Oh, the vagaries of old age! It comes to all of us, one day at a time! I used to say I felt like I was still 27. Recently, I have begun to consider myself in my mid-to-late 40’s! Ah, me! The mirror does not lie, however! Needless to say, I am not yet “old,” but definitely older! Darn it!
My husband’s aunt, Aunt Stella, an angelic person who lived well into her upper nineties, was a poet, a truly gentle soul, and an incredibly intelligent human being! She also was a leader in her Presbyterian church, an elder when women were not elders, and a working woman when women did not work outside the home! In fact, if you were an Aggie and male (women were not allowed as students at A&M in those days) you might have known her as the secretary of the Department of Plant Sciences where she worked from the 1920’s until the late 1960’s!
Miss Stella, or Miss Stuart, as she was known to many Aggies, believed that all people of all persuasions, all colors, and all ethnicities were good. In all the years I knew and loved her, I never heard her say a mean thing! I so wish that there were more people alive today that believed as she did and that the world was like that! With more honesty, more kindness, more goodness, and more belief in equality for all, there would be little need for the demonstrations that are so necessary for our great democracy to work!
Aunt Stella used to have a saying that I think of frequently now as my knees sometimes ache and my hearing is not as good as it once was. She used to say, “once an adult and twice a child.” When you are born, you are cared for, and as you grow older, you are cared for again. Witness the vast numbers of nursing homes or the new term, “assisted living facilities.” Phooey! It just means someplace where they change your diapers again for the second time in life! But I digress!
Aunt Stella was a lifetime FDR Democrat until the advent of Ronald Reagan. Then she, like many in America, became Republican. To be a conservative, you do not particularly care for change, and changes were occurring in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s in the U.S. To be liberal, even today, you welcome change, liberal from the Latin libre, or free! A very simplistic explanation, but still true.
During the recent election, I was a poll worker with a retired military man who had worked in the Reagan White House. I did not particularly care for Reagan as president, but when talking with this particular veteran, he and I strongly agreed that Reagan was a consummate gentleman! Noblesse oblige! A large percentage of American presidents have been, whatever the political persuasion, outwardly courteous, diplomatic, usually honest, servants of the people and supporters of our republican democracy!
Speaking of democracy, were you aware that the Russians intentionally have a goal entitled “Democracy, RIP?” Putin and the legend of the “Golden Shower” are still with us, as witnessed by the recent major hacking of our government institutions and many private corporations, businesses, and public utilities. What, for example, was the need to hack, of all places, the Austin City government? Foot in the door, I guess!
Caution! Caution! San Saba, Lampasas, and other Texas communities may be next! Let us hope that democracy and the newly-elected president can reestablish what Abraham Lincoln once described as our “Better Angels” in the world!