Notes to a Tea Party

I can remember vividly an article I wrote and published via a local country weekly in the seminal year of 1968. I had been witness to the antics of that generation which was the direct offspring of my own --- which Tom Brokaw had dubbed "the greatest."

Our kids were rebelling against the status quo by burning flags, extolling the sometimes shaky morality of free love and the flower girls who wore poppies in their hair. They seemed to chime in with the hippie lads who taught their brothers and sisters how to roll and smoke a joint of "mary jane" or "weed" as it yet lingers on.

We elders survived by adopting the philosophy that we believed: "this too will pass." My plaint cry rang out, "I want my country back!"

That is now history, and we look back in semi-amusement, gratified to have realized that indeed "the beat goes on" as they sang in what we can recall with the tranquility of retrospect. One was relieved to be reassured that no one had stolen my country. The old dame Liberty still holds aloft her eternal torch which shows us all the way, and we will live together in peace on this land of which we are a part.

Today we are afflicted with a movement which purports its members have adopted the revolutionary colonial attitude. They claim this nation is heading into the chaos of fascism, communism and socialism which are depriving us of our freedom so hard fought for by those intrepid men who dumped a shipload of tea rather than pay taxes to a tyrant. Their attitude toward our own president is that he is ruining the land they claim to love by his policies. They call themselves "The Tea Party" and they want their country back --- but they declare this can only happen when Obama is removed from office --- by dint of the Second Amendment, if needs be!

I'll continue to love this country we fought for, which never actually left me. Rant on, you misled people --- you have great amusement value and will provide comic relief in the days and months just ahead.