I was a weird kid. I wore a kilt to kindergarten when I was 5, and was thoroughly mocked by one boy in particular, whom I then proceeded to punch in the nose. Unfortunately, he was on the stairs at the time, and ended up taking the fast track to the bottom. I got in trouble for that.

In grade school, I was mocked constantly for the decision to carry my books and other school stuff in my Boy Scout haversack, rather than in my hands like all the other kids did. You might say I was ahead of my time. Unfortunately, being ahead of your time is not a great place to be when you are a kid. Being different just makes you the nail sticking up that some kids insist must be hammered down.

I wasn’t big. I wasn’t strong. I wore glasses – and not just any glasses, but the free, military issue kind. The ones that, at an older age, were referred to as “birth control” glasses, because if you wore them you would never have to worry about procreation. (BTW, that turned out not to be the case. It seems that if you do find a sufficiently interested girl, and you marry her, children ensue, BC glasses or no.)

If that wasn’t enough, I liked to read. I read just about anything I could get my hands on. But as I got older, science fiction and fantasy became my staples, further cementing me into the “weird” club. Any time I might think otherwise, the “cool kids” were quick to put me in my place.

So I grew up. Went to college. Studied “weird” stuff like math, engineering, and computer science. Hung around with “weird” people, who liked role-playing games, war games, and hex-grid simulation games, and blew off steam on weekends fighting in armor with my friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Oddly, that is where I met my wife, who is “weird” only in as much as she married me. She was in the Air Force, going through Russian training at the time, and was looking for something to do off base on the weekends. So a fellow student, who was in the SCA before joining the Air Force, took her and several of her friends to fighter practice. I was wearing a kilt. We played chess. Inexplicably, she thought I had cute knees. Forty-one years, 6 kids, and 13 grandkids later, I don’t wear a kilt much anymore; we seldom play chess. But we are still happily married, proving, I guess, that even weird kids can find happiness.

I guess that in some respects, I am still weird in the same manner as I was growing up. I still like to read science fiction and fantasy; I have an extensive library. I still like games that the typical person likely eschews. I enjoy programming, and am, as a newly found “hobby” in the process of refurbishing/rebuilding my collection of Amiga computers that no longer work. The capstone of this project will be completely building from a bare motherboard and all the parts, a brand new Amiga 500 computer that, when finished, will be the newest Amiga on the planet; 40+ years after Commodore Amiga’s first came out, and decades after Commodore’s demise.

Which brings me to 2024 and the 2024 Presidential Election between Donald Trump and, at least for now, Kamala Harris. And once again, the “cool kids”, those who went to college at Ivy League schools instead of state schools like me; those who have the “right connections;” those with the big bucks, friends in high places, expensive homes, and who are obviously ever-so-much smarter than I, those “kids” are at it again, calling me “weird.”

But I am not “weird” today for the same reasons that I was “weird” back in the day. No, today, my “weirdness” takes on a new dimension. I am weird, because I support Donald Trump. I am doubly weird, I guess, because I didn’t initially support him in 2016. Changing your mind is weird, I guess, although if I were to suddenly do a 180 and decide to support the Democrat ticket, I bet they wouldn’t have a problem with that (though they would doubtlessly still consider me weird; “cool kids” never seem to change).

I am weird because I know the difference between a man and a woman. I am weird because I support the second amendment, and the entire US Constitution for that matter. I am weird because I love my country, think it is the greatest hope for mankind (at least it was in the past), and wish for it to be again in the future. I am weird because, although I believe that climate changes (the scientific evidence is irrefutable in the geologic record), I do not believe that the current warming is attributable solely (or even majorly) to human activity, and that if we somehow impoverish ourselves (and, in the process, kill off at least half the world’s population), we can reverse those effects.

I am weird because I refuse to stop supporting President Trump, even though he is now a “felon”, duly convicted in a kangaroo court, of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Please note: I don’t ever recall the good citizens of Washington DC ever being referred to as “weird” because they voted back into office Marion Berry as mayor, after he finished his 6-month jail term for felony crack cocaine possession. Indeed, he is lauded as “beloved.” But then again, Mr. Barry was a Democrat, and a person of color. That makes a conviction for crack cocaine small potatoes when compared to the heinous made-up crime of “falsifying business records.”

I am weird because I agree with JD Vance on pretty much everything he has said. In fact, that makes me “super weird” according to some on the left. And he is correct that “childless cat ladies” have “no direct stake” in America, in the same sense that someone with kids does. I suppose they could be trying to make a better America for their cats; they certainly don’t have the same stake in what happens in America as someone who is concerned with the direction of the country for their posterity, as they have none. It isn’t mean to say so, it is simply a fact. And I don’t appreciate their making decisions that are going to affect my kids and grandkids negatively while they are snug in their graves with their cats being taken care of by someone else.

So, weird, eh? Interesting word. It implies that the person using the term is “normal.” The two words are in contrast with each other. Being weird is being “not normal,” at least in the context of the person using the term. So, let’s take a look at what these folks slinging around the term “weird” consider “normal” by looking at their positions.

“Normal” is signing legislation putting tampons in boy’s locker rooms in public schools, as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Governor Tim Walz did. Because males can menstruate. Quite frankly, I don’t think schools should be stocking tampons in girl’s locker rooms either. When I was growing up, girls took their own tampons to school. We spend enough on schools as it is. Why should taxpayers be suppling tampons (or condoms) in the first place? But this is “normal” for the “cool kids” elected to office. Because, you see, you might have a “guy” in there with a vagina instead of a penis, and you must be weird if you think such is not normal.

“Normal” is being a grown woman, and being unable to explain the difference between a man and a woman, because you are not an “expert” in such. Normal enough to be a Supreme Court justice in America today.

“Normal” is drag queen reading hour in our elementary schools. “Weird” is opposing such.

“Normal” is “gender affirming care” for children, particularly when such “care” includes puberty-blocking drugs that in many cases are irreversible and leave children sterile as adults, or even irreversible surgeries undertaken to “reassign” the “proper” genetalia on children who are incapable of making such life changing decisions. If they want to do so as an adult, no problem. They have no one to blame later but themselves. But to do so to children is unacceptable, not “normal”, and so far beyond the bounds of weird that weird doesn’t even begin to describe it.

“Normal” is abortion on demand, anytime, anywhere. If you want to “abort” your child while it is dangling from your body by its umbilical cord, that should be your “right” according to these folks definition of “normal.”

“Normal” is open borders, and illegal aliens getting more rights, care, and attention than US Citizens. What is the point of being a citizen now days?

There are many other things the Left/Democrat Party/Harris-Walz ticket consider “normal” that I do not; things that, at best, are weird, at worse, what I would call downright evil.

Yes, the “cool kids” are calling me weird again and you know what? I don’t really care. In fact, I prefer the label “weird” to the label “deplorable” that Hillary Clinton hung around my neck back in the day (and as one of the “cool kids,” probably still considers me).

Call me “weird”? Ok by me. I proudly embrace the title.