FOURTH OF JULY

                                                          

Well it’s the 4^th of July once more and although the celebrations will be subdued this year, because of the virus, the 4th still is here and must be noted, There are times this year when I feel estranged from my friends and family because of the pandemic but always the loneliness that comes with it pales in comparison to the forced separations our veterans faced as they went off to keep our nation secure. Many of those who participated in World war II, Korea and Vietnam endured separations that stretched on for years. Their kids grew up without them, their spouses suffered great hardships of going it alone. So today we say a collective thank you to all of our veterans for their service and their families for their sacrifices.

What seems so egregious to me is the unappreciative way, we take all of the things, these people fought for, for granted. As a kid growing up there was a patriotic fervor in our society that had so much pride engrained in it. Our 4^thof July celebrations were the highlight of the summer. But as the years have gone by and our governments leaders have used the military for ill gain instead of what it was intended for, that pride has crumbled. Many of you that traveled for the holiday passed the shuttered Legion and V.F.W clubs that no one wanted to support anymore. Left to face the scorn for these military actions are not the Politicians who initiated them but those they sent into harm’s way, for all of the wrong reasons.  Yet, we need to honor these brave people for their loyalty and courage, in spite of their leaders’ mistakes. They did what they were asked to do.

A while back I wrote about the sacrifice our armed forces have made and I asked this rhetorical question to our political leaders. “Were you worthy of that sacrifice?” Many of our leaders did serve themselves but then they came back and got caught up in the politics that rules this country, and it tends to desecrate their service. To them I say, “Your laurels only go so far.” It’s a shame when you let your true colors obliterate your past service. That’s one thing about setting the bar that high with your service, you need to live on or above that bar for the rest of your life and in the end, you will be rewarded by a greater power.

My father -in-law was a proud veteran who spilled his blood on the beaches of Okinawa and then came home to his family and lived his life proud of what he had accomplished. He was a good citizen and a hardworking man, a good father and husband. If I could go sit on the grass over his grave today in the National Cemetery, I would have tears. Not just tears for his loss, but tears for the sacrifices he made, that are being squandered by selfish people that never knew or cared about those sacrifices or him. They care only for politics money and power.

It’s a shame to have to write like this but you can only ignore the elephant in the room so long. That the pandemic has rained on our parade yes, but the pandemic will go away-- but the sins of the past initiated by our leaders in this govenment will not go away. To those of you who served so honorably I salute you my friends. For those who have been laid to rest may you rest in peace assured of a job well done. For those still struggling may you never be forgotten.

POOR WHITE TRASH

I have wanted to write about this for some time but never have I felt it to be more relevant then right now. The controversy over racial disparity in this country is at a boiling point and in a small way I thought I once knew how people of color feel right now, except I’m not black, so really, I don’t know how they feel-- but I do feel something. Their pain. I grew up in a small town in poverty so I knew what it was like to see people look down their noses at you. To be snubbed and left out. But yet when you think about it, I was only a new suit of clothes from fitting in. I didn’t have to change the color of my skin to be excepted

After I graduated from high school I moved to North Minneapolis. I had a decent job so I was able to buy that new suit of clothes. No one knew my past so the prejudices went away. I became one of the white middle class and moved to the suburbs. It was that easy. I wasn’t a champion for civil rights, don’t get me wrong. Live and let live was my mantra. I figured if the poor blacks didn’t like the way they were living they could do the same things as I had done. How little I knew about prejudices that were far more, than what a person had to wear.

A lot of things besides the color of their skin has beset communities of color. Drugs and a lack of a good education probably lead the list. So, you say, “No one made them make those bad choices.” When I was a poor kid growing up-- had the opportunity came along for me to get out of poverty by peddling drugs-- I am not so sure I wouldn’t have. It was a different time and different place. The town I grew up in was a railroad town and as a kid I used to go to the depot and watch the trains come in. The porters and conductors were mostly people of color. It was my first introduction to black people, although I never spoke to them. I did notice, none of them ever drove the train. 

About twelve years ago my wife and I took a trip to Biloxi Mississippi for a vacation. As we traveled the whole state from north to south, I was astonished to see the poverty that existed. Sure, we had poverty in Minnesota too, but ours was just neighborhoods, not miles upon miles of it. Biloxi was a resort town on the gulf. Kind of a gambling mecca and many of the poor blacks that lived in those rundown shacks worked in the casinos and hotels. A few years later hurricane Katrina was to devastate that area. I never felt sorry for the wrecked casinos and their rich owners. Just the loss of jobs and homes for the poor people that worked there. The newspaper accounts never talked much about the people who lost their jobs. Just the loss to the state treasuries who had lost their cash cows. 

