Falling

Father, originally uploaded by unohuu.

my dad has been around forever. he is a big old brute of an old style kind of man. no mincing words for him. he tells it as he sees it. that may not bode well for many PC kind of folks. the kinds of things this old guy rails against would make the RNC proud. but he is better than that. he really cares; it is not for political gain or prestige. he has these certain beliefs. they are beliefs born of racism and the Great Depression. they are beliefs born of Jim Crow and chicken dinners and struggling to feed a growing family. this man served in one of America's most forgotten wars - Korea. We did not call this a war. it was a conflict. Click Here . he came home with shrapnel in his hide and a nation full of hatred. just before the Civil Rights movement took a serious turn. imagine fighting for freedom for others and having to be a second class citizen in your own country. imagine being OK to serve, but not to be served. imagine what it meant for those soldiers who gave their lives there and had to come home to the shame of Jim Crow and Arkansas and Alabama and Rednecks with guns.

i simply listen now when my Daddy talks about his past. respect for his sacrifices is one small way of demonstrating honor. too bad it is not genetic. of all the times i have seen my Daddy angry, i have seldom seen the hurt that he stifles when he thinks about what is going on with our mother. they have been divorced now for more than thirty years, but there is still a bond. he must cry when he thinks that my sister, Ms POA, would so casually and maliciously attempt to strip my mother of her long fought after and treasured dignity. i guess she does not know that dignity can't be purchased or stolen. it can only be relinquished. guess she missed all that as part of the Civil Rights movement. maybe they had to lobotomize her when she was in law school so that she could no longer distinguish between right and wrong. yes, there are some absolutes. i know, my Daddy told me so and i believe him.