Chapter 7:  Learning To Share

At St Thomas Of Villanova Grade School we learned how to share.  We had shared desks, shared inkwells, shared coatrooms, and no individual lockers.  Any valuables that we did have were out in the open and under the protection of all.  This honor system was developed over many generations, and one that had its own measure of checks and balances.  Things did occasionally get lost, but in my 8 years at St. Thomas,’ I can’t recall one thing ever being stolen.

If you talk to anyone who grew up in the 1950’s, you’ll hear things like this repeated over and over again …

: In my neighborhood we never even locked our doors.
: I left my bike on the front porch for years.
: The milkman and breadman left food outside the front door,        sometimes for hours, and no-one ever touched it.

               These Things Were Integral To American Life

Just like in school, the neighborhood had its own method of self-protection.  It stemmed from a principle, all held dear, that no-one would ever even think about entering anyone else’s home uninvited.  Cars sat in driveways unlocked with packages in the back seat and glove boxes full.  The same applied here. This was someone’s private property, and you afforded the object the same respect as the person who owned it. It’s just the way things were done.

Things were done this way because we all shared the belief that any other way would have been wrong.

              It Really Did Come Down To … Right Or Wrong!

In the lower grades at school, we all wore coverings over our pants and skirts in the winter called leggings, Leggings kept you warm while offering a layer of protection from the hard asphalt that served as our playground during recess and lunch.  It was one students job every day to help everyone else get their leggings off.  If you ever wore them, you know what a chore this could be, especially if you were doing it by yourself.  Luckily, in my school, you were never by yourself, and you actually looked forward to the day when it was your responsibility to help everyone else.  In the sharing of oneself, we learned of the deeper meaning that life can bring.  

We also had shared turns at cleaning the blackboard, emptying the trash, and once a week, in the months during spring and fall, we all got to work in Sister Clara’s Garden.  Sister Clara was almost blind, and no-one knew how old she really was.  What we did know is that she had taught our parents, and in some cases our grandparents too, and we couldn’t wait for the stories that she would tell us about them when they were our age.  Sister Clara may have had failing eyesight, but she had total recall when it involved one of her students no matter how many years had passed.

It didn’t matter how long ago the event happened, she could make it seem like it was happening again today. She never pulled any punches, and it was through her stories that I first learned that my mother was not always perfect, she just got that way through hard work and practice.  I know this is true because that’s what she told me (LOL).

The things we shared at school came with responsibility and a pride in what they represented.  The words me or I seemed rarely used back then.  The pride we felt was in our school, or in our neighborhood, and of course in our country. If I hit a home run on the ball field, it was our team who won, and my efforts were part of that greater whole.

We learned early that we were only as good as the slowest or weakest player on our team, and we rallied around this person to sure up his strengths making us all better in the process.  By being willing to share, we could turn slower guys like me into blockers on the line, while our fastest guys would be the running backs carrying the ball down the field to score. No matter how fast those guys were, they always knew that without the right block, at the right time, they would never have been able to get through the line and into the end zone.  It was in the end zone that we shared together the joy of the touchdown.  Isn’t that the way it really should be, people of like mind, banding together for a common goal, and sharing in its reward?

Back then, being visible and being valuable were not necessarily the same thing.  Today, every kid wants to pitch or be quarterback on his team.  Under this scenario the team itself disappears.  Ask any great quarterback how he got to where he is, and he will invariably thank his offensive line for allowing him to make the plays that resulted in the wins. By believing in the concept that what’s good for all trumps’any individual goal, we were able to not only win games but to experience the joy that only teamwork can create.

         A Team Is About The Vision And The Mission They Share

When we shared these moments, we shared them in the only language that brought us together … English! We would never have expected, nor wanted, to celebrate in any other.  Just because you were Italian, and I was Irish, had nothing to do with it.  That was yesterday and in the past.  Today, our common bond was that we were all American kids conversing in the language that our Founding Fathers had used.  One of the marvelous things about the English language is its ability to assimilate different words and idioms from other cultures and make them its own.  

