Are They

I’m trying to remember. When did people start hating?

I can’t seem to recall when it started. Perhaps I wasn’t listening or watching

Admittedly, the Fabulous Four consumed my attention for quite a few years, but perhaps it began even before then when I was preoccupied.

Earlier when I was still young and frivolous and then perhaps even a bit later while in the throes of romance and spellbound with anticipation, I was too self-occupied and paid little attention to what others said or thought.

Still I don’t recall hearing anyone in my intact world, family, friends, business associates or even foes, saying:

I HATE Wendell Wilkie or

I HATE FDR or

I HATE JIMMY CARTER

And nobody hated DWIGHT EISENHOWER or GERALD FORD

Perhaps the word was whispered and obviously, it began and gained some initial acceptance with Nixon and Kennedy,

But then like a virus it grew until it reached proportions that are now uncontrollable.

I am weary of hearing:

“You (or I) HATE Joe Biden.”

Of course the name that preceded that earlier was ‘Donald Trump’

And yes, several political seasons even earlier, ‘Hillary Clinton.”

Yet somehow I rarely heard it applied to her affable husband, the ex president.

It was used occasionally about Barack Obama, but quietly, not loudly, lest a tinge of racial prejudice could be detected.

However it is too late now to nip this growing disease in the bud. It appears entrenched and repeated regardless of what political corner you stand on, Votes are not cast in approval of one candidate, but rather on hatred of the opponent.

I find it verges on humorous when friends and/or associates casually use the word either with the personal pronoun or in a jovial accusation.

They are also the souls of discretion who are meticulously polite about other topics, yet have no hesitation about this volatile expression of emotion,

I believe “Hate” has become the most overused word in today’s current vocabulary and while you can’t help hearing it,

Let’s hope that it, too, is not contagious.

At the moment none of the leading pharmaceutical giants have developed a vaccine. I wonder they are even looking.

Although we can’t help hearing it, we don’t have to use it unless

it, too, becomes contatious.