NATIONAL PRIDE FROM THE BACK ROW

The idea of national pride usually comes from where you were brought up, and who raised you.

My sense of things comes from growing up in small town America, raised by parents who came from even smaller towns.

The sophisticate in the family was Grandma, who grew up in Dallas, Texas, graduated high school as the top student in her class, and it turns out, the top student in any local high school that year, which earned her a full academic scholarship to Southern Methodist University, SMU.

Her parents must have been so proud of their girl, which took a turn during freshman year.

She dropped out.

Not because she couldn’t keep up, not because she couldn’t hack it, but because her best friend turned on her during sorority rush.

You’ve heard of sorority rush, or rush?

It’s a big deal, even bigger if you’re a legacy kid and your mom was a sorority sister.

My grandparents on both sides were WWII era, living through the Great Depression as young adults starting families.

They forged ahead, changing with the times, but always being the same kind of people you’d want to know.

Was I their favorite grandkid? Hard to say, but I’ll say it: They were my favorites.

Somehow, after banishing their son when he told them he was gay in 1964, they snapped out of it and found themselves guided by his wishes and adding their own touches.

They were active in their church, active in civic duties, helped battered women, and opened their house for PFLAG meetings.

For role models, they’ve been golden.

They stood up and raised their hands as life long learners with love and kindness, the proudest parents I’ve seen so far.

 

Education Matters Why?

One of the beautiful things about public education is taking a chance and making up your own mind.

Agree, disagree, go along, stop, start, do your homework, turn in the evidence.

It’s school with classmates, teachers, admins, custodial, and sports.

It’s also the garden where national pride grows.

No one is forcing conformity, or else.

No one is asking you to confirm your believes, however arcane or convoluted they may be.

However plain and simple you may be, get along with others, and yourself, and things tend to workout.

Just beware of those who need to tell you how to feel, how you should feel, how you’d feel if you were a little smarter with a little higher IQ, like them.

Did any teacher in any classroom you ever sat in ever call on a student to tell them how stupid they were, how stupid their test results, that their homework showed how stupid they were?

Anyone remember this?

That’s a bad teacher who needs to schedule a parent/teacher meeting before unloading on a student.

 Call in mom and dad and tell them how stupid their kid is, then tell them it’s understandable with such stupid parents.

Anyone remember this?

From one baby boomer blogger’s perspective, my point of view from going through it as a kid, then with my kids, I don’t remember any teacher pointing out our stupidity, and I went to the same schools in the same district with the same kids for all twelve grades.

It was a stable environment for the G kids.

So did my kids in their hometown. More stability.

It’s taken until now to understand how stupid we’ve been all along.

I could have been somebody if only I’d learned to shit-talk anything I disagreed with until I got my way.

Why didn’t I hang out with the stupids and tell them how smart I was, that they should be more like me, and for a small fee I’d teach them in G-School?

Why didn’t I harangue people into numbness and confusion until they went along with anything I said?

Instead I write boomerpdx. Such a loser. Am I right? Looooooozer.

And yet, I persist.

 

Personal Pride = National Pride

“In a way, he was like the country he lived in. Everything came too easily to him. But at least he knew it.”

 

That’s a quote from ‘The Way We Were’ the movie where thirty-six year old Robert Redford played a college student.

I too was a college student in my late thirties, so we have that in common.

We also share national pride, the hope that our American brothers and sisters can decide for themselves the kind of country we want to live in.

If you have a cause you vote for your cause.

What if it’s your cause because someone told you it was the right cause and you’re stupid if you don’t agree?

Do you change your mind because a stranger on television makes you feel insecure about your education, maybe your IQ?

Or, do you challenge yourself to learn more about your cause, and more about who’s calling you stupid to your face?

Personal pride and national pride says there’s only one answer: learn more through listening, reading, and watching.

Start with personal pride, and the picture in this segment.

Instead of posing it up in a suit and tie and posting it like that’s my everyday rig, I choose a picture of my everyday rig.

Glamorous, yes?

I’d be a much better writer, a more with-it baby boomer blogger, with a make-over.

That’s what people are used to, the glam, which means being camera-ready in our modern media world.

Instead, I like people who look like they sound.

 

PS: Honest looking? Honest sounding?

 

PSS: Those are my people, maybe yours too. It’s not asking too much.

One for the man from Minnesota:

 

He’d been a helper with a hand for people fading away

Tell them you’ve been a good man, you’ve done well in your day

Now he’s with them, hand in hand, in the gutter where he bleeds

No one there to help him in his time of need

Tell his mother and father their boy did no wrong

And if he leaves here now you could learn to sing his song

Sing in the mountains, sing in the valley, sing it high, sing it low

Sing on the highway, sing it on your street, remember his song when you go

You may be leaving before you plan, he knew he’d be back when he left home

He’ll be gone forever unless you keep singing his song

He’s a helper with a hand for folks fading away, who seek peace on their way down

So tell me why he had to die on the streets of his own town

Why did he die on the streets of his own town