Bro hugs with a super Trumper at Schooner’s Wharf in Cayucos

March 3, 2025

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” and “Life on The Mississippi, 1969” are currently on Amazon.

I was maybe on my third vodka rocks in a bucket while boozing in Schooner’s Wharf with Big George and Turk on a Sunday night when I struck up a conversation with the dude next to me, a strapping lad of 40, who’d been drinking pints of beer and studying his cell phone. When in the sauce at a certain point, you don’t remember how conversations start, but evidently it had to do with my sidekicks drinking Guinness stout and Turk exposing his awful Irish brogue that led to the fact that the dude beside me was 100% Irish American and proud of it and had been to Ireland.

Well, now the ball was rolling, as I have been to Ireland twice on pub crawls (no camera, churches or castles) and we began comparing notes on where his ancestry hailed—Galway.

I explained how in almost every small town pub I drank in that closed at around eleven, I usually found myself invited to the after hours joint where I mixed with the mayor, police chief, fire chief, priest or two, and the usual gaggle of town drunks amazingly astute on almost all subjects from music to sports to politics, and you name it.

I did indulge in this ritual in Galway, where I was declared Irish though I have no Irish blood.

My new pal and I admitted that being Irish was kind of a spirit, and we were going back and forth, exchanging joyful tales, when he suddenly ceased and asked, “You’re a Trump guy, right?”

“I am not.”

“I thought you were for sure.”

“Never.”

“I’m a super Trumper,” he explained proudly. “I love Trump.”

“Well,” I said, “Let’s not get into it then.”

Suddenly–when somehow there was a mention of Turk being a former college basketball player and an “enforcer”–the lad became ebullient, especially when I told him I had played until I was 78, and finally retired.

He disputed my age, insisted on seeing my ID. I showed it to him. We began talking hoop. We argued about it with zest and zeal. I expressed my opinion that Lebron James was the greatest player ever. He claimed it was Michael Jordan.

We started showing each other our shooting form. We both nodded in approval. He was still playing several times a week. He was like a bear. I told him he would have had his hands full posting me up on the block. He stood and I stood, and we began grappling and tussling as I held him off with an arm bar, knocking over bar stools, and he said, “I can fall back and shoot over you.”

“I’d strip you easy.”

The discussion intensified. We sat back down and began discussion our love of hoop. We discussed our injuries, where we played, at what level, etc. It went on and on. Then he stopped again.

“How can you be a fucking democrat, man? They’re pussies. Their whole thing is about a bunch of pussies.”

“Most of my friends are democrats and none of them are pussies. You think Trump’s a tough guy? He’s a draft dodger.”

He tossed that off. “He’s a winner. He’s a killer, man. He’s America first! That’s the way it is! The whole thing is about America winning, coming in first. I hate to lose. Hate it. Trump’s a winner. We’ll win with him. America first!”

“America first? That sounds infantile. It’s grammar school shit. Me first! That kinda crap gets us all in trouble. Everything Trump’s doing is penny wise and dollar foolish in the long run.”

We continued to argue. I put up my hand. “Let’s not get into it,” I said. “I have Trumper friends I put my trust in.”

We shook hands. The booze and beer went down. The conversation became more jocular and repetitive. I don’t think anybody at this point could understand what either of us was saying, only that we were louder and stupider.

His wife showed up. They were from up north. Then his good friend and his wife, the people in Cayucos they were staying with, showed up. There were introductions and hugs all around, as the women were lovely, and then the big old lad declared, “I fucking love this guy!” And he bear hugged me.

By this time the poor lady bartender was trying to get us all out there. It was very late. I’ve been there. It can get old and tiresome.

We trickled outside. More hugs. Promises to get together again and party.

But my God, I was twice the age of these people and today, as I write about it, I am hungover, queasy, shaky, sweaty…but what the hell!

A zealous Trumper can like and admire a dem lib pussy, and a dem lib pussy can like and admire a zealous Trumper, as long as we don’t touch on the subject of Trump.

And that’s the way it is in some places in America today.

Maybe the way it has to be.