I have been obsessed, involved, connected to myself as an American Citizen since I was a child in the fifties and sixties. This was when our milk came in glass gallon bottles with paper caps inserted with Presidents’ names and faces or with states’ capitals. My younger brothers and I memorized them over our bowls of cereal at the kitchen table. ( the kitchen table was also the dining room table in those days.) My Dad was a World War II veteran. Both he and my mom had been children during the Great Depression and then though married in 1941 before he was deployed didn’t have children for 12 years. My earliest “political” memory was the pride my Mom visibly showed with John F Kennedy was elected President, an Irish Catholic. My first experience of someone like me to identify with, to be proud of.
You will not be surprised to know that out hero worship was not based on his stirring Bostonian accented speeches or Jackie’s beautiful looks. It was based on his call to public service. “Ask not what your country can do for you; rather ask what you can do for your country.”
We were readers in those days. Partly because there was limited time for children’s programming so we played outside and read to ourselves or to the younger ones. Reading anything to escape childhood boredom: cereal boxes, morning and afternoon editions of local newspapers, comic books, library books and the Encyclopedia Britannica set that my mother bought on time in 1946 library books to prepare for her children yet to come.
My brother John and i read history books and shared our ideas with one another. History was alive to us. Our immigrant experience was 2 and 3 generations prior to us. We listened to stories from our Grandma who lived with us and my father’s older sisters of how they lived at the turn of the century. My Polish grandfather moved out of the ethnic neighbor to the mixed, “more melting pot” neighborhood so my mom and her older sisters would grow up to be fully American. My aunts who barely finished grade school before they had to work experienced” No Irish Need Apply” in their job search.
During my work life, like many, I paid attention but only to the headlines or ” the spin”. Being a social worker, through my clients’ I found out first hand about the lies and realized that my role as Citizen required me to be involved, if only thorough understanding what was really going on.
So on occasion, I will talk about my feelings and thoughts as a Citizen. I am not into railing about political parties or who’s right or wrong. No party or ideology is perfect. I think Government exists to promote our public safety., to create an environment in which the citizen, the family , the society can flourish and live together in the most healthy way. It will be about sharing ideas like I used to be able to do with my late husband and brother John.
But there are also other parts of myself that I want to write about and share….writer of fiction and memoir, aspiring artist (for most of my life), life long struggle with physical pain and now aging. But I cannot ignore the citizen in me, so expect that to pop up, too.
thoughts keeping me awake 