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Hunker Down with Kes

I Ate Supper Standing Up!

Posted

There was a time in my life when I wanted to be a white supremacist. Daddy whipped that idea right out of me forever in less than ten seconds when I was seven years old. Now, you know my Dad, he accomplished the mission in ten seconds….but he whipped me until Mom rang the dinner bell just so I’d know he was serious.

Daddy could be an interesting conundrum. We could make fun of the way someone rode a horse and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Or we could laugh over the idiotic wide brim hat Aunt Adell wore to church and he might chuckle along with us. BUT if you “crossed the Rubicon” by some word or deed in his mind, there was a price to pay!

And you paid it immediately. You didn’t get to “bat an eye” or think about what you might have done differently or even repent….his justice was swift and true. And it hurt like the dickens!

There was an elderly black gentleman working at the grocery store. He mostly handled the stock in the back room. But he would be out and about refilling the dwindling shelves. He walked with a limp. And that was the beginning of my downfall….

Mom and I had gotten back from the grocery and I came in the house practicing the best limp I could muster. I certainly meant no harm, but I had selected the wrong man to make fun of. And, of course, there was nothing supremacist about it. I was just a stupid kid being a stupid kid.

Daddy didn’t see this as a teaching moment. He was too mad for that!

Someone told me later the man had been wounded in World War II. You can understand what that did to my case. And my backside!

I don’t know how Dr. Spock would have handled it. But after four of five licks my respect for every living person on earth regardless of sex, race, color, creed, national origin, religious belief, political affiliation, family history or whether they rolled their toilet paper “over” or “under” went up to the 110 percent mark!

The extra licks I had to endure till Mom rang the bell were like Daddy dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.

This little bit of background might give you a clue as to why I shake my head today when folks start equating the “religious right” with “white supremacy.” As Daddy explained CLEARLY to me when I was seven years old, there is no such thing as a white supremacist.

Now, I don’t doubt some people in this country think that. But I can tell you this from the bottom of my heart, they didn’t walk around crowing about it while my Dad was still alive!

And I believe the “religious right” is also a figment of someone’s imagination. I can’t find it in the Bible…..unless it is hidden way down in Leviticus somewhere. I’ve never heard a sermon on it. Mom never mentioned it when we were growing up.

So it seems to me that we are making a big deal today out of two terms that may be nothing more than talking points….like rotten eggs to throw at an opponent in a political race. You may look smarter, but it’s still just opportunistic campaign jargon.

And none of that makes it real.

Somebody smarter than me has got to sit down and think this thing through. Saying, or believing, you are the “supreme-est” of anything makes you actually look a little foolish….unless, of course, you are Aaron Judge right now, or a horse named Secretariat.

And who wants to be religious anymore. It makes me think of the Pharisees and Sadducees. You would not have wanted to vote for those guys! It has never been about religion, whether we are talking right or left. The Apostle Paul set the record straight for all those religious gurus (and modern-day pundits) when he said, “I know nothing but Christ and Him crucified.”

The sad part in today’s world, us regular folks have got to “put up” with the name calling and finger pointing by people that might mean well…on both sides of the fence….but don’t seem to know what they are talking about at times.

And we can’t go see’em to straighten them out. Gas is too expensive! Shucks, we can’t even throw one of those aforementioned rotten eggs at them….the price of eggs has gotten so high, you can’t afford to waste even a bad one.

If Dad was here with his third-grade education, he’d say, “Let’s don’t major on the minor. When everybody has a full belly, our nation’s debts are paid and peace abounds on all sides, THEN we can argue over white supremacy, the religious right, Big Foot…..and other things that don’t exist.”

Respectfully,
Kes