When my older brother was in grade school he was sent to the principal's office for the only time in his life. The reason? They asked him for our dad's name on a form. Our dad's name was B. Leonard Avery. Of course the principal didn't believe in a person who had an initial for a first name. So he called our dad at his office in downtown Minneapolis. "Mr. Avery, I have your son in my office and he's insisting your first name is nothing more than the initial 'B,' and we both know how ridiculous that is. Would you please tell me your full first name?"
"I would be glad to," our father, said. "It's Bubbles."
My dad only ever joined two organizations in his life: one was the United States Navy which he joined shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the other one was the Minneapolis Art Directors' Club. In other words, my father fought the Fascists. He was probably more liberal than my mom, whose father had, at one point, joined the Klu Klux Klan. After all my mom did have a "very quite" problem when my sister started dating an African American.
About the same time, my dad sued the Central Intelligence Agency for opening his mail.
At this point in the story, people almost always want to know what my dad did to force the C.I.A. to open his mail. I guess that is an understandable question if you figure the vast majority of Americans have no freaking clue how dirty their government actually is, and actually has always been.
Here's what my dad did to warrant the government breaking its own laws and invading his privacy: he raised a son who was bright enough to, in 1969, be accepted by a United States' Government foreign exchange program between Yale University and the University of Moscow. And that's all my father did.
My older brother wrote him a letter while in Moscow about, well, you know: it's cold here, classes are interesting, Dominique has a cold, but is getting better."
My dad was a painter. At first he used water color, and then acrylics and canvas. He painted what he saw and he sold a lot of them, because people enjoyed looking at whatever it was he saw. When I was four he painted me a portrait of Emmet Kelly Jr. because I like clowns. In the late 60's, he painted his children into a sea of roses in front of the Minneapolis Art Institute. There were clowns, balloons, roses, and his children. My father was a homosexual.
Our government has always been corrupt, but not in the any of the ways you've heard about on Fox News. That is fiction, and it's not particularly good fiction, because it's now skillful and it's rather, well, Roseanne Barr-ish. I'm talking about fiction that plays to shopworn stereotypes like the "teachers' union" and "liberals."
There are precious few liberals left in this country. Sadly, unions have been gutted and rendered powerless. Today what is being described as a liberal is someone whose politics are to the right of Richard Nixon.
My Dad would no longer recognize the country he defended from the likes of Mr. Hitler. Back in the 1980's, my dad would become furious at Reagan. Mainly because all Reagan did was help his rich friends.
My dad used to say, "Roosevelt had rich friends. He didn't help them, because they didn't need any help." You have to wonder how defective Reagan's rich friends were.
Turns out they were as defective as the entire Walton clan. When you are born white and male in the United States, you have a ten thousand mile head start. So how did Reagan's white buddies blow that? How have the Waltons blown it? Were they glue-heads?
Addiction to sniffing glue would explain it. It's about the only thing that would explain blowing that sort of head start: a serious glue habit. Hi ho.
Meanwhile, in the hip parts of this country, this blog is the equivalent to one of those Irish tunes with fiddles and pipes and mandolins. But you have to be quiet and listen.
"This is wooden music, again, so you got to be cool. Otherwise you won't hear it."
"Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground. Mother Earth will swallow you, lay your body down. Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground. Mother Earth will swallow you, lay your body down."
