying over to, it had to be, you know the Gaza Strip. You know? Where all the fighting is right now? And I could just hear the bombs far off.”

“Yeah. The Israelis are always bombing them. They won’t let them have… well, anything.”

After that she noticed my niece, her granddaughter, doing something cute and spent a long time taking pictures and showing me old pictures on her phone. But, as always, her son dragged her back to reality. I don’t remember what led up to this next conversation exactly, but, here it is.

“Trump is a dumbass. I will never vote for Biden either. He’s senile, you know. Did you see that funny report the other day?”

“Oh yeah. They’re both idiots and both losing their minds. Biden has no clue where he is half the time.”

“Yeah. I’m not voting for Trump. And I sure as hell ain’t voting for Biden either! That dumbass. I think I’ll vote for that Robert Kennedy if he’s still in by then.”

[Pretty sure I physically cringed at that statement]

“No! Don’t vote that for dumb- actually, you know what, who cares? Vote for whoever. They all suck.”

“I always liked the Kennedys anyway.”

“Well, they kinda all sucked, Mom. And RFK Jr. is somehow worse than his dad and uncle…”

“I don’t care. I’ll vote for him.”

“Ok. Whatever. I guess his dad [RFK, Sr.] got… a bit radicalized after his brother got killed by, well, I can’t say for certain, but like 99% sure the CIA had him killed.”

“Oh yeah. For sure. That was all a conspiracy. I think his bodyguard shot him.”

“Hmm. I dunno about all that, I think it may have been Oswald, why not, but the conspiracy is WHY was he killed not so much who actually shot him. I think the CIA definitely wanted him dead and had something to do with the whole thing. I mean why would this one single ex-marine, ex-defector want to kill the president? Why would he care that much? Maybe he was just deranged, but it doesn’t all add up.”

“He was just a patsy. Just like he said.”

“Yeah, for sure. Whatever happened it was what the CIA or FBI wanted. You know, the crazy thing is he was an American who defected to the USSR and then came back! No one does that! He had to have CIA ties to do that part alone. They would never allow anyone else to leave and come back like that after renouncing their citizenship. That one single piece of evidence alone proves to me that something was going on that they’ve never admitted to.”

“Yeah. They’d send him to prison probably.”

“Yeah, probably.”

[Somehow changed to this]

“You know who I feel bad for? Those people, not the Russians…you know…”

“The Ukrainians?”

“Yeah! I don’t like that Putin guy. He’s a jerk.”

“Yeah. Well, he’s there because of US meddling and destroying the USSR. So, we get what we deserve. We have to work with Putin now.”

[she didn’t acknowledge any of that]

“You know who I liked? Gorbachev.”

[I had to hold back a guffaw for real] “Gorbachev? Why? He’s the reason, well not like JUST him, but he’s one of the main reasons the USSR fell apart and why all this shit is going on in Russia and Ukraine. He’s why Putin is there. You said you don’t like Putin.”

[again, zero acknowledgement. I realized I was speaking in “Russian pro-Putin propaganda”, so I cut myself off to keep the talk going]

I don’t really remember the rest of it, and I’m tired of typing (holy fuck). I just saw my sister in law sort of staring or glaring, couldn’t tell which, at me. Probably thinking how I won’t be allowed around my niece when she’s older because I can’t stop talking about the most contentious shit possible at a birthday lunch thing. I am truly the crazy uncle.

I don’t know what my point was here. Maybe I’ll press my mom (and dad- a harder nut to crack) on more details about Egypt/Israel in the future. Mostly for my own knowledge. They’re old as hell and they’re gonna vote for conservatives either way. Although my parents are kind of oddballs, or maybe this is a normal position I don’t know, in that they both fucking hate Trump AND Biden. They would love to vote for, I assume, like a Reagan type guy. Now to me all of these people are effectively the same. Trump is just clown-makeup Reagan, but it’s weird that their libbed-up tendencies make him unappealing to them. Does this mean anything for the election? I dunno. I do live in a key swing state, so their votes do “matter.” Does it really matter if Biden/Trump wins though? I don’t personally think so. Not for my goals anyway.