Worlds Apart, Living Right Next Door

Chapter Nine. The Hardware Store.

The hardware store in Marshall, North Carolina, has been there for almost one hundred years. It first opened in 1928. It’s authentically old school. Walk in the door and you are truly walking back in time. Wooden floor boards that have been shuffled upon for almost a century.

It is here I meet Kathy. An older woman with a sweet face that lights up in a kind smile. Welcoming. This is a family business. Her father’s before hers.

“What brings you here?” she asks. A friend had recommended that I come to the store to talk with a guy called A.J. about the US Elections, I explain, but, “I’d love to talk with you, if you are open to it.” She is a little hesitant, but then says she is fine with talking.

I ask her how she is feeling.

Her eyes, they widen and she says, “I believe in saving our country.”

I ask her what she means and she says that if we vote one way, “our country will never recover.” I tell her she is hard to read and it is then she tells me that she is voting for Trump.

Her number one reason is the economy. Before Trump came into office they were “really struggling,” she says, but, “when President Trump went in, I saw a turnaround in what was happening. It was amazing what we started seeing. People were able to spend more money.”

The following day, we spend a good hour and a half, together, talking. We are joined by a friend of hers, a guy called Mike. I bumped into him outside the hardware store when I was coming back to talk with Kathy. I had pulled in behind a Ford pickup truck and immediately spotted the three Trump bumper stickers on the back. Two of them, one on the bumper and one on the back window, said, “Trump 2024, America’s Comeback Starts Now,” and another, on the back window, had a photo of Trump and the words, “Miss Me Yet?” I have a thing for bumper stickers. I had just seen one on the back of a car in the nearby town of Mars Hill which said, “I love pooping in the woods,” and it had made me laugh because I remembered Rick from the Trump Rally, and how he had said he hated hippies. He would probably not appreciate the spirit of that bumper sticker.

So there I was outside the hardware store taking a couple of photos, and a man’s voice comes from beside me, “you like the bumper stickers on my truck?” I turned and there in front of me was a older guy, a Trump baseball cap on his head, yellow shades across his eyes, a scraggy beard, and a strong smell of cigarettes. I do, I said, in that, I am interested in them, and explained to him what I was doing in Madison County. I asked if he would like to talk and he said “I’ll talk to anybody.” He suggested we go and sit down, because he had been having some health issues. I said sure, and he walked me into the hardware store. Kathy was there, so we all sat together at the back of the store, and began to talk.

Early on in the conversation we talk about the local property evaluations and subsequent tax increases. Mike’s property tax bill has almost doubled and Kathy warns that these tax bills are going to force people to have to sell. Mike has a meeting at the tax office at two to see if they can lower his bill. “I don't mind paying my taxes, but there’s going to come a point that they're going to force a lot of people to sell their property.” (This has become a campaign issue for Judy Major who will insist on a redo if she is elected).

Mike explained the local political scene to me. “The locals, they are either diehard Republican or they're diehard Democrat,” he says, and Kathy interjects, “and very narrow minded in the way they look at things,” to which Mike admits, “I’m narrow minded in my way I look at things.” His family has always been Republican, “the majority of them,” he clarifies. “Can’t help what they marry into.” Kathy though, her family are Democrats, and the party has certainly lost her. It’s not just the economy and what’s happening “down on the border.” She used to be a school teacher, and she is “disgusted with what they've done to our school system.” I ask her what she means and for her, it’s gender issues, “giving children a choice, if they choose to be a different gender, and they can request it without parents’ knowledge. This is not right. This kind of stuff just really bothers me about what they are pushing in their school system.”

“It’s pure evil,” Mike says.

I ask Kathy if it’s just the transgender piece that upsets her or is she upset too about LGBT rights. Before she can reply, Mike says, “it’s all together,” and she agrees. “To become LGBT,” she says, “a lot of that has to do with that transgender, ah, transferring into another.”

I ask them both if they know anyone who is homosexual and Mike says he has family members who are gay. “Who sleeps with who don't bother me one bit,” he says. “I don't have to answer for their soul. Don't bring it out into the public and say that we have to agree with it.”

We talk about abortion. Kathy, if she were in the situation and had an unwanted pregnancy, would have had the child and then put the child up for adoption, “because you're killing another life. I don't care at what stage it is, because the child started living the moment it was conceived, and that's where I look at it, and I think it's wrong. And I don't want to stand before the Lord and try to reason and say, Well, this is why I made the choice that I did.”

