Ric

  When I was five years old, my family and I lived in a rural community. There was no city garbage truck, only one man driving a home-made refuse removal vehical. (Read: tattered, old truck, with make-shift side rails.) One morning while picking-up OUR trash he had the nerve to speak to ME! I promptly turned my head and acted as though I had not heard a word from the peasants' mouth. Later that day I recounted, with shock, what had happened to my father. My father the factory  worker and mechanic...

  My father stood six feet five inces tall and resembled a decendent from the sasquash family. A LARGE man whom had worked hard all his adult life. Oh, how proud he was of me! That over-sized human being took the time to explain to me that I will not EVER again pass judgement for the job one does to provide for their family. And furhtermore, I should be thankful there is somone to take away out garbage and dispose of it in a proper manner.

  That is the G-Rated version of that days events. I am grateful to my father thirty years later. I love and appreciate my trash man: I understand the service he provides me and my family. I understand it is not that which one does (or is willing to do) that should be reflected upon, rather that which one refuses to do. That which one feels is beneath him.

  There is no job for which I am too good. Here is a news flash: NOT YOU EITHER! We as a poeple seemed to have degenerated into a pale example of what made us great. We now have more folks lining-up at the welfare office than in the lines of prospective employers. We will wait longer for public funded benefits than that of a promotion from our employer. In seventy short years we have gone from seeking a better, brighter path on our own to seeking the next government hand-out. All the while losing sight of the fact that WE hold the key: we ARE the answer.

  The weak cannot be made strong by weakening those who are strong. The less fortunate cannot be lifted by crippling those have made fortune. And we cannot now, cannot ever, retain our beautiful freedoms by standing idly by and letting them be taken away.

  Today is the day on which we celerbrate the industrious labor that made our great nation a beacon for the rest of the world. We will do well to remind ourselves just how we got here and to think about what we need to do to keep us on the continued path of freedom and prosperity.