My parents were born, and grew to maturity, during the Great Depression creating a family during a dark and turbulent time of change. And then educated me based upon the expectations of poverty not wealth. Possibly I examine their motives and coping more than most simply because I was born curious?
Born in 1940 at the beginning of World War II; approximately one month before Pearl Harbor. Historically I was swept into the great migration afterwards. My parents left me with my maternal grandmother Mamalu as they sought a new home for one year. The home they settled in was Greenwich, Connecticut; a bedroom community for New York, New York. I had no sense of the towns place in the general lexicon of "good address to come from." Equally I had no sense of it being home but instead just the place where my parents lived while I had another distant home beside the Ohio River, Ripley Ohio.
All my dreams, lifetime, have been reconciled and explained. And clearly understood as lessons for my teaching. Thus the new ones, this morning's, prove to be astonishing leading me to question, being curious, their providence, meaning and context in and around the before, during and afterward of my soon or maybe long awaited death, and release from; "I don't care if I live or die; depression." Understanding myself as I do is more a result of suffering from birth until quite recently when joy became obvious and peace my stance in another time of significant change. I am at peace within myself regardless the chaos surrounding me buffeting all others both younger and older or the same age as I.
Poor. I find poverty a boon since I am not subject to the addiction of being entertained by television. Unavailable without subscription to a monopoly; Cable or Satellite Broadcast.
There were times during my life television played a significant role. Abstaining from it, these past six years, has lent me a different experience of time. No longer slave to their schedule I gained freedom to prioritize my life around other creative concerns. Part and parcel of my current sense of youth approaching my seventy-second year. Preferring silence to noise, reading versus vacuity and when curious about current events I listen to National Public Radio reverting to the joy of my youth before television.
Last evening I listened to the Presidential debates and was taken with my sense of what was implied and what was factual; a curious truth actual. Like most men I have a special interest in the female and things, costumes, makeup, etc. available to women for changing their appearance. The how and why, becoming obvious, now that I see women as equals and adore more their intelligence and wisdom than their bust line. The same, it now seems, was true as a child for those of color lived one street behind my grandmother's home. They would pass by my solitude laughing with their friends and peers. I came to admire them more than my few "white" friends for a host of reasons made obvious by listening, instead of viewing, the debates.
Accustomed to being abandoned, despised and suffering alone my observations were both a joy and a curse. Listening instead of watching the debates I concluded and am convicted by a vastly different apprehension. Mr. Romney is by any common cultural standard or norm viral handsome and, in a sense, a poster person for success. Mr. Obama on the other hand is merely a man of substance not appearance and in a world soon to be all brown, or of color, versus toothpaste white better integrated into the future while Mr. Romney is now the past.
A student of aesthetics and behavior I fear Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan; trusting Mr. Obama as an ambassador for the future. Remembering his Nobel Award for Peace and the current awarded, Europe, there is an uncommon wisdom betrayed by the Republican agenda too reminiscent of a pointless bankruptcy and war.
America, once a savior, is now a nation of aggression and torture. Possibly in it's last gasp or grasp of power throwing around a weight it can no longer afford?
I doubt that many could afford my tuition in the University of Hard Knocks. Atypical of most young men I speak with in the course of my social life, I do not appraise a person by their appearance but substance. The who they are, and by inference and extrapolation, the what they will become following closely what they say and how they behave.
We are at war with ourselves over racially divided associations and expectations. I could and can argue either side of any issue; no longer willing to prostitute my mind to vanity. Expect the war to continue for space, water, clean air; the health of nation in this world cannot be exclusively defined in terms of mind numbing boredom doing factory jobs. The jobs Romney promises are even more so; boring, small pay, women made breeding stock for wars yet to come; their children cannon fodder for wars engaged preemptively for the sake of power not justice. Truth is difficult to find in a time of appearances versus substance.
In closing I would remind you that tho I have no communication with the biracial child adopted by my heart and her daughter. I will advocate for those of color for they are the future and I am not. Many of the current political arrangements were rehearsed successfully after the last Great Depression in favor of the rich. The only reason this time is called The Great Recession is attributable to Republicans and their obvious disdain of "colored" people unworthy of counting as employable.
Be well, vote, thinking for yourself; and for heaven's sake remember that people of color fought to protect our right to vote in the first place. They were there at Bunker Hill.
Add: We are one family created equal under God. No part of which is to be despised. In death we return to the Creator our souls without color, gender or creed.
121017 01:46 our time
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
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