AMERICAN STORY TOLD COAST TO COAST. GOT ONE?

The American story drenched in bitter hardships overcome is the most American of stories.

It’s the woman who married a man in the 1930’s only to learn he was not the man she thought he was.

Who was he?

Told in an older lady’s voice:

“When I was pregnant the first time he said he understood how ladies felt during pregnancy. He said it in such a sweet, compassionate way. He really seemed to care. Then he said he lined up a woman down the street for sex when I didn’t feel like it. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”

“Then, when I was pregnant the second time, he did the same thing. First I got a divorce, then an abortion.”

Her family planning route in the ’30’s? Had to be terrifying to be a woman in her shoes at that time. Where did she find a doctor. Was it a doctor?

After it all settled down, she was a single, divorced mom in a time that attached a cruel stigma to such people. Then she met a good man at a USO dance and married him a week before he shipped out for the war in the Pacific.

American Story #2

Told in an older man’s voice:

“I was the older brother, about a year older than my brother. We did everything together. I was the pitcher, he was the catcher on our baseball team. In basketball I was the center, he was a forward. In football he was a lineman, I was a receiver. We had a time of it.

“Our home life was like every home. The old man was cranky, mom was tolerant. We lived on a farm and raised our own food. Dad got hurt and became an entrepreneur, but that’s not what they called them during the Great Depression. He just found ways to make ends meet.

“At first he sold beef. Then a government man came around and told him selling beef was against the law, that it violated the food coupons he handed out. But the old man was cranky and wouldn’t hear of it. So he started giving beef away. No law against that, except the law of common sense.

“What the government man didn’t know is dad built a still out back and sold moonshine along with free beef. And he had repeat customers. Daddy was a bootlegger.

“After I graduated from high school I worked a year until my brother finished, then we were both going to college. I worked about five miles from the farm and dad picked me up after his runs. One night he didn’t show up and I walked home. I saw his car in the bar parking lot on the way. After it happened a few more times, my brother and I changed plans. We joined the service and shipped out to Korea instead of college.”

American Story #3

Told in a young woman’s voice:

“I’m an athlete. Totally in shape. Then the doctor called me obese. They don’t know the difference between muscle weight and fat?

“I have heavy relatives and light relatives. Marathoners and power lifters. I’m a little of both. Endurance and strength, power and technique. I’ve completed against the best and sent them home. And this doctor? I’m supposed to trust them?

Trust? America is built on trust here and overseas. Any breakdown of American trust is a break everywhere. Trust is the currency America trades in. We believe, right up until we don’t.

When trust falters, we all falter, some fail. In America we pick up the pieces after we break things, then build a better tomorrow with the scraps.

The November election is a chance to pick up the pieces and create something new from the scraps left to rot. We don’t do rot in America, we compost and grow.

Vote like it means something.