Buddy Doyle lives in Gardiner. 

I’ve long admired Janet Mills. Her luminous Maine legacy will long be remembered and admired. She recently enhanced her heritage by making the tough decision to gracefully bow out of the senatorial race. I feel free now to file this observation/opinion.

Not too long ago, we heard Graham speak in Boothbay. No need for his last name. Sting, Bono and Oprah didn’t require one. Nor will he, moving forward — because America’s listening.  We’d heard that “if you hear him in person, you’ll be impressed.” We sure-as-shuckin’-oysters were.

Encumbered by a hearing deficiency, I clearly heard his view concerning economic disparity. The widening, dangerous chasm between the “haves” and “have nots.” The “über-haves.” Y’know, the billion-with-a “B” boys’ club.

For much of my life, I’ve attempted to subscribe to this philosophy: “Travel light in life. Take only what you need: a loving family, good friends, simple pleasures. Someone to love, and someone to love you.  Enough to eat, enough to wear and a little more than enough to drink, for thirst is a dangerous thing.” 

My wife and I are now in our (late-but-great) 70s. We live happily in a nice warm house with a loving dog. We enjoy and cherish good friends, and count our blessings regularly. We’ve enough to eat, enough to wear, and I’ve no qualms about a bourbon or two now and then. 

We are keenly concerned about our grandkids’ future, given the current condition of our once proud, cohesive country. America the Beautiful vs. America the Pitiful. I lament a time when I sat down with Republican friends for “a little more than enough to drink.” Understandably, some are now independents. Others grieve their once Grand Old Party, surreptitiously crying in their beer. Sad, that.  

Back to Boothbay. At the conclusion, I was proud to be the first to stand up and shake Graham’s hand. He grinned and thanked me for coming. He impressed me as “a genuine man of the people.” A hard-working “ocean-eer.” He’s all that — and a bag of chips. Many might remember another man of the people, Will Rogers, who once quipped: “Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.” Chilling words back during the Depression. 

I’d submit that today “Several hundred (mostly men) in our country can buy the whole world, but many millions more can’t buy enough to eat, afford health insurance, fill their gas tank or put a roof over their head that they might someday call their own.” 

Then there’s our festering homeless population. Hooverville-cum-Trumpville. In this country, again? This isn’t in the future. It’s now. Too many signs of the times are scribbled on tattered cardboard, held aloft out in the rain and cold.

In my view, unbridled and unregulated greed  tops the list of the cancer plaguing our land. I agree with Graham that America’s bastion of billionaires didn’t “earn” their obscene wealth. They connived to “steal” it.  Success is one thing. Excess is another.

The current occupant of the White House — he so admired by Sen. Susan Collins — is stealing and looting even more obscene wealth before our eyes, laughing all the way back to “Mal-a-Lago.” Don’t get me started on that g-damn ballroom that we the people are now going to be asked to pay for. Preposterous!

Only in Maine could a tattooed former Marine and oyster farmer dare to seek a seat in the U.S. Senate. That this unique candidacy is being observed on the national stage for the country to watch, witness and applaud is extraordinary.

It remains to be seen whether this phenomenon will serve as a call to action for the rest of the country to awaken to the idea of “rebuilding” America, on a lasting foundation of common decency, respect and — dare I add — love for one another.

But I sure wanna think so. So here’s to you, Graham­. And you too, Janet.