Anyone who has ever taken a two-week holiday knows that it takes at least a week before you begin to relax.  There is often so much hype leading up to the vacation, and then the excitement of getting there, that it isn’t until you’ve managed to wear yourself down for the first week that you really start to enjoy yourself.  The hustle may involve getting to know the resort or the restaurants and staff or just establishing a new temporary routine. But it usually isn’t long before one adjusts and begins to soak in the goodness that was intended.

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After a less than normally disturbed sleep, I have awoken to a mild, hazy day on the Atlantic Ocean. My view of this perfection – several deer just bounced by on the crest of the dunes – is nonetheless subdued by an indefatigable ambition for productivity.

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Today is a nondescript Sunday though it is at least singular for that small compliment. Even the Ocean is grey.  The slate white sand on the beach has preserved a muted resonance but it certainly doesn’t glow as it normally would on a brilliant sunny day.  No matter.  It’s Sunday and no one appears anxious to be out-of-doors other than to perform the routine pet walk, a duty apparently relegated to old folks.  At least until Thanksgiving Weekend we’ve been spared the screams of children.  Meanwhile the Island has an insipid hollow feel to it.  Though there were a number of people on the tennis court when we began our bicycle venture around 12:30 pm there is otherwise a general lack of exuberance.  Passers-by don’t exactly scowl but there is a distinct lack of bonhomie, an uncharacteristic reservation.

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Refinement – apart from its industrial connotation (the removal of impurities) – is most often associated with people or things of elegance, which in turn betrays its cultured element and the insinuation of sophistication or urbanity.  The elucidation does not however capture the subtle element of discrimination which is evident in the rendition of something – whether spoken, acted or created – with utter simplicity and unaffected. Indeed with time I have acquired a sensitivity to things of refinement upon that level, plain but appealing. It can for example embrace the easy beauty of a young child with porcelain skin and swimming blue eyes; or a single red rose in a Lalique vase; perhaps a white sail boat in a spray of surf; maybe an elegant woman in a “little black dress”; even a weary athlete at the end of a race.  Uncomplicated beauty abounds to the educated eye!

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The punishment of the US post-election frenzy has already been mostly blunted. How soon we synthesize catastrophe!  Besides I’ve always flattered myself upon my capacity to digest even the most uncomfortable intelligence.  The secret? I don’t just disregard it; I concede its truth. And when, as in this case, the matters aren’t my immediate personal concern it is naturally easier to accommodate the otherwise distressing details.

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It was shortly after four o’clock this morning when I turned off the TV and went to bed, stunned by the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America.

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We have the distinction of being on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina on USA Election Day, November 8, 2016. For months we have gleefully anticipated this front-row spectacle. Significantly we’re close to North Carolina and Florida – two of the foremost “early” States – where much of the sometimes skeevy political action has transpired in the past year. Although there is the traditional interest in the down-ballot vote for the composition of Congress (the bicameral federal legislature – Senate and House of Representatives), the focus of attention is upon the Presidential election. It has been a raucous and fierce battle between Mrs. Hilary R. Clinton (Democrat) and Mr. Donald J. Trump (Republican). What’s more jaw-dropping than Trump’s inflammatory rise through the Republican ranks and his obscene performance on the national stage is the horror that the American electorate may ultimately be accused of having elected him as President (and Mike Pence as his Vice-President). As vulgar as Trump is, so too is Pence commensurately preposterous (a distorted religious bigot who has gone so far as championing a funeral for the remains of any aborted fetus).

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The US presidential election will be held – or, more accurately, concluded – Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Whatever the outcome it is more likely than not that nothing much will change.

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I think anyone knows that Donald Trump threatens the sustainability of the Republican Party – quaintly called the “Good Old Party”.

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There was a time when I practically prided myself upon my ignorance of political activity. Don’t get me wrong, I always – without exception – voted in any election, whether municipal, provincial or federal. But my lead-up interest in the outcome was token at best and it usually predominated the local municipal elections far more than the provincial or federal battles. Years ago when I began practicing law in Almonte in 1976 and assumed the office and swivel chair of the late Raymond A. Jamieson, QC, I was initiated to an admiration for American politics by Mr. Jamieson. At the time I thought it somewhat peculiar that Mr. Jamieson specifically preferred American politics but as I got to know him I learned to attribute the peculiarity to his own general eccentricity. Now – forty years later – after having spent the winter on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and having been submerged in the unfolding fortunes of the Republican nomination caucuses, I can see precisely what I imagine Mr. Jamieson so loved about American politics.

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