Thief....Who stole...

Who stole the America I grew up in???

A favorite recirculating email for those of us over 45 reminds us of a time when we didn't need hermetically sealed aspirin and vitamin and drink bottles because no one had yet tried to poison a total stranger. It was a time when kids often went out to play in the morning and might be gone 'til suppertime, but didn't carry a cell phone and Mom felt no need to worry. If you fell from your bike or roller skates and skinned yourself up or even broke a bone, it was just an accident, your own carelessness, but it was your own fault, your own responsibility, (Now there's a concept: my fault! What has happened to teaching all people a sense of responsibility?) and the thought of suing anyone,especially the bike or skate company, never crossed anyone's mind.

But something, some philosophy or ideology, has robbed us of that responsible freedom. It has taken over gradually, stealthily, under the guise of giving freedom to everyone, of accepting everything---we've called it "political correctness" and "individual rights"---but along the way it was decided that the rights of the aggressor, the repeat attacker, even the criminal are equal or perhaps even more than equally in need of protection than those of the innocent, the "average," citizen. Our children are growing up believing that there really is no absolute right and wrong--"Anything goes"--so how does one know when and how to make a stand. Who can say what we should stand against or for? On any issue, someone will stand for the opposite side.

Where are the people who, if they saw anyone being bullied by a bigger kid or several kids, would go to the aid of the bullied one? Okay, if there haven't been many of those around for quite a while, what if the one being bullied is a friend, even a friend already defending himself? Wouldn't most of us still, if not jump into the middle, at least cover his back? Protect that friend from a second attacker from behind? This was definitely a part of my "America the beautiful" "land of the free and home of the brave."

Now, I did grow up in small town America, but as I remember it, nobody really much "hated" others, not gut-level hated. You might despise someone, never want to see that person again, but if you ever really wished harm to someone, it was a momentary thing, possibly even blurted out, but soon forgotten and never really planned or plotted. If you didn't like someone's ways or attitudes, you might just tell him so directly, but the opposing side was allowed to directly verbalize its opinions or defense too. There might be honest, if hostile, debate; then you might change your opinion, or compromise, or agree to disagree; but usually, you treated the other viewpoint with enough courtesy to listen.

I am rambling, and I am not sure how to get where I wanted to go. I wanted to say that the America I grew up in, and love to the very core of my being, is getting harder and harder for me to find.

Israel is the only democracy and America's only true ally in the mideast. Try for just a few minutes to consider an ally as a friend, or at least as a friendly personal acquaintance, one with whom you've had a positive working relationship. While this "friend" was defending herself and her own against a terrorist kidnapping by Hamas from the Gaza strip (recently returned in a gesture of peace), Hezbollah (Lebanese terrorists) attacked her from behind (her opposite border, less than 50 miles from the previous attack). She (Israel) responded with air and artillary operations in her own defense.

We have not gone to her aid. But there are people, an appalling number of American citizens, who want our President to tell Israel NOT TO DEFEND HERSELF. I don't understand!!!! It is, without question, a touchy political situation; but I cannot understand how anyone, much less lots of people, can object to Israel's defending herself, much less suggest that we ask her not to do so, but to surrender herself to annihilation.

Will it take a thief to steal America's freedom or will we simply hand it over? How far down the road might it then be, before these same whiney, politically correct "take care of us all, but don't rock the boat; and DON'T ASK ME to stand a post" American impersonators voice feelings that they would be happier and more comfortable if we didn't do any fighting here either--not even to defend ourselves. Because we don't want to offend ANYBODY, and surely, everyone ought to be able to live however he or she wants, as long as WE all keep getting what WE want.

But, in truth, it just really doesn't work that way! There is great truth and wisdom and a warning in the words of Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security."

"with Baggage"

I have mulled this new topic over for almost 48 hours now and I really don't have much to say on this subject. Prewriting branched in 3 directions, none of which I was much motivated toward. I tried poetry, but it WASN'T; it wasn't even good free verse. So let me simply record some observations and conclusions I reached about baggage.
Some "baggage" is a part of every person's make up. Some baggage is physical and obvious---excessive height or the opposite, excessive weight and the reasons behind it (not so obvious), handicaps or physical dexterity, beauty or deformity; sometimes negative attitudes; sometimes lots of relatives; sometimes lots of "stuff."
Other "baggage" cannot be seen. Undoubtedly this invisible baggage is the more fearsome and intimidating kind. This is the kind of baggage that often shapes one's behavior and can cause unpredictable responses and apparently unfounded fears.