We often times found ourselves interjecting words from the foreign languages we learned from our friend’s parents into our daily speech.  I might be a Meshugana and you a Dummkopf, but it was all in good fun, and it spiced up our native language with a zest and flavor. The parents and grandparents from the ‘Old Country’ didn’t want their children to speak anything but English and would correct us with the proper English word when we borrowed one of theirs.  They wanted their children to be American, and only American, and to speak its chosen language without the accents they still carried on their tongues.

With Our Common Language, We Footnoted Ourselves In The Stories That We Told

We learned in school that one of the greatest tragedies of America’s past had been the Civil War. It was a bitter conflict fought by two sides who shared so much in common — almost destroying each other in the clash of a few differences.  Luckily, we had the great unifier Abraham Lincoln in office to guide us back to nationhood.  Lincoln, more than anyone, realized that “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”

                                        And So Did We!

We learned that Northern and Southern States were divided along an imaginary line named Mason—Dixon. This line would often pit previous friends, and in some cases brothers, against each other in a tragic struggle to win the day.  One fundamental difference, slavery,  almost destroyed an entire country leaving deep wounds — the scars of which are still visible even today.

We first learned in school that all men were created equal. Our Founding Fathers had assured us of that. In their shared understanding of the basic rights of man, they forged documents (The Declaration of Independence & The Bill of Rights), to insure that in this country men would always be free …free to share in the benefits that only liberty can provide.

It took a Civil War to make sure the promise of those documents was finally extended to all Americans.

    

Chapter 8:  Every Story Paints A Picture

With every story the good Sisters told us, during our 8 years in parochial school, a picture got painted inside our minds.  These pictures became part of our spiritual DNA and the backbone of the moral code we developed and learned to live by.  The Nuns had told these stories over many years, and to thousands of students, but somehow through the intensity in their voices it seemed as though they were telling them again for the first time, and only to us.

Stories that involved important messages like … “Birds of a feather, flock together,” and … ‘Show me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are” still resonate inside me today. Their truth has only strengthened with the years.  These stories, with their timeless phrases, were as important to us as any Bill of Rights or Ten Commandments.

                    “The *** Should Never Call The Kettle Black”

We also heard these sayings at home as our parents had learned them when they were young too.  It was something they shared with us, and it made the bond between student, teacher, and home, all the stronger.  We were all on the same page and we knew it.  It felt natural and right, and we supported each other in living out what it meant.  There was a twinkle in our mother’s and father’s eyes as they retold the story of what their nuns had taught them.  We knew the lessons were true because they had stood the test of time.

In 1942, my father had gone off to war as a U.S. Marine when he was 16.  He said on many days when the outcome looked bleak, he took special comfort in thinking back to his grade school days in the Kensington section of North Philadelphia, remembering that his 7th grade Nun had told him he was destined for great things … and he was!

The Public Schools taught the same lessons, with the same intent, just minus the religious overtones.  The fundamental principles of honesty, loyalty, fair play, and respect for the individual were constantly reinforced.  

If I heard it in school once, I heard it a thousand times … “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”  The part that stands alone is what divides, but in coming together we unify into something greater than we could ever be on our own.  This turns what is impossible for one into what’s possible, and even likely, when we act together.

When we heard those immortal words from President John. F Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” we knew exactly what he meant.  The you he was referring to was us as individuals, and in acting together for the good of our country, we could make America great — even greater than she already was.  We knew firsthand that people had suffered and died for its meaning. Most of us were the children of G.I.’s who had not long ago returned home from a long and devastating World War. It had been fought on three different continents to keep the world free.

Every year, we would have one or two, or maybe even three, new students transfer in from other parts of the country.  Some had come from as far away as Texas, or Illinois, and in 8th grade we even had one girl transfer in from Holland.  It didn’t matter where they were from because they thought and valued the same things as us.  They may have been taught in a different language, but the meaning was always the same. Their tastes in food may have been different, but their table manners and concern for those around them were identical to ours.  

