Gone
Standing on the corner waiting for the ice cream man.
Seeing the Wizard of Oz only once a year on TV.
LP's, 45's, CD's, cassette tapes, VHS, Super 8.
S&H Green Stamps.
Manual typewriters.
White only counters.
Single-sex public restrooms.
50 cent coffee.
Stockings.
Compassion.
Charity.
Civic courage.
Responsibility.
Leadership.
Consequences.
Justice.
Reason.
Common ground.
United States.
Gone…
Like a thief in the night America awoke to find an empty house.
A shell in which roam individuals who cannot see each other because of the hate that wraps their heads like a blindfold.
Those things that were once so familiar that we could touch, see, and hold onto vanished like a mirage.
America has awoken out of its dream.
A dream that told its people that everything was going to be okay.
Everyone was going to have justice.
No one was above the law of the land.
Like a dream as the hours and days go by that dream becomes harder and harder to remember.
Email, texts, news, social media, entertainment, sports, school, job, lifestyle all of which is a part of all of our daily experience in none of it does it speak to Community.
None of it brings two people together over a common piece of ground.
Gone are the ties that once bound each of us to each other.
Where did they go?
Who took it?
Who is responsible?
We are.
You and me together.
We did it.
We destroyed the dream.
Dreams do not vanish on their own.
To make a dream come true, you have to work to make it real.
Otherwise, a dream, including the American Dream, is a story with no more relevance to reality than any other dream.
Dreams require the individual the society to reach and strive every day for a better tomorrow.
Dreams require you and me to march against giants.
Dreams require us no matter how beaten down how tired to stand once again and say the ignorance of mankind will not rule our lives.
Like a dream, those things that are gone are only out of sight not out of mind.
The mind can bend time and space.
The mind can span the distance between you and me we can see each other and know we want the same things.
We want good work that will provide us a good life.
We want to be free of living in fear.
We want hope.
We need a new American dream.
The old dream was at its heart only for the few.
This new dream should follow the truth that has been revealed by this President and his administration.
That truth is the ignorant never went away.
The truth is one political party courted that vote and has no intention of letting that vote go.
We the people, the majority must recognize you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Ain't going to happen.
We need to take that dime in our hand we were going to give to the ice cream man and find ourselves another corner to stand on.
Those brothers and sisters are not going to follow us to a better community.
They won't get on the freedom train.
Which means we shouldn't be waiting on them to decide if they want to join us, we need to get on down the line.
We have to realize that we are not going to get the racist to behave and sit cordially at our table of humanity.
They want the food fight and want to turn over the table of the brotherhood of man.
Our party has to move because the angry old neighbors are upset our party has the wrong kind of people at it.
We have to be happy with what we have and move along to that better world.
Doesn't mean we won't hold open a seat in case hell freezes over but it also means we need to be realistic that some people prefer to be gone.
They don't like the people at our party.
We all need to do the right thing right now.
When you're saving a life, you don't worry about your appearance.
You do the right thing.
Worrying about Monday morning quarterbacks in the face of presidential corruption and criminality is ridiculously childish.
It's like a child saying they won't clean their room because mommy will expect me to keep my room clean.
If you don't step out of your house, you'll never get to where you want to go.
You can't dream the world better you got to make it better with your own hands.
Ideals will only get you so far unless you are willing to stand for them.
They are meaningless if you don't put actions to your rhetoric.
It's obvious this President and this administration are willing to fight for their view of the world.
Will the good people fight for theirs?
Who will win out?
Injustice or justice?
It will depend upon you and I.
Peace
DFrey