Memorial Day

A military cemetery.

My Dad revered Memorial Day. Born in 1935, he grew up during WWII. His uncles served in European and the Pacific theatres (and all seven of them came home.) So many of the families he knew were Blue Star families, meaning someone was serving, but he told us, most often, about the Gold Star families. These were the families that had lost a loved one in the war, and the community acknowledge the ultimate sacrifice that was made.

Memorial Day meant going to the cemetery. Frequently we drove more than an hour to Greenfield cemetery, in Greenfield, Ohio where most of his family was buried. We had to visit every grave that could be found that was a Riley or a Smith. Some years he would bring a bucket and cloth so he could clean and wash the graves. The trip was part pilgrimage, part repentance, and part celebration. It was always reverent.

Starting in the late seventies for about ten years, Dad worked in New York City. He would come home to Springfield on the weekends. They had an office in Manhattan, right next to the CBS building. He fell in love with the NY Giants and Donald Trump. He read The Art of the Deal and believed it. He died in March 2016, so he missed Trump as President. He wasn't following politics by then--he had dementia--so I don't know if he might have been a Trump supporter, but I do know he would be disgusted by how the Trump Presidency unfolded. (I remember when I was 7 and I found out Dad did not support Richard Nixon for President. I was shocked. My second-grade class elected Nixon unanimously. We had a pumpkin carved for Nixon on the porch. That was also the last time I supported a republican for President.)

The lack of respect for others and reverence for the men and women who serve our country would have been a deal breaker. The news this week of the $1.8B slush fund and no accountability for any tax fraud ever would have ruptured Dad's sense of fairness. In what world do you get to sue yourself, create a settlement before a judge ever sees the case and then make other people pay the penalty, to which you agreed, to your friends? Claiming no direct involvement doesn't absolve anything.

When are Americans going to wake up? If any other person even described trying this fraudulent scheme, we'd throw them, and anyone who went along with it, in jail. It is impossible to ignore the corruption and racism of this administration and its hangers on. What is so interesting about the reaction of southern states to the Supreme Court decimating the power of the Voting Rights Act is that they were the site of terrible violence as US citizens fought for their rights to vote. Do they not imagine that repressing those rights, sixty years later won't create the same type of protests and civil disobedience that we experienced before? And do they not understand that Gen Z, in particular, grew up in a multi-racial society and are not going to stand for disenfranchising their friends and neighbors?

We cannot abide cruelty, so don't.

Read more and learn about my books at www.jeffersonblackburnsmith.com

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