Terry Heinsohn had transferred in from Amarillo Texas to our school in the 6th grade.  Terry sure had a real twang to his voice, but it never covered up the respect he showed for Sister Natalie or any of the adults who worked at our School.  Like us, Terry had been taught the Texas difference between right and wrong, and his lessons were easily and readily shared with us for those last 3 years.  He was also a really good athlete.

We learned from these transferees and their stories that the surface differences we noticed on the outside were just that … superficial.  When you got right down to it, they were just like us in the things that really mattered, and it was the things that really mattered, the core values that we shared, that bonded us together as a class.  

                Sadly, I Don’t Believe Today We Can Say The Same!

Chapter 5: God Country And Family

God, Country, and Family were the cherished priorities that people sacrificed for and the essence of what made us great as a nation. Based on a strong moral code, developed from deeply held religious and/or ethical beliefs, many Americans put their individual family’s welfare second, as they marched off to war in defense of their country.  Was there politics involved in these wars? Absolutely!  All wars are fought, at least in part, due to political differences.  Not fighting these wars, because you disagreed with the politics of the time, would have resulted in a fundamentally different America than the one we live in today — if an America at all.

From the Revolutionary War onward, men, and in many cases women, dropped their hammers and sewing needles, put down their ploughs, stabled their horses, and answered the buglers call to defend all that was dear.  They were proud and willing to do this because the bigger picture was apparent, a picture that took precedence over their own individual well being.

Today, the bigger picture stares back at us from the mirrors we gaze into, reflecting false and hollow images of what we’ve become.  What we used to be as individuals was always reflected and then magnified in who we were as a nation, our individual strength truly manifested in our service to something greater.

                       Something Greater Than Just Ourselves

It was this belief in something greater that drove us to create the true ‘Miracles’ of the past 250 years. These Miracles of science, manufacturing, art, and technology were never seen before. They became the mainstays of American life and propelled America to its leadership position in the free world, a position we are fighting to hold onto today.  Guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights …  freedom in America was the right of each, and every, individual citizen. It was the source of our national pride, and if called upon, we would have died to defend it.

If you had talked to a man who worked on Hoover Dam, or the Great Northern Pacific Railroad, you would had heard the pride in his voice.  This pride stemmed from having been part of something so grand and something so much greater than he would have ever been able to accomplish on his own. These are just two examples of what made America great and pushed her to the forefront as the envy of all the world.

The Chinese stood shoulder to shoulder with the Irish, pick axes in their hands, as the great rails were laid down pointing westward toward new and greater prosperity.  Among the many nationalities that accomplished these great things, there were always differences and petty squabbles — and the occasional altercation … but the big picture was always in focus.  It was the big picture that they agreed upon because that’s what was most important.  The big picture would carry them together to places they could never travel to alone, and on this they always agreed.

                        The Big Picture Was Most Important

By putting their personal disagreements aside, they moved mountains, laid rails, built bridges, and dammed rivers.  Unfortunately, many died in the building of America, but it did not stop the new volunteers from signing on.  There was something being done here that had never been done before.  Setting your past lineage, cultural differences, and religious beliefs aside, to work together on something this special, was a small price to pay.  It was a small price to pay for becoming — truly American!                                        

American, not just in name — as many are today —but American in the deepest parts of who you really were and who you wanted your children to be.  Out of this commitment came men like Nathan Hale who spoke these immortal words on September 22, 1776 …

     “I Only Regret That I Have But One Life To Lose For My Country “


Hale’s belief in the future of America was a ‘rallying cry’ uniting the strength of the individual with the purpose and collective will of the nation.

                        Where Is That Unity Of Will Today?




Chapter 6:  The *** That Melted

As a young boy, I lived in a row home in a working-class neighborhood.  The smells and sounds coming from each house were different, but the laughter and good will were the same … and they were shared among all. When together at a barbecue, holiday party, or family celebration, or even while waiting for the bus to go to work, their laughter was infectious.  

