True Blue: Essays on the revival of yesterday's Democratic party (Part 1)

After I finished kindergarten my grandfather, Crellie Sparks, affectionately referred to by the whole family as "Papa", began taking care of me during the summer time while my mom and dad worked. The early morning part of those weekdays mostly consisted of Papa tending to the garden where Papa would grow corn, okra, peas, squash, and various and as sundry peppers and miscellaneous greens, i.e. collard, turnip, and mustard. I remember how the okra would make my hands itch to the point that I thought they were surely on fire. At some point after we left the garden and tended to the cows we would almost always wind up going to visit his some of his brothers and sisters.

Papa was born in 1922 and his father had taken sick at some point during his early childhood. I'm not so sure as to the details of his fathers illness but I do know what he struggled against when he was nine or so, circa 1931.

He was left to grow a crop on 40 acres with a mule and some help from his mother. Of course his brothers and sisters would help as often as they could when they weren't working at a mill, coal mine, or wherever they could be gainfully employed so early on in the great depression.

At any rate, I can't imagine just how he suffered in the hot July heat while plowing that mule. My parents built the home where I grew up on the same farm where my great grandparents home place was. It gets hot out there in the summer!

As for the rest of the days Papa would keep me and my cousins, Lauren and Ben, we would always go visiting. Visiting meant me and Papa, or sometimes the four of us (including Lauren and Ben), would go see the remaining brothers and sisters Papa had living. Most of them lived close by.

Sometimes we would begin at Aunt Bess' and Aunt Ogla's (pronounced O-gler) house. Both were widows and lived together in an old house in Chickasaw which is right outside Carbon Hill, AL. I remember their screened in porch and how they would meet us at the door and hand each of us kids a fly flap. I'm not exactly sure they knew our names but they did oblige us with fly flaps to entertain ourselves with. I suppose we were always "some of Crellie's bunch" to them. We would always compete to see who had the most fly kills.

Almost every trip included a stop at Uncle Elmer's house. Elmer was always clad in Dickie's coveralls, even in his coffin. He was the welder of the family. Any farming equipment my dad or Papa had was always repaired by Elmer if needed.

Most of the visits to Elmer's house were made by just Papa and me. It wasn't very conducive to entertaining children, or at least not as conducive as Bess' and Oglas's house, as if the breeze on the porch made it any less sweltering.

When we were at Elmer's I would occupy my time playing with Bo or watch the welding behind sunglasses. Bo was Elmer's yellow dog. I don't know if Elmer got a yellow dog on purpose or not but it sure was appropriate for him.

Every dialogue Papa and Elmer had digressed into a dissertation about their distaste of the "federal guvern meant" being controlled by Ronald Reagan and the Republican party. To be totally honest, most every time the word Republican was uttered by them it was immediately preceded by an expletive or a less-offensive derivative thereof. They had a displaced yet unbridled hatred for the Republican party. In retrospect their dislike of Reagan was less about Reagan and more about their sufferings during the depression.

They were passionate about government. They had little education but somehow deduced the debacle of the economy was due in large part to passive and ineffective regulation of the economy and the utter lack of compassion for the poor during the Coolidge administration.

The world had been turned upside down on Wall Street but no one cared about them. Not until the crippled man made it to the white house at least.

Papa and Elmer would light up like Christmas trees talking about the alphabet programs that put people to work and that somehow, magically, food was not such a scarcity outside whatever they could produce on their own farms.

The lesson they made darn sure to teach me was that the Republicans cared little, if any, about me and that they were not trustworthy to handle the government.

I do not believe that to be completely true. Reagan was effective and not such a bad president and neither are all Republicans evil. Reagan may have spent us into oblivion but we won the Cold War.

However, I do believe it to be true about the current administration. George Bush and his cronies have been driving for eight years and have somehow managed to keep it in reverse for the duration. We have digressed and are beginning to suffer the consequences of the malfeasance of the past eight years of the Bush Republican regime which manipulated the masses with lie after lie. It has cost us too. Three trillion dollars is the cost of the Iraq war, and ...it has all been put on the government credit card which leaves us stuck with the bill.

Bush cronyism continues to say that we can not afford to insure the uninsured children of our nation, that global agendas that send jobs overseas somehow benefit the American worker, that we can't afford to effectively arm our own troops engaged in urban combat in Iraq, that we need to give corporations who held junk assets in their portfolio's a bailout (which WE have to pay for), that we can't afford to give veterans the benefits they deserve, that enforcing laws prohibiting unequal pay for women is just too burdensome on business,....etc. That run on sentence could run on until election day.

I believe Papa and Elmer believed what they believed. I believe they told me for a reason. The lessons they taught me, applied subjectively to the current administration and to my opponent, Republican Robert Aderholt, tend to show that they don't care about everyday people. These politicians wake up, get their silk stockings out of their closet, get dressed, and conspire to violate the everyday American under the guise of conservatism.

They are blind to most everyone I know. One lady said that "He (Aderholt) doesn't see me". I agree.

I'm glad Papa taught me to look for the best in things but to also be leery of those who would hurt me.

I'm not sure why this rambling came out of me on the computer this evening but I'm glad it has. I love to think about Papa.

"True Blue" is my exercise to take the values and principles of the greatest generation and apply them in today's world in hopes of reviving democrats in my district and arming them with enumerated principles.

"I am a Democrat but, I sure as heck ain't no liberal!!!"

I believe in what I was taught. Faith, hard work, dignity, kindness, and respecting others pave the path to success. When those principles are combined with opportunity we have greatness. The same recipe that overcame the great depression and won the second world war can help us overcome the pending financial crisis, bring the Iraq war to a respectable end, and restore our prominence on the world scene.

Stay tuned for more. I promise the next posting will not be as drawn out and all about restoring traditional political ideology to my party.

Blessings,

NBS