"Rooted" may be a better choice of words. What you see above is the top of an actual fence post that used to sit on my property.

The photograph above represents what I eventually came to see whenever I paid it a visit. So I brought it to life with my camera and some computer software simply as an exercise in creativity.

I can only attest for the 23 years I have lived here but local historians believe it's a good bet this post was probably placed in the ground over a hundred years ago. The general consensus is that it was set where it shouldn't of been; just outside my property line.

So last spring when the city of Alpine was reassessing it's property the location of my errant post was duly noted.

When I took down the fence [by demand] this post was so stubborn I had to pull it out with a tow chain hitched to the chassis of my truck. Apparently it was placed in the ground when it was still alive and as a result of an apparent "last gasp" effort, it sprouted roots. Seriously, a fence post with actual roots.

My wife has labeled me as a know-it-all (and as she is one herself she must certainly be correct). Know it or not it's her rhetoric reference to the the fact that my opinions are rooted in 62 years of experience. The fence post story illustrates the fact that right or wrong, in the end, even the most established and rooted of "whatever" can be dislodged with proper persuasion. So please feel free to attempt to dislodge any of my opinions that follow if deemed necessary.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Happy Idiot I Was - The Duties of American Citizenship...

I've spent most of my life not giving a hoot about our government, politics, politicians, lobbyists, foreign policy, big business, etc., etc... what's going on around me and how it affects my life.

What a difference a single generation makes. My father and his friends were pressed into the service of their country and sent off to war upon graduating from high school. Many never returned, some were never found. Countless others were scarred for life. None of them ever forgot.

Somewhere along the way into the autumn of my life (sometime during say, the past 6 years) I started paying attention to such things. I attribute it partially to today's relentless 24 hour news cycle being broadcast in every form of media imaginable but mostly to the fact that I have children and grandchildren and I am genuinely concerned about their future. I think about them more than ever because I guess I've reached that stage in my life where I'm sick and tired of being taxed and I'm fed up with our governments intrusion into so many aspects of my life. I finally stopped to look at the writing on the wall and don't want my children to experience what I see coming.

To be honest I'd rather worry and talk about other things but I can't escape the fact that it now seems, at least to me, like a responsibility of people my age, of our generation, us baby boomers who have enjoyed the great freedoms this country has offered us to take a stand and ensure the same freedoms for future generations. Especially for us who were so lucky to escape the responsibility of war and the extreme sacrifices associated with such. To me, what's happening around me today is no longer just idle bullshit, though I wish it were.

Theodore Roosevelt said, "A man of means who shirks his duty to the State in time of peace is to be regarded as being only one degree worse than the man who thus shirks it in time of war."

I'm taking that statement to heart, will never again take my freedom for granted and thus proudly stand with others who understand how fortunate we are in this country to have a voice.

Exercise your freedom or lose it!

- Larry - This post is dedicated to Frank Kelly, the only living WWII veteran I personally know and my dear departed father, Lew Jordan.
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