Yes, there needs to be change. Change in the hearts and minds of everybody. Change in the police and here’s where the hackles go up. Change in the black communities too. Look at your kids and say “I want better for all of you.” Then tell them how important it is to stay in school and get a good education. Without that education, poverty will still exist and with that poverty will come that sense of hopelessness you have had to endure for centuries. Don’t let them keep you down. Without a good education no one can help you. With a good education you can control your own destiny and I for one will cheer you on. 

DAD AND I

                                                           

When I wake up in the morning, I find that’s the best time to stop and think. I’m retired so I have no job to rush out to, no reason to jump out of bed. The topics I think about, run the gamete from friends who are sick, to projects I might be working on, to the good old days. I seldom think about the troubles are country is going through. Those thoughts come later in the day when the newspaper and the media have unleashed their barrage of conflicting opinions e of what’s going right and wrong and who is to blame. They have every right to do that and if it’s unsettling, I don’t have to read or listen but somehow, it’s hard to escape it. No, the mornings are just a time to reminisce and try to have thoughts about things that once made me happy.

So often those thoughts go back decades because I tend to hang onto what made me happy and let go of what made me sad. This morning I thought about a trip I made to my home town decades ago to take my dad fishing. Dad loved to fish and so did I and even though neither of us had ever mastered the sport, we had the basics down and all that involved was a boat, some gear and making time to do it. That last part was the hardest part. Not for dad, who was retired and living by himself but for me who was working two jobs and raising a family. But every so often I would make the trip back to my hometown where dad still lived in a little apartment, leave the wife and kids at her mother’s place and Dad and I would go out to our favorite lake.

We always caught fish but that wasn’t important to this story. What was important, is the fact that dad and I were together in the middle of the lake in an aluminum shell of a boat and no one was around to interrupt us. In fact, as I reflected on it this morning lying in bed, I don’t remember how the fishing was on that particular day, all I remember was, I was with my dad. 

I have a son that I am proud of and I hope that someday he will think of me in the context of the love we had for each other and the good times we had and not the times we disagreed. I have always felt that I wanted my son to be as good of a man as I meant to be in my life. I have always hoped that I would be as good of a father to my son, as my dad was to me. My grandpa told me shortly after our son was born to always remember when you raise your son, you raise your sons, son. Grandpa died shortly after that but I never forgot his wisdom. It was the root of my own character 

Growing up, my father didn’t always have my hand, but he did always have my back. He was always content to let you find your own way in life but yet, he was always looking where you were going and what you were doing. He was never quick to judge, but in the end if you wanted his honest opinion you got it and it was sometimes unflattering. That could be a hard pill to swallow sometimes, because here was this ordinary man, who accomplished nothing that will ever be recorded into the annals of history, that I, by my love for him, had made my hero.

If I could have one wish in life it would be a chance to spend one more hour with those who shaped my life and have gone before me. Just a chance to say the things that never got said, that got lost in the moment and now seem to be so pertinent to me. But I’ll bet if dad and I got that one chance--- we’d just go fishing one more time.   

SUNSHINE BOYS

                                                          

I have written before about a group of elderly men and a couple of ladies who occasionally come by-- and I’m not going to comment on their ages-- who gathered together for coffee and conversation, a few times a week at one of the local cafes. We called ourselves the Sunshine Boys. This has been going on for the better part of twenty years. Over this period of time many of the original people have passed away, or moved on, so the group has evolved and there are just a few of the originals left. Yet, even with some new people, our core values seem to still be the same. Friendship and doing what we can to keep each other happy. When I first started taking part in this, I was one of the younger ones but now that has changed and although I’m not the oldest, I’m getting there. It always been my hope and the hope of the others that the group would remain together, although new blood has not been always easy to find.

During the winter months the group shrunk up because we had a few snowbirds and some who for weather reasons found it hard to attend. So, this spring when I came back from Arizona, I was looking forward to renewing some old relationships and then this Covid- 19 thing came along and the café closed up. Even if it was open, it would be hard to keep the social distancing that would be required. A side problem was most of us, were the ones who were in the group, that had such high mortality rates with the disease. 

