So, I heard some folks called J.D. Vance weird. Actually, a lot of people called a lot of people weird this past week, but it seems it started with Vance, spread to Trump, and then got tossed back and forth across the aisle.
So, I turned on “Hillybilly Elegy” on Netflix to see what “weird” is.
The U.S. Senator’s memoir was published in June 2016 and the man has sold 3 million copies and attracted movie maker’s Ron Howard’s attention since. The film tells the story of a kid raised in the Appalachian culture who beats the odds to make dreams come true, and the man’s success story now includes a seat in the U.S. Senate and the Republican nomination for the vice presidency.
Thing is, though, that most of the poignant parts of Vance’s story involve subject matter that probably would have been considered “weird” a generation or two ago, but these days, tragically, dealing with the tsunamis of drug addiction is our new norm. Like having a using addict for a mother or father and being raised by grandparents because Mom and Dad are dead or behind bars.
It started with unchecked pain management and an extraordinary number of opiates in Appalachia, then the epidemic moved on to heroin, and later it spread to fentanyl, methamphetamines, and now a Narcan-resistant narcotic known on the street as “Demon.” The Wheeling Police Department, in fact, issued a “Possible Overdose Trend” alarm this morning at 9:30 a.m. It was the sixth overdose-related warning since June 5th.
So, alas, not so “weird”.
I’ve also learned Vance is married with three kids (the American Dream isn’t “weird”), served in the U.S. Marine Corps (go ahead, call a Marine “weird” …), earned his undergraduate degrees at The Ohio State University (is winning “weird”?), and earned his law degree at Yale (Impressive, but not “weird”).
So, here’s a simple suggestion coming from a political independent from Appalachia (now that’s “weird”):
Instead of the little-kid bullying, how about y’all concentrate on shrinking drug abuse in the U.S. so parents can raise their kids and grandparents can go back to spoiling them.
