This is one of my tougher columns to write. I was in the minority Tuesday before last. I’m considered by the winners as old, white, moronic, heartless, etc.I remember as a child, a true first wave baby boomer (my brothers were second wave baby boomers following Korea), growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Those were the impressionable years. I remember riding my bike into the back of a neighbor’s car. Apparently I put a dent in the car. The owner of the car, and also a father of one of the kids on the block, had issue with my dad. They eventually decided to work on the car together and of course I got a spanking while my mom was nursing my busted lip.
There was a time in America that people got along and worked together to solve problems. But today we live in a far different society. Today the neighbor would have sued my dad and one or the other would have been forced to move from the neighborhood because of the animosity.
We live in a world so much different than that which I experienced. Immigrants came to the land of the free where they could seek out their dreams, not be stymied by a glass ceiling of $250,000. They refused to take anything from the government because they knew from whence they came that if you give in to let government be your master, soon you became a slave to that government. The government giveth and they taketh away.
I love my little condo down in Puerto Vallarta. When I visit there I’m marveled by the ingenuity and individualism of the Mexican people. No one looks to the government for their subsistence. They must find a way. Because they do, family becomes so important. Family is the support system and together they find their freedom and they find their success or failure together.
Today in America it makes more economic sense to be on food stamps, unemployment, disability, housing assistance, free education, free healthcare, etc. But what we all know is true is that there is no such thing as the word free. Even winning the lottery first cost you a dollar. There is no free lunch. Mexico reminds me of my modest streets growing up in Levittown, Long Island; Mobile, Ala.; Palmdale, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz. (my dad was military and then aerospace).
People there are self-sufficient; they don’t argue or hold animosity toward the other when it comes to their government. They understand government is there to be responsive to protecting the citizenry. They are not there to mold people’s lives.
They said there is pain in growth and we are about to grow as humans. They said that we are moving out of a dark age and into a new dimensional age where 100 years from now our great-great-great grandchildren will look back at the foolishness of our age and the savagery of it.
One hundred years from now will be a time of great peace and love but that we as humans must now hit rock bottom first. What they did not say is whether we are at rock bottom already or whether the events that take place over the next four years will take us to the bottom.
I’m a throwback baby boomer. I’m not the same idealistic person I was when I was in college. I have lines in my face and gray hair on my head from the battles of time. But, I believe and hope I have wisdom from my growth. I love my country; I love the 49 percenters that believe in individual spirit.
But, I will not hate my adversaries, the 51 percenters. I must learn to acknowledge those persons’ heavenly spirit and hope that we will find peace and love before 100 years pass and that God will at least let us have a soft landing if the coming fall is near.
We must accept that which the majority has spoken and we must now learn to find our own peace. I love Encinitas but I love the spirit of Mexico too.
So, go find your peace as I have attempted to do. We all need to learn how to take care of ourselves with help from those closest to us and at the same time learn to accept the fate that we ourselves have carved.
