By Each day many of us wake up to find ourselves wondering as we walk into the kitchen searching for something to eat, who will save our nation? Grab the bread from the pantry to toss a few slices into the toaster, look into the refrigerator to see if there are any eggs to fry and finally sit at the kitchen table and attempt to eat with a clear mind before heading off to work.
Driving to work on the radio the announcer states the governor has extended the mask mandate as cases rise. Switching the oldies station so you can take your mind off the current state of affairs within our borders only to hear the song “only the strong survive” by Jerry Butler and you think for a few minutes as you’re listening to the soulful words projecting from those dash mounted speakers vibrating with that deep base tone. The station is playing you as they follow up with by the great Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and you have to wonder, who will save our nation?
Many generations of American citizens have lived the great American Dream of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness through the good times and the bad times. My grandmother would tell me the stories of her early years in marriage to my grandpa. She would tell me “I would work on the farm of your grandpa’s parents two or three days a week knowing when your grandpa came to pick me up after work his parent would feed us dinner. And that was a blessing because he didn’t make enough to buy food for the week early on so I did what I could to help never letting him know or it would have hurt him deeply.”
For my grandpa we would sit and talk about his days working on a secret project which he was unable to tell anyone about not even his wife. He told me “they gathered us in a room one day and told us we had a project that was so secret we couldn’t even tell our family.” I listened as he went on, ” They said we needed to make some pieces of equipment for this project and they wouldn’t tell us what it was for, it was that secret.” Finally with a gleam in his eyes “we were tasked with making a part for the atomic bomb.” And still I think who will save our nation.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would talk and millions would hear his words as he spoke of the struggles facing his people and America. In his I have a dream speech the words rang out as he spoke of justice and compassion, “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” to which the crowd went wild with applause. John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert spoke to the American people on the struggles facing the nation. In his inaugural speech JFK spoke this words “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
The list is long as proud citizens of this great nation wanted to make our land the best land in the world. Their dreams where shattered as murdering souls attempted to stop their ideas from becoming reality. Their words will live on in infamy as the younger followers proved their words did not beget a live of hatred and despair .
I would work on the farm of your grandpa’s parents two or three days a week knowing when your grandpa came to pick me up after work his parent would feed us dinner.”
How times have changed, we no longer have that patriotic pride to do what right for America. We have the do what’s right for me mentality now. You see it everywhere you go and I wonder, who will save our nation!
