Never Did I Think. . . .
When I was a child in elementary school – that was a long
time ago. I am 78 years old now – I was taught in school, and even in Sunday
school, that there were places in the world where a person could be jailed for
speaking out against their government. There were books, including the Bible,
there people were not allowed to possess. They had to hide to worship the way
they wanted to.
Both of my parents served in the US Army during WW2.
Thankfully neither saw combat, but my uncle did. He fought in the Battle of the
Bulge. I was well aware of the war and the reason for it. I did not understand
how that man, Hitler, could be so evil. How did he gain such power?
I read The Diary of Ann Frank and right to the end I
expected a happy outcome. How could such a horrible thing occur? How could
millions of Jews be rounded up, put in concentration camps, and killed for no
reason but their heritage. They were different, and most importantly not white.
It was all so horrible. And frightening to a young girl.
Also, in school I was taught that a thing like that would
never happen in America. The teachers ignored the reality of racism in
American. Instead, they assured their students that no foreign country could
attack us. We were shielded to the west and east by vast oceans. To the North
we had nothing to fear from Canada, nor Mexico to the South.
Then in sixth grade we had a bomb drill. I don’t think any
of us really knew why we were marched into the halls of the school, instructed
to sit on the floor, bend down and cover our heads with our hands. We laugh at
the ridiculousness of the exercise today. The word did get around that we were
practicing what to do in case somehow an atomic bomb would be dropped on our
small-town school. And if that happened, we’d all be killed, reduced to ashes.
I asked Mama if that was really going to happen. She didn’t
deny that it could. “But, if it does, we’ll all go straight to heaven together.
So, don’t worry. That will be so much better than being left behind in an empty
world,” she said.
I was somehow comforted by her reasoning. I don’t remember
thinking about it anymore.
The next thing to rattle my innocent world was the day President Kennedy was shot and killed. I was in high school, sitting in English class when the announcement came on over the loud speaker. Then, Martin Luther King Jr., and presidential hopeful Robert Kenndy were assassinated. Then there was the Ohio Kent State Shootings where 4 unarmed student demonstrators were killed and nine wounded by National Guard soldiers.
The news was filled with film from the Vietnam war, civil
rights marches and peace demonstrations. I was a senior by then. I was in my
own world of worrying about what I would do after I graduated and avoided
watching the news.
Local news covered the night there was a civil rights march in
my home town. There were met by the local KKK. By a miracle no violence
resulted and I supposed the local police dispersed the crowds. The details are
fuzzy.
Still, I held on to my naivety and believed our country was
safe from war. The wars were happening across the globe in another country. I
didn’t have any idea what was going on in the world. I wasn’t interested in
politics. I was working at the five and dime store by day and dating my future
husband by night.
I was married by the time I was 18 and could vote. I decided
to register Republican. I hadn’t any idea what a platform was. My reasoning was
because most of the people in my county were registered Democrats, I believed
there should be more balance between the two parties. I worked in the Nixon
campaign and was thrilled that he won. After that my life revolved around being
a wife and taking care of my baby. The first of three. I was busy.
The whole Nixon thing just reinforced what my daddy said,
“They are all a bunch of crooks. Nixon was no worse than the others.” I didn’t
vote again for a long time. When I did, I was registered “unaffiliated.” Still
am. And, if we didn’t like something the president did, we’d just vote him out
the next election. We were a democracy, after all.
Never did I think in my wildest dreams we’d elect a man who
during his campaign said that on day one of his presidency he’d be a dictator.
Never did I think we’d elect a president who was charged with 34 counts of a
felony and found guilty. Never did I think we’d stand by, watch and do nothing
as this president chipped away at our Constitution, dismantled the department
of education, got a bill passed that would strip funds that support health care
and food for the poor. Never did I think a president would build a
concentration camp to imprison a people because of their race. Attack those who
spoke out against him, the truth sayers.
His followers have twisted their faith until it resembles
nothing Christ taught about bearing one another’s burdens, welcoming foreigners
into their land, feeding the hungry, that we are to love everyone the way
Christ loves us. Instead, they are bowing down to this man who only loves
himself, like the Golden Calf of the ancient days.
Never did I think our congressmen and women would support
all these actions. Never did I think this president would turn our allies
against us, especially our neighbors to the North and the South.
What I do think today is that we are not safe. New
technology makes it possible for an atomic missile to reach the United States.
We are in reach of weapons of mass destruction. We’re not talking about video
games or futuristic movies. The future is now.
We have a madman for a President who has convinced his
supporters that empathy, and love for our fellow man are weaknesses. Where is
our humanity?
Never did I think?
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