Mothers walked their young children to the small parochial school that many of us attended.  As they walked together, you could hear in the intensity of the many accented languages a fervent hope. It was a hope that it would be their son or daughter who would one day grow up and be President of this great land. And if not President, someone in whom they could truly be proud, and someone who would make a difference.  They were willing to put their own personal interests aside and sacrifice for this, many doing without so that their children could have, and experience, the things that would light their way to a brighter future.

                               The Fathers Did The Same

Every morning, after they said goodbye to their children at school, they knew they had just dropped them off at the doorway to a world that was better than any that they, or their parents, or grandparents, had known.

Many of our parents and grandparents spoke different languages, ate different foods, and sang and danced to their own kinds of music. These differences were superficial because one thing was crystal clear growing up in my neighborhood and that was nothing … N-O-T-H-I-N-G was more important than being a good and loyal citizen to a country that had given you so much.  If you ever were caught dis-respecting the flag or your elected leaders, you could count on being reprimanded by everyone, and that reprimand would probably be delivered in five different languages.

                       But The Meaning Was Always The Same

My first grade Nun (and school principal) was Sister Rita Marie.  Sister Rita Marie saw neither the color, the nationality, nor the relative wealth of any of her students. All the good Sister saw was ‘raw possibility!’  It was the innate potential within each of her students that Sister Rita Marie first saw, and it was this potential that defined and unified us as a class as we progressed from grades 1st through 8th.  I’m sure it was by a great design that no Nun ever had a last name. You could only guess at her nationality if she had a name like Sister Peter Mary or Sister Clara Agnes.

Our days in Catholic School always started in front of the American Flag, with our hands over our hearts, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Religion was next and that meant studying the Baltimore Catechism. Within its pages were all the lessons that one needed to learn to live a good and upstanding life.  Sister Rita Marie never failed to end the morning’s religion class without a morality lesson, one that would apply to our real world outside of school, and one that our parents had probably learned some twenty or thirty years earlier.

                             And Often From The Same Nun

Religion class would set the tone and get our young minds right for the arithmetic, english, phonics, and civics lessons that would follow later in the day.  We didn’t always behave, but we did agree on what was right and what was wrong.  We knew this because we had a devoted teacher who not only taught these principles but lived them in front of us in her daily life.  How I wish I could have just one more morning with Sister Rita Marie and be able to ‘film’ her magic and be able to spread it over the confusion that involves much of our educational practices today.

                            I’d Also Like To Thank Her Again

The basics were always stressed in her class over the fringy and sometimes transient occurrences that only served to mislead and confuse.  She also explained that there was a ‘nature of goodness’ that ran through all of us, and she knew that in her heart because inside we were all the same …                      

The thing that my small Catholic School (St Thomas Of Villanova) shared with my neighborhood was that it too was a ‘Melting ***.’  It was a melting *** of the differences that only served to divide us.  We learned early and well that respect for our elders, country, and especially ourselves, was a fundamental building block for all future success.

Two plus two really was four. And if you sat up straight with good posture at your desk you would see the truth, and the truth involved knowing that lying and cheating were always wrong, no exceptions! On this we all agreed.

                                         No Exceptions!  

The moral principles we learned in school were not only necessary for us to be good citizens, but were also a great source of comfort in a world that could be confusing to a young child.  No maybe this, or maybe that, Sister Rita Marie was emphatic with her teaching, and there was something inside all of us telling ourselves that she was right.  We learned early that all of life’s actions come with consequences, and these consequences can either be good or bad depending on which path you choose.  Many a boy thought he got away with, or pulled something over on the Nun, only to have his hand slapped by her ruler as she walked down his row of desks reading from her text.  She did this normally without even looking up.
                                
These lessons were constantly reinforced because it was upon these principles that the greatness of America and the salvation of our souls would depend.  We also learned that the seemingly little things were not always little, and what appeared big and overwhelming was often an imposter.  Most importantly, we learned that what might be impossible for us individually to accomplish, we could almost always attain together.

                                       … together!

