My recent visit to rural Stockdale, Texas, where I grew up, was quite an adventure. I soon learned this was Trump Country because of the MAGA caps and revealing conversations with old friends.
I drove down Main Street. It was once Highway 87 before that route bypassed town. Four vehicles were parked along the street. I visualized every business that was there in 1955 when I graduated. My memories were vivid as I thought of the stores and the people who once worked in them.
Stockdale had two feed stores then, a lumber yard, and grain elevators by the railroad. It had two grocery stores with meat markets and full-time butchers. One also had a dry goods section. The town had two drug stores, a movie theater, pool hall, and a skating rink. The Stockdale Star newspaper kept us informed of local news. Two barber shops and a dry cleaner were there, also two auto dealerships— Ford and Chevrolet.
We often visited the café that had a juke box and pin ball machine. I remember the message written on the door, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” That meant no Blacks or Mexicans.
Reflecting on those memories helped me understand why MAGA appeals to White rural folks. Make America Great Again! But nostalgia can be terribly deceptive. None of those businesses exists now.
I visited the cemetery where four generations of my relatives are buried. I saw no gravestone with a Hispanic name for the entire century prior to 1980. Until then, the cemetery had been just for Whites.
The Black children could only attend school in neighboring Floresville, where there was a school for them. If they could not get there, it was, “too bad, kids.” That school campus was one of the few places where Black folks could gather and feel pride for who they were.
We forget how hot it was trying to sleep with no air conditioning.
We don’t remember how hard it was loading watermelons all day, for a dollar an hour, nor do we recall the fear of the dreaded polio before there was a vaccine.
MAGA folks seem unable to realize that no president can ever make America return to those days they wistfully long for, again. It is just a dream in a never-never land. Most of us would not like returning to that life if it did happen.