Butler County Ohio Man Killed over politics

[Dill]

(11-09-2022, 12:12 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: The look of shock on Ray's face when he told me that was pretty saddening. They've taken several family vacations together and for years, when Jerry flew to visit his daughter in Florida for most of the Winter, Ray would drive to Jerry's house, 15 miles away, three times a week, just to water the plants. All thrown away just because he didn't line up exactly with Jerry's beliefs. If Ray is too Liberal for Jerry's friendship, I think it's safe to say that I didn't ask for Jerry's new number.

I've got a bit of sharing along those lines myself.

I used to have this ritual whenever I would go back to my "hometown" in Mt, Crow Agency.

There are three brothers there, one of whom was the best man at my wedding 45 years ago and a college roommate. 
They were close and operated a local business together, inherited from their parents. So I've known them well over 50 years. 
Their mother was active in the county dem politics. I got on well with her back in the day.

Anyway, whenever I came back, we would all have lunch together at the trading post across the road from
Custer Battlefield. 

Last summer I was back in MT and texted them that I would be in Crow in a couple days, so let's go for lunch.

One never responded. Another asked that I just come to his home, no explanation, and the third, my best man, sent me a long
text explaining that the other two were no longer talking to him because he was full on Trump. He listed some
reasons why he didn't like the direction of the country under "liberals" and said he understand if I didn't want to
see him (he knows my politics; they used to be his too, and his mom's).

Well, I still considered him a good buddy, for whom I had only good memories. We did have lunch. And I listened
to his reasons for believing Trump really won. They were easy to discredit. But I just nodded. I asked him
some questions about his business and his kids. We parted still friends. 

I went to see the other brother. We had coffee and talked about local politics (he's on the local water board). Nothing
about the rift between the brothers. Anyway, I found these interactions really depressing, nothing like when we were 
all joking together over burgers, like going back home and finding a good buddy had died.  My impression was they were all
very depressed over this broken state of affairs, and had been for at least a year.