We had no individual sports in my school, everything was as a team.  It was in the magic of playing together as a team that this message of what’s truly possible was best taught.  Sister Rita Marie constantly reminded us that there was a ‘heritage’ involved in our very existence traveling back through our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents ad infinitum.  This heritage was ours, and ours alone, and was to be respected and revered.  It could also be shared and often was. One of the boys in my class had a father who had played Major League Baseball.  Mr. Duffy shared his experiences growing up and progressing through the minor leagues and into the BIGS many times with us. We all felt connected and proud based on what he shared, and we also felt closer to each other as a result.

The worst offense you could ever commit was to bring dishonor or shame upon the reputation and good name of your family.  You might not be wealthy in a material sense, but the reputation of each family was sacred and was treated as such. What started as a concern for the reputation of your family was transferred to your friends, your team, your neighborhood, and your school.  You knew this was of value because everyone in your world from the shop keeper to the policeman reinforced it every time you saw them.   The things that were accepted, or not accepted, were either accepted by none, or accepted by all.  

      What Values Can We All Agree Upon And Hold Dear Today?

As we progressed through the grades, the differences in each of us not only faded but became integrated into everyone else.  Every kid learned at least a few words in Italian from Mr. D’Angelo, and every mother in the neighborhood wanted to be able to bake as well as Mrs. Bonds. Mrs. Bonds was French, and Mr. Bonds had met her while in the Army during WW2 when the G.I.’s liberated Paris in August of 1944.  She could bake and she could sing.  We all loved her, as she would prance around her kitchen in her fancy hand made aprons singing French folk songs. She would wink and call each of us boys or girls ‘Mon or Ma Cherie’ or ‘Mon Ami’ or ‘Mon Amie’ as the incredible smells of her baking took over the neighborhood.

The melting *** had another advantage in that it happened without our noticing it.  We seamlessly learned at a visceral grass roots level that we were all the same.  We believed in, and wanted, the same things, and we were willing to work together to get there.  After all, with great examples to follow like Sister Rita Marie … how could we fail?

                Where Is That Leadership And Unity Of Purpose Today?

Chapter 1

Do we no longer share anything of value?




Chapter 2

Do we no longer value anything we share?



Chapter 3:  Two Scenarios

Scenario 1 (1956):  A young boy gets in trouble at school for being insolent and talking back to the teacher. The teacher punishes the boy by keeping him after school, making him clean up the classroom, and by writing ‘I must learn to be more polite and respectful’ on the blackboard 100 times.

The boy’s younger sister goes home at the regular time and tells his mother why he is still at school.

The boy leaves the school at 5:00 pm and stops in to the corner store for some penny candy.  The storekeeper refuses to serve him because he heard about the boy’s behavior earlier today.  The boy leaves and walks to the beginning of his street.  There he is met by Mrs. Wagner who tells him she is very disappointed in what she has heard.  He decides to cut through the playground and take the shortcut to his back yard.  

As he crosses the basketball court, which backs up to the fence separating his back yard from the park, Mr. Johnson, the custodian, shouts out to him and asks him to stop.  “I can’t believe what I heard from the other boys about your behavior at school today, and I’m very disappointed in you. You’re better than that and you know it. Don’t come back to the playground until you’ve learned how to act right.”

Finally, he climbs over the chain link fence to his backyard.  It is here that his mother sees him for the first time, and he can tell she has been crying.  “How can you shame me like this when we’ve worked so hard to raise you in the right way? Your grandmother left earlier and even she doesn’t want to speak to you, and you know you’re her favorite — go straight to your room.”

At last, his father comes home and is appraised of what happened earlier today.  He walks into the boy’s room and asks him if there’s anything he has to say for himself?  Wisely, the boy says no.  With that, the father ’grounds’ the boy, taking away all privileges for an entire month.  He also tells the boy he will continue to stay after school, and clean the classroom, until the teacher says he’s learned his lesson.  The parents then call the teacher at home to apologize for the boy’s actions.

The next day, both parents take the boy to school and make him apologize to the teacher in front of the entire class.

