Another Moment Of All American Serendipitous Patriotism

“If you’ve ever wondered what you’d have done had you lived during the era of slavery, the Holocaust, or the Civil Rights Movement — whether you’d have stood & spoken up; whether you’d have intervened to help someone or been complicit in harming them through your silence — you have your answer.

“You’re doing it right now.”

Borrowed from author Ellen Urbani, a writer I like. And like writing about.

She’s a character, and more important sees how things are supposed to be. When I first read her facebook post quoted above, I knew it was something special.

“You’re doing it right now.”

It showed up on September 6th, a special anniversary around here, at least for me. Sept 6 is my army anniversary, my in and out date.

Then decades later it became my ma-in-law’s last day. September 6 is the two year anniversary of her death.

My reflective mood changed when I read Ellen Urbani’s post. I know exactly what would have happened to me in each historical era.

What if I had lived during the era of slavery?

I probably would have been an indentured servant, or share cropper. Who sees themselves living in the main suite of an elegant mansion at the end of a long driveway lined by weeping willows?

The LSU Rural Life Museum shows a ‘working plantation.’ Visit on a hot day. You won’t feel a surge of patriotism looking at the living conditions in ‘rural life.’

Then I would have been cannon fodder in the Civil War.

If I had lived during the Holocaust?

Cannon fodder. I’d have been ground up whole and spit out in pieces like millions of others. My patriotism would have following orders to the death.

If I had lived during Civil Rights Movement?

From the news I see and hear and believe, we are in the Civil Rights Movement today, an extension of the original era.

We are still in the Women’s Rights Era, the Voting Rights Era. We are still living in the American Era where vigilance is the price of freedom.

Too dramatic? Not a bit.

Georgia wants to change voting stations. King makers in Florida are still busy.

“You’re doing it now.”

Today I cribbed a quote from a local writer, a woman I loaned a wheel chair to so her mother could march. In other words a woman committed to doing more. Her more is my more.

If current analytics are any measure, this post will go out to twenty six nations around the world, thirty two states across America, and a hundred cities. Some readers will click a site in a search and land on boomerpdx for a second. Then leave.

Others will come here on purpose to pick up where they left off in the archives.

What am I doing? What do I think I’m doing?

What are you doing? This is what Abe and I are doing.