But in the final analysis, all people are the sum total of their attributes plus their baggage. When we make a friend, we eventually share with one another at least most of our secret baggage. If the friendship is valuable enough and important enough, we decide to keep that friend, baggage and all. When we fall in love and decide to marry someone, it needs to be with the full understanding that each person's baggage is part and parcel of that person we have come to love. Perhaps it is part of the "for worse" one agrees to accept as part of the traditional wedding vows. Regardless, this is a large part of the reason I deeply believe it is necessary to know a person WELL before marrying him or her, and why it is imperative also to be true friends, preferably before, but certainly in addition to being compatible lovers.

treading time

just another interim noncynce blog to insure I don't forget how before Laini & Megg post the next Sunday Scribblings prompt. I have certainly discovered how the internet can become so time consuming. This week, Dear Blog (not nearly as alliterative as Dear Diary) I have learned how to successfully make comments on the blogs of others---at least I believe I have, altho I still have minor problems with some. But Monday i was so down. I read the Scribblings of about 15 other writers and made nice, specific, and not always brief comments on about 8 of them, only to discover when I checked back that none of my comments posted. Two days later, i have finally succeeded in about 90% of attempts. I have also discovered how nice it is to receive comments. I am also amazed to discover how many people who have traveled have fantastic and special memories of Paris, as i do.

voila!!! and unreal!!! I has taken me 24 hour of reading and looking and clicking and screaming to figure out how to get back in here to add more and fix things --- the help notes were amazingly clear and to the point, they just assumed more technical or perhaps just vernacular knowledge than I had. I so did not want to pitifully beg for help from the young people I knew would know--I wanted to do it on my own. This was my last attempt and I was going to bed furiously frustrated, then I clicked on this one last unlikely word and it was "open sesame (Iknow that's not right)" and Shazam!! --and truthfully, I don't remember what it was---but I think I can find it again. So here I am with nothing real to say....but, hey, I'm a baby blogger, or a beginning one, or whatever they call the tiny little kid swimmers who are barely out of swim fluggles (sp?), a neophyte--there, that's a bit more dignified. Nite now.

Two peas....

If I am going to start, I've gotta start somewhere.
Two peas in a pod: 1- identical twins--always thought I'd like to be one, wondered what it would be like, read articles about them with great interest, especially about their telepathic abilities, particularly knowing when each other were in danger or acute need, taught a few in my time; fascinating!
2- my high school best friend and I--did everything together from sixth grade through eleventh, even separate major roles in our junior class play, even lots of double dates, some we never should have accepted. But in 12th grade she made cheerleading and I didn't. That was the beginning of separate paths, although we thought of each other as "best friend" for another 5, maybe 10 years, and at the 20 year reunion, there were still classmates who called me by her name and her by mine.
3- my favorite, but least apparent--my husband and me: together and in love 35+ years--so unalike but so congruous,so copasetic. In so many ways we are opposites. He's a "body risker" and I don't want my challenges to involve life and limb. He's a tosser and I'm a "dyed-in-the-wool" pack rat ---ooh, that one causes lots of trouble. He was a rowdy, a maverick, an out of the house as soon as he finished high school. I'm an original "goody two-shoes" (where the heck does that dumb expression come from anyway?)--went away to college but never lived too far away to be there for Mom & Dad within 12 hours ("A son is a son 'til he takes a wife; a daughter's a daughter all of her life"). Extended family is important to me; yes, a visit to relatives in another state is a vacation. For him immediate family is the only "family" that entails any real obligation, and visiting out of state relatives (any of them)is wasted leave time and is only necessary for weddings and desperately serious illnessess.
But we have such fun together, and we laugh a lot! We enjoy the theater together and get off on road trips and hiking. We have a great time with trivia---I give clues, he gives answers I couldn't have come up with for hundreds of dollars, but as soon as he says them I know that they are exactly what I was trying to say. We love boating; and we love our pets together--laugh when they drive us crazy, and cry together when any one of them reaches the end of life. And, when we can, we exercise together. Our favorite, but not frequent (because of our opposite work schedules) is taking long, brisk walks around the neighborhood. We often hold hands. We always talk. Sometimes he reminds me that he often wondered, before we married, how anyone found anything to talk about after the first 10 or 15 years of marriage. Then he grabs my hand and reassures me that he wants us to take these walks together every day after we retire, so all the joggers and young moms with strollers and people working in their yards will look & wave as we go by and think, "There goes that cute little old couple!" We laugh.
Two peas in a pod---I'd like to think that's us.