This behavior is never repeated by the young boy, and he becomes a model of what respect for authority and right thinking should be.

Scenario 2 (2024):  A young boy gets in trouble at school for being insolent and talking back to the teacher. The teacher tries to discipline the boy, but he just laughs and walks away.  The teacher follows the young boy to the entrance of the school, as he continues to laugh at her remonstrations while trying to make fun of her for doing her job.

Without permission, the boy leaves school early.

On the way home he stops at the convenience store and, while the clerk isn’t looking, slips 2 candy bars under his coat and sneakily walks out.  Two high school kids in a car stop him at the entrance to the playground and say, “shouldn’t you be in school?”  When he tells the two what the teacher did, they both just laugh and say: “Yeah, she’s still the same $#@%^&*$% that she was when we had her 4 years ago.”

The high school kids should have been in school too …

Then the boy enters the gates of the playground near his house.  Three other boys, truant from a local parochial school, are hiding behind the equipment building, smoking cigarettes, and listening to their I-Pods.  When he tells them what happened at school they say: ‘Yeah, all teachers are pains in the ****.  They don’t know how to do anything but boss us around. My parents said if they were any good, they’d all get real jobs.”

The boy climbs the fence and enters his back door.  Both parents are working, so he takes the candy bars out and starts playing video games as he eats them.  His mother gets home first at 5:30 and then his father at 6:00. Neither even asks him how school went that day. He knows he can’t go back until he tells them, so as they are both catching up on their emails he starts his tale.

Only halfway into his story, his mother says: “She raised her voice and yelled at you?” His father then says: “I’ll have her job for that!”  They immediately call the principal of the school demanding the teacher be reprimanded and even threatening legal action if something is not done.  After hanging up, they start phoning other parents soliciting support against the teacher and the school.

They demand to speak at the next PTA meeting lambasting the unfortunate teacher for trying to do the right thing.  The teacher is put on probation for ‘action causing the boy to leave school’ and reprimanded formally by the superintendent.  The teacher decides that enough is enough, and this is her last year trying to teach young people not only academics — but manners and respect.

                                 Another Great Educator Is Lost

The boy goes on to become a recurring problem ultimately ending up in juvenile hall.

Where are the common values, and moral structure, that as a country we used to share?  Where is the support for doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do?  Where are the keepers of the lost moral code that made our country great?

Where you ask?  They are lost and absorbed in the division that self-interest has created. GONE — and the greatness that real community and shared values could provide — are gone with them.

                                           Distance is shared
                                    by those striving to be close
                                          Valuing each other
                                      sharing each other’s pain



Chapter 4: Time and Distance

What separates the two scenarios in the previous chapter are time and distance.  We say them so often, and so often together, but are they really connected?  Is the first scenario only separated from the second by time and half a century?  Or is it something much more sinister and more difficult to deal with when recognized?

Some things once lost are maybe impossible to re-attain.

               Do we no longer share anything of value?  
                Do we no longer value anything we share?

In our nation, and within the American culture, I may look different than you.  My skin may be light while yours is dark. My ancestors may have come from Europe and yours from China.  My religion may be Christian while yours is not, but together over the last 200 years we have created the world’s greatest economy, defeated the most evil totalitarian dictators, and created an educational system that has produced doctors and architects, artists and engineers, that have changed the very surface and fabric of our world …

                          And All Mostly For The Better

We did these great things because we did them in concert.  We were a nation that was pulling together, having put our differences aside, for a goal we shared and the common good. We all believed in the accepted moral code, and we didn’t need to quote the Ten Commandments or the Torah to make it work.  It was ingrained deeply inside of us.  We didn’t need legislation to enforce our behavior.  Our actions came from a court of a much higher order.

                           That All Seems To Be Changing

Now, instead of finding more ways to unify ourselves, we spend our efforts building ever more fences that serve to divide.  We have formalized these divisions and given them names.  We are divided racially, culturally, intellectually, politically, sexually, and maybe what’s most insidious, economically.  The America that was the great ‘melting ***’ of our differences has turned into a great magnifying glass — enlarging and enhancing what can only serve to keep us apart.