Would you allow another woman to choose?, I ask, and she says everybody should have their own choice but that if abortion came up for a vote in North Carolina she would vote against it, unless it was for medical reasons.

What about if there was the possibility of a blanket ban?

Mike interjects here. “Can I ask the question,” he says, “Why are you saying a blanket ban? There's been no proposal for a ban completely of abortion in America. Now the Democrats are saying that, but nobody's ever proposed that, nor put it up, except the Democrats saying Trump's saying that.”

Right, I answer, but do you know about Project 2025?

“That’s not Trump,” Mike says, immediately, and Kathy, says the same thing, “That’s not Trump.”

They both believe the Supreme Court decision was correct and that it’s up to the states to decide. And, Kathy says, if you don’t like that state’s decision “let the people move to what state they…” she laughs, and Mike continues, “or walk over to the state to have what they want to have done.” He continues, “Under a republic, the states have to have the control of its people, their people decide. It’s not fair for California, that’s as liberal as it can come, to be able to have control federally, to rule everybody in this nation.” He tells me he doesn’t want to live in California, nor Michigan, nor New York, nor New Jersey. “I don’t want it,” he says, “And what they're going to keep doing is they're going to keep pushing until they get a civil war going again.”

What will you do if Trump loses?

Kathy jokes, “move to Ireland,” she says.

Mike has a far more sobering prediction. “If Trump loses - if they steal it - he won't lose by vote. If they steal it again,” and he pauses, “this nation won't last four years. It'll fold.”

His scenario is dire: “The economy will collapse. Food will stop moving. You'll have people killing each other for food, or you'll have China and Russia and other countries like Mexico and a few others that will invade America because of the weak Democrats.”

And then, we move into a conversation about the end times.

“Now, me and her believes in the Bible,” Mike says, “The Bible is very clear, when nations turn against Israel, all nations, that's including America - which we're starting to do under the Democrats now - Christ comes back, which will be a good thing, but it ends time,” and here Mike notes that the Democrats are actually doing something that - in his view - is going to happen at some point, “but,” he says, “I have family who's not saved, so I'd like to have a little more time.”

Kathy is in the same place. “I have family members that are not saved too,” she says, “and I see evidence of things that are going on that indicate that lots of red lights are going off, indicating that we are heading toward the end of time.”

I ask Kathy what those red flags are for her, and she asks me, “have you ever heard of the Green New Deal?”

I say that I have.

“Well,” Kathy says, “They keep pushing wanting to lower the temperature of the world, but if you read your Bible, it's going to get hotter. And so what are they after? I mean, this is going to be true toward the end of time, the Earth will get hotter. And it's in the Bible.”

I ask them both, given their belief, are they concerned about climate change?

“We have no control over it,” Kathy says, and Mike echoes her, “no control,” he says.

Kathy says, “As far as they want to stop the fracking, stop the oil drilling, thinking that this is part of the Green New Deal, but that's not going to make any difference. I mean, the earth will get hotter, and we don't need to…” and Mike comes in, “spend all that money,” he laughs a raspy laugh, “on nothing.”

“On electric vehicles,” Kathy adds, and Mike says it again, “on nothing.”

You don’t look at the way the earth’s temperature has increased, dramatically, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and see this as something that is man-made as opposed to pre-ordained?, I ask.

“It probably is man made,” Kathy allows, “But at the same time, why are we going to worry about that,” and she laughs again, “because what really can we do?”

Mike tells me that the US is one of the “cleanest countries, apart from a few European countries, in the world.” (The US is not one of the cleanest countries). He continues, “we're still using oil, the only difference is we're not using our own, we're paying for it from countries that want to destroy us.”

I say that from the research I’ve read, the US is producing more oil now then it ever has, and he tells me, “you can’t believe anything the Democrats say. Nothing.”

He uses the special counsel investigation of alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia as an example. All the Democrats did was lie. “They lied, lied, lied,” he says. “Everything they said was a lie.”

We move on.

Mike warns that the Democrats are going to turn the United States into a Marxist dictatorship - just like what he sees happening in Venezuela - and I ask them both what they think about Trump’s comment that he plans to be a dictator on day one.

“There you go, listening to them Democrats again,” Mike says.

Kathy joins in: “He only wants to be a dictator for that one day, that very first day,” and Mike continues, “to change all the things back.”

“That’s the only thing he's going to do,” Kathy says, “but see, it's just blown out of proportion. Just like that Project 25, it just blown out of proportion. And everybody is saying, ‘Oh, this is what President Trump is.’ That's not it.”

