Even As A Kid

[HARDCORE]

12-4-2023

Even though just a mere kid in grade school at the time, I vividly recall a craze that was sweeping through “Our Nation” at that very moment! And I vividly recall how some of the kids would show up to class wearing ‘kepis (hats)’ made of a relatively cheap felt material that, for all intent and purpose, closely resembled the caps worn by the combatants in the “Great Civil War” that had taken place many years prior to that date!

“These caps were very cheaply constructed and certainly not made to last!” But regardless of this passing historical fad, memories of “The War Between The States” have not (and probably will never), ever be expunged from the minds of true patriots, and so it remains!

And as strange as that may seem to some, the caps that were manufactured in “Confederate-Gray” were every-bit as popular among the kids up north, as were “The Blue Caps of the Union!” And this, in itself was a bit strange, especially considering the fact that many of those young lads were actually born and raised in “Coastal New England (Fall River, Massachusetts to be exact)? And that is about as far as one can get from “The Old Southern Sod”, save for a week-end trips to the local movie house that might have been playing the movie “Song of the South” or even some other movie that pitted brother against brother in that horrendous conflict that took place between 1861 and 1865! But this should have come as no great surprise, especially within a society where even you and your next door neighbor are consistently at odds over the volume of your stereo, or the drinking habits of the neighborhood drunk!

Or could it be that even neighbors, and family members alike, cannot always get along, even within our society of free thinkers and individualists? So why should it come as any great surprise that one section of “Our Great and Progressive Nation” cannot always get along, especially when some of them are separated by thousands of miles of turf, hundreds of years of tradition, mountains of regional superstitions and even those hatreds that no one is quite sure of their origins!

But if their parents saw fit to squabble to the point of blood-letting, then (at least to, their way of thinking) why should they behave any differently? And once again, many of these people have absolutely no inkling (idea) as to why this hatred exists but rather just that it is there! And as such, they mindlessly continue to adhere to it with a compulsive passion – why is that, do you suppose?

Is it the different tones of their skin perhaps, their different customs and food, or maybe it is just the fact that their grandparents were themselves raised in an atmosphere of intolerance, that led to one generation after another, still harboring the same old hatreds as did their ancestors of many generations past, until that is, we finally arrive at a point, where our reasons and our logic no longer even enter the big picture and we just continue to hate and to distrust because we were taught to hate – and where is the unity in that?

The magnificent phrase - “The United States of America” is not just five randomly chosen words that were thrown together for lack of any other creative ideas! We are a concept that was born out of fire, blood and the need to survive, to thrive and to overcome all obstacles! And as such, we were a nation that, judging upon our past international performances, could not possibly exist, at least not in this reality of dog eat dog and it is all just good business society?

But we beat the odds and clawed our way to the top, only stopping to help lift our fellow man off of their bloodied knees and into the rarified air of liberty and freedom, which is or at least should be, the eventual heritage of all of mankind?

But now, we are again engaged in “Another Great International Civil War”, testing whether or not - “This Nation or Any Nation So Conceived and So Dedicated Can Forever Endure?

And will we too, as the greatest society ever to exist upon the face of this tiny and insecure little planet of ours, finally beat the odds? Or will we too - merely fade away into obscurity, the victims of the very same moral and social diseases that overcame (and obliterated) every other contender for an honorable seat within the board-rooms of the heavens? ©

Hardcore