The second generation Italian-American bricklayer, who couldn’t sign up for World War 2 fast enough, is replaced in many instances today by someone who feels all service to their country is an inconvenience at best, and wasted time at worst.  The great neighborhoods and playgrounds that brought us together when young have been replaced by pockets of isolated self-interest where America, and its freedoms, are just a tool used to achieve a narrow and self-serving agenda.

Much of this we have brought upon ourselves by electing officials more concerned with being politically correct than doing what’s right.  This has undermined the very bedrock of America itself. We have been ‘lulled to sleep’ by the symptomatic curing of these populist falsehoods, while the underlying disease plaguing our great nation is allowed to fester and grow.  

The ‘Me Too’ or ‘I’ generation is becoming the victim of its own false ideology, drowning in an egomaniacal sea of despair.  This manifests itself in the social and medical ailments of the last 50 years.  From ADHD, obesity, nervous anxiety disorders, and possibly autism, our nation suffers from a stigma of its own making.  The growth of professions like Psychiatry and Law are examples of how insular we’ve become and how intent we are at getting ‘our bigger piece of the pie’ at any cost. ‘Shrink’ visits, and litigation, seem to be the new badges of honor in a country that has lost its way.

Maybe it’s a good thing that wars are not fought conventionally anymore.  A high ranking Major General was recently quoted as saying that he didn’t think we could fight a war like World War 2 today.  He didn’t believe enough men could put their personal agendas aside and agree to fight for a common cause.  The meaning of the word common has come to mean something undesirable and to be avoided.

This same country, America, is passing laws to protect those living here illegally, while some of those who proudly served in her defense go hungry, homeless, and destitute.  I believe it should be mandatory that to hold public office you must first serve in the military or some form of public service. Then you will have an appreciation for the many who have sacrificed while asking for nothing in return. Many Veteran’s Groups come together today, not to be honored as they should, but rather to share their struggles in a world that seems to have lost interest in them and the great sacrifices that they made.  

                               This Was Not Always The Case

Today, America competes internationally with countries like India and China that have much more homogenous cultures and seem much better at pulling together to reach a common end by thinking along the same lines.  I travel to these countries, and people there seem to have discovered what we have forgotten. They know that two working in harmony can accomplish more than two working on their own, and that two plus two ‘together’ equals more than four.

                When People Come Together, The Whole Really Is
                          Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts

Thinking along the same lines has nothing to do with a loss of personal or intellectual freedom.  It has to do with the affirmation that we can accomplish much more together than we can on our own.  It also means we are stronger when we come together. This is true both economically, socially, and culturally.  

There have been some great quarterbacks, who turned mediocre overnight, when they lost either a great running back or wide receiver.  Staring into the eyes of those other 10 men in the huddle is one of the great examples of what can be accomplished when all think with like minds.  In that huddle are men of all races, religions, and ethnicities, but they put those differences aside for 60 minutes to accomplish their goal.

                         As A Country, We Should Do The Same

The play that is called in the huddle is not to benefit just one player, it’s to benefit the whole team.  They either win or lose together based on the value system or game plan that they all agree upon.  It’s a simplistic analogy, but it’s magic and it works.

A ‘Call To Arms’ used to be enough for most men to lay aside personal interests and put their country first.  Today, during most times of crises, there are opinion polls, with spin doctors and talking heads, on the various TV cable news shows, telling you what to think or maybe reinforcing what you want to hear based on your personal agenda.  You can usually find exactly what you want to hear if you pick the ‘right’ channel out of the dozens available.  The news doesn’t get read anymore, but rather interpreted and spun, and both political parties are guilty of its manipulation.

                              And We’re All The Worse For It

The basic tenets of right and wrong do not change.  What they apply to does, but the principles do not.  They form the platform that a democratic society is built upon. If we can’t de-factionalize and de-polarize ourselves from this mess we’ve gotten into, how can we take the next steps forward to better ourselves collectively and become more than we currently are?