With a Grateul Heart

The holiday season is upon us once again, a time of good
cheer and celebrating with friends and family. Thanksgiving
is literally right around the corner, and once again I try to
look forward as well as looking back.  As usual I have a
lot to be thankful for this past year.  There were some sad
times, but on balance the year has been a good one.  I have
a circle of dear friends around me, though I lost too many
 this year, I shall remember them all when I sit down to dinner
this Thursday.  I am grateful every day that I live in a country
that, though I don't always agree with the policies, I have the
right to say so without fear of reprisal.  My small family didn't
get any smaller this year, a remarkable feat considering our
ages.  My health has been good and my mental acuity doesn't
seem to be losing it's edge.  I can still participate in my senior
learning classes and manage to keep up.  Physically, I challenge
myself daily, and though I am a step slower every year I still
love my sports.  I play often and my knees are still working, as so
many of my friends have new ones.   I have met some interesting
new faces this year, I hope I can add them to my circle of friends,
there are some opening I would like to fill.  Sadly, some friends
have drifted away, I miss them, but things change and I must
change with them.  Love doesn't die because someone has
moved on, it is always there in a small secret spot in your heart.

Looking at the world today, I wonder what is to become of us.
I won't live to see many of the dire predictions modern day
Cassandras are warning about.  I guess that is a good thing.  I
see things happening in my country that worry me, and I feel
powerless to change them.  But then again, I cannot change the
world, I can only change myself.  And so I try, in small ways;
I think about where and how far I drive, I gave up on single-use
coffee pods, plastic straws, plastic bags, I recycle everything, and
I put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat.  But am I fooling
myself?  I am blessed where I live; when I turn on the tap clean
water flows, both hot and cold, five-minutes from my house is
a grocery store with fresh fruits and vegetables of every variety,
the schools rank among the highest in the county, and there are
parks with playgrounds and soccer pitches, baseball diamonds
and open spaces green and clean.  Our library offers so much
more than just books and magazines, films and concerts, lectures
and classes, all pro gratis.

But that is not how it is everywhere in the country.  There, children
go to bed hungry, there, water is tainted with lead, there, grocery
stores are miles away by bus, how many bags of groceries can
you carry home on the bus?  There, schools are in disrepair with
books, if they have books, outdated by five to ten years. There,
playgrounds are vacant lots with bare ground, broken bottles,
and used needles.  Nothing is free there but despair.  There, but
for the luck of the draw go I.  I was lucky, I was born into a
white, working class family, with both a mother and a father, and
that has made all the difference.

The political climate in America, today, has turned decidedly more
partisan then I have ever seen, and I have been in politics for a very
long time.  Even during the 60's, through the Viet Nam war, and
the racial tensions, reasonable people could come together to reason.
The optimal word here is reasonable, there was a time when people
could agree to disagree, I might not have agreed with you, but I
could see why you believed the way you did.  But when one side
engages in obfuscation and, dare I say, doublespeak, how does one
counter with a reasonable, intelligent argument?  How can you
watch the sun come up in the morning and deny it's existence in
the afternoon? Tell me why is something bad, but not too bad, how
bad does bad have to be to be bad?

What is it that these good men and true are so afraid of, a bully, a
liar, a charlatan, so afraid that they can turn a blind eye to what is
happening to our beloved country?  Once, these good men could
see what the man in the presidency was, before he was elected.
They called him out for the evil man he was, and from then until
now things have only gotten worse.  And yet they turn a blind eye,
for what - a few more judicial seats, the chance to overturn abortion
rights or is it power, the power to be on top, to make the rules.
History will judge you for what you did and how you did it, the
legacy you are leaving your children and grandchildren.  A world
that is getting warmer, no clean water to drink or clean air to
breathe, a massive debt that will cripple them and leave no option
for them but to work until they die to pay it off.  You are stealing
their future for your present glory.  Shame on you all!

But still I am thankful for the chance to change what  is happening,
and I will work everyday from now until November 2020, because
I believe in this country.  And, I am grateful that you took the time
to read my poor pitiful attempts at writing this.

I'm just sayin'.