“That’s all they do is lie,” Mike says.

And Kathy, “Please tell the truth when you go, when you write this article.” She laughs.

Neither of them have heard the speech where Trump tells Evangelicals that they only have to vote “this one time,” because, “in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote.”

“I’ll have to find that and see what he’s actually talking about,” Mike says.

I ask Mike, for all his years, and given the divisiveness in the country right now, if he sees a way back to some sense of agreeing to disagree, understanding differences, and he shakes his head.

“No,” he says, “it’s too far gone. There’s no middle ground.”

I feel like there has to be some middle ground, I say, it’s just that people aren’t talking to each other.

“They're gonna talk with their pocketbook this election,” Mike says. “People can’t afford what’s going on.”

I ask him then what he thinks about Trump giving tax cuts to billionaires and the argument that Trump doesn’t care for people like him.

He laughs, again that raspy laugh. “And the Democrats do?”

“I don't care what a man does - this is America - if you have the ability to make billions, then make billions. Jobs are not created by the government.”

What about the government’s role in protecting those who live in poverty, helping people to find their footing.

“Under the Constitution, no,” Mike says. Squarely. Firmly.

And then the issue I knew would come up eventually, we get on to migration. Mike tells me that the US government is letting “millions” of people into this country and paying for everything, their housing, their education and their college. Why are they doing this when so many in this country are without? he asks me. And he answers his own question. “That is to destroy our country, to bring our country down,” he takes a breath. “There is no way you'll convince me that the Democrats are not deliberately bankrupting this country, destroying it, to turn it into a dictatorship.”

Kathy says, “Isn’t that scary? Is that not scary?”

Kathy wants to see people get out and work, and not receive what she perceives to be handouts. She does say though that, “if people are needing a handout, I'm all for that, if they can't do the work, but a lot of people can. They can get out and work - somewhere there's work that needs to be done - and earn a living. They will have so much more pride about themselves.”

I suggest here that this is something the Democrats would surely agree with her on, and again, Mike with that low raspy laugh, as if I’ve said one of the funniest things he’s heard in a while.

“They want to give $25,000 for a startup house!” there is indignation in Kathy’s voice. “Who gave you $25,000 when you went out and bought your house?”

“And who are they getting the $25,000 from?” Mike asks, “Somebody else.”

Kathy leaves us to tend to another customer and we get to talking about January 6.

Mike brings this up as another example of the Democrat’s lies, and, like Matt Wechtel, the Republican county commissioner, has a completely different perspective about what happened that day. “That was a set up,” Mike says. “People went into the Capitol building after the police opened the barrier gates and motioned them in and even escorted them in, and then they charged.” He goes on, “If you look at the ones that were in there doing the damage, the ones that were breaking the windows, now they had on Trump shirts, sure, but if you look, those same faces are on the left in other demonstrations, the same people.”

You think so? I ask dubiously.

“No, it's there. I mean, you can find it. Take their picture. Compare it to the photos they got of the other demonstrations on the left. They infiltrated the Republicans,” and, he adds, “I'm not a conspiracy theorist because I'm a law enforcement officer.” He has been in law enforcement for 40 years.

Mike has to go to the tax office to discuss that property evaluation tax bill and it’s almost two o’clock. Kathy and I talk just a little bit more. Again, she asks me to write the truth. I tell her that we come from very different perspectives. I say, I have spent many years working with refugees and with migrants. “Well, God bless you.” she says. I say then that there are many who are undocumented in US who run businesses, who work, who pay taxes on their income, without access to social security and other benefits.

She doesn’t think this is fair.

“There must be a way to let these people become citizens,” she says.

Addendum: This conversation took place on August 22, 2024.

On September 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene stormed through Marshall. The French Broad River broke its banks in devastating fashion, and flooded the entire town, washing whole buildings away. Waters rose above the ground floor of Kathy’s hardware store. It was a record-breaking storm. While Mike and I have been in touch, and he and his family got through the hurricane unscathed, I have emailed Kathy, and not heard back. That said, I have heard from others that she is okay, and I hope that her hardware store will be open soon again, and that those hardwood floors will be shuffled upon for a good many years to come.

Marshall is a beautiful town and Madison County a stunning place. I am struck by what I am seeing from afar, the determination of community there to come together to build back. If you would like to support their efforts in what ever way you can, please go to HelpMarshall.org.