S O U T H E R N
A U T H O R
"A Play for Power"
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In God We Still Trust
"You'll pay for that!" came a loud voice from the back of the drugstore. I grimaced, made a face and turned to face my parents who raced to where I'd knocked a very large bottle of Jergens Lotion off the display and onto the floor.
My dad said, "Son, that's okay, you didn't mean to break it. I'm just glad it didn't fall on your foot.
My mom shouted back to the clerk, "Don't worry lady, we'll pay for it; and if you'll get me a towel, I'll clean up the mess."
It was the fall of 1944. I was barely three years old and an undisputed handful. My dad had finished basic training and now was stationed at an Army base near Alexandria, Louisiana, called Camp Claiborne - during World War II, a major training ground for US servicemen deploying to the European campaign. Mom and I had taken a smelly and slow Greyhound Bus from Atlanta to Alexandria to be with my dad during his final days there before he, too, would leave for Europe. With stops in Anniston, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Meridian and Jackson, it was a long bus ride - especially for a three-year old.
At first, I was content to look out the window at all the places and things I'd never seen before. But as the scenery became more monotonous, I became restless. I squiggled and wiggled and climbed in-and-out of my seat and in-and-out of my mom's lap. It wasn't long before I'd worn her slap out. Seeing her frustration, one after another of the servicemen on the now packed bus offered to let me sit on his lap in order to give my pretty, twenty-two year old mom a break.
Even though it was late October, the further south we drove, the warmer and muggier it became. I was dressed in a coat and matching cap purchased by my grandmother, just to wear on the trip. Somewhere near Tuscaloosa, my mom noticed the cap was missing and asked, "Ron, where's your cap?" I replied that back up the road a piece, I had gotten hot and tossed it out the window.
We arrived in Alexandria a bit disheveled, but none the worse for wear. My dad met us, looking sharper than Mom ever remembered, wearing the Army green. In a borrowed Army jeep, he drove us to the tiny two-room billet where we would spend what would be his last days in this country for a long, long time, perhaps even forever.
The cap and Jergens incident weren't the only accidents on this trip. A day or so later, after much whining and carrying on, I'd been allowed to play outside after a warm Louisiana rain. When I came back in from splashing in the puddles, my shoes were soaked. Mom yanked them off my feet and placed them on top of a gas space heater for them to dry out. And dry out they did. When mom went to check on them they were a couple of crispy critters.
Back at the Walgreen's, as dad soaked-up the puddle of Jergens Lotion from the drugstore floor, my mom took my hand and led me to one of a half dozen booths across from the lunch counter. Soon dad took his seat beside my mom and the waitress handed all three of us a menu. Mom glanced at the menu; then whispered something to my dad. I'm sure it had something to do with how much money he had left for supper after paying for a half-gallon of Jergens Lotion.
Soon the waitress returned to take our order. Mom said she wasn't very hungry. She ordered coffee and a slice of egg custard pie. Dad said he wasn't hungry either and would just have coffee. The waitress turned to me. I pointed to the picture of the sirloin steak lying aside a pile of French Fries.
The waitress had witnessed the Jergens incident and was obviously aware of the economics at work here. She said, "Wow, that's good. You folks just be glad he didn't order a hamburger. You know they are only for big boys and they are really expensive!"
I jumped in and said, "Okay, that's what I want ... I'm a big boy and I want a hamburger."
Not long afterwards, after some sightseeing in scenic central Louisiana, Dad left for Europe and Mom and I returned to Atlanta,
All three of us survived the twenty-six month separation and the war, but our personal economy was a bit slower to recover than the national one. But thanks to some great parents who willingly made so many sacrifices, it didn't show. While my dad struggled to support our family and go to night school at Georgia Tech, I never really knew how tight things were. Oh sure, my bicycle was second-hand, so was my baseball glove and my football helmet. And in-between paydays, it was clear that treats in the cupboard could sometimes get pretty sparse. But it didn't matter. Their second-hand gifts to me came wrapped with so much love that I never noticed.
I learned a lot from my parents. Just as they did on that day long ago in the booth at Walgreen's, for much of my life, I've read the menu from the right to the left. But it hasn't hurt me one bit ... matter of fact, reading the menu backwards and sometimes making the tough choices is what has allowed my wife and I to hang it up early, retire from the corporate rat race and enjoy our golden years.
Oh, it's not retirement as we envisioned at one time: we don't travel the world, drive fancy cars or have $300 dinners at the Five-Star Dining Room at the Ritz. We enjoy a rather simple life ... free from excesses, but free from worry. Like so many Baby Boomers we survived the Great War, the Vietnam War and everything else that has been thrown at us. Maybe that's why so many of us resent the fact that the liberals in this country want to take away our freedoms and prop us up whether we want it or not. We know from experience that the more government does for us, the more our hands are tied and the more of our freedoms are taken away.
This morning I got one of those funny emails about all the things folks in our age group have survived. In this day of big government, and big government care-taking, it's truly amazing that we made it this far.
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.
They placed us on our tummies to sleep in cribs covered with brightly colored lead-base paints.
We didn't have childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets containing hazardous materials; and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps on our head, not helmets.
We rode in cars without car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Many had bald tires that would never pass "inspection" and sometimes no brakes.
We drank city water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar.
We would go outdoors in the morning, play all day, and only come home when the streetlights came on.
We would spend hours building soap box racers out of scraps and then ride them down the biggest, steepest hill in the neighborhood.
We didn't have Play Stations, Nintendo's or X-boxes. There were no video games, no color TV (much less cable). No video movies or DVD's; no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms. We had friends and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth - all without lawsuits.
We would get spankings with switches, leather belts or just a bare hand and no one ever called child services of DFACS claiming it was abuse.
We were given a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for our tenth birthday, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we didn't put out anyone's eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just walked in.
Grey-Y and Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
If we broke the law, the idea of a parent bailing us was unheard of. Back then, parents actually sided with the law!
We never skipped school; and on Sundays, we got up early and went to Sunday school and church, no questions asked.
Even with all the things we lacked and did without, our generation produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors the world has ever known. The past fifty years have produced an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
"Why is that?" you ask.
We had freedom; failure, success and responsibility. We lived in a world that wasn't always fair, but we learned to deal with it. We knew the value of family and friends and God and country - and yes, even the value of a dollar.
Individually and as a nation we trusted God, not government, to sustain us and supply our needs - big and small. "In God We Trust" was more than a slogan on our currency, it was the cornerstone of our life. Today, for many of us, "in God we still trust." And that makes a lot more sense to me than trusting a community organizer from Chicago's south side that somehow got elected Head of State.