So, for a couple of months we all just kind of hunkered down at home not wanting to take risks or stir the pot when it came to socializing. We called each other occasionally but that didn’t begin to take the place of the conversations we had when we were all together. Then the idea came about to meet in a park, weather permitting. So, a couple of weeks back we gathered in the town square park across from the drug store. We each brought a lawn chair and our own drink and made a big circle trying to keep some semblance of social distancing. No hand shaking or hugs and those who wanted to use masks were encouraged to do so and most did.

Were there some risks to this? Of course. But there were risks involved when you went to the doctor or the grocery store or other errands. There were risks when you saw your family or neighbors. So, what were the benefits that outweighed those risks? I think I mentioned them earlier in this article. Friendship and caring for each other. There were people who were with us last year, who were not with us this year and there will be people in the group that met the other day, that might not be here next year. We want to enjoy each other while we can.

I have in my mind a list of all of the people whom I have met over the years in this group. My life has been made so much better because I knew those people. They all brought something to the table in their own way that makes me remember them today. In the end we are all bits and pieces of everyone we ever associated with. Oh yes, there were some not so good ones too but you tend to not remember those, because they had nothing useful for you to keep. But the majority did have something you could use and I for one am so thankful I knew them. So, to Norm, Morrie, Rusty, Darrell, Dick, Gordy, Wally, John, Charlie, and any one I missed that is gone-- as Carol Burnett use to sing. “I’m so glad we had these times together.” I hope the Sunshine boys will carry on.

MOLLY REPORT

It occurred to me that with all of the political talk and talk about the virus and lack of food and medicines, that maybe I would lighten it up with a Molly report. For those who don’t know or are just tuning in, Molly is my dog. Molly turned 8 this January and people who know and love Labradors all say, that’s about the time in their life when they start behaving. No sign of that yet from Molly but one can only hope, can’t they.

Molly is a hunting breed although the only thing I know for sure that she hunts for, is food, mischief and a good place to sleep. That sleep can be on the couch that she is not allowed on, or in my bed with her head on the other pillow staring at me and emitting the breath of a buzzard. Sometimes when she is overcome with emotion, It’s in my lap, in my recliner. She doesn’t get in your lap gracefully but prefers to leap there when you least expect it. Like right through the newspaper and sending both of us over backwards with the recliner on top of us.

Molly had an itching problem and they thought---they the vet—it might be a food allergy. So, I put her on a fish-based food with sweet potatoes. I told you about her bad breath. This dog food when you open the bag smells like Milorganite. For those of you not familiar with it, Milorganite it is a fertilizer that is refined from human waste. It comes from Milwaukee and I am not sure that’s where they get the human waste from but it is the beer capital of the Midwest. The dog food is not that far removed, from the original scent of human waste. Maybe because dogs love to roll in human waste she thinks she is smelling pretty inside and out. I don’t know but she loves the food and by the way, she’s still scratching.

I told you she was a hunting breed and loves to chase squirrels. In eight years, she has never come close to catching one, although she did get a chipmunk. To be fair she was sleeping on the porch and the chipmunk thinking she was a fixture and not a dog tried to run over the top of her and practically ran into her mouth. It was not a good ending for the chipmunk. Her other selected prey is rabbits and in Arizona where I winter there is no shortage of rabbits. So last January, Pat and I took the dogs for a walk on leashes, which by the way she hates and she went after a rabbit that ran behind me, pulling me over backwards onto a rocky trail and breaking my hip. So, when you see me limping along, think of good old Molly. I know I do. 

Molly has a tattoo on her belly. It says “do not resuscitate.” I’m kidding of course. She means the world to me. I am an old man living by himself and lots of old people turn to pets for companionship. They’re not to replace the people that have left your life. They are companionship to you in a world that despite the amount of people in it, can be a lonely place for many of them. I will be 80 next year and Molly 9. We just might cross that rainbow bridge 

together. I look around me at all of the hate and dissension that is in this world. All of the people who seem to get up angry every morning and go to bed angry each night. I sometimes say to myself, “Why can’t we all have the demeaner of a Molly.” Molly gets up every day and says to herself, “Why am I so happy today? “Then she smiles and says, because it’s a big wide beautiful world I live in and today-- I’m going to make the most of it.” How many  people do you know like that?