I am an American. Hank Williams Jr. is One, Too

When I was raising my babies, I had a friend in the neighborhood we lived in who would bring her kids over to play with mine.

They were all about the same ages, and all under 5 years old. My friend, Mandy, and I would try (in the course of the morning with children here, there and everywhere) to sit and have a quiet chat over a cup of coffee. Impossible!

We would get bits and pieces of chat in occasionally but mostly we were playing with, organizing or separating the little darlings. I remember that almost every time she was over Mandy would get to the point where she would jump up, throw her arms in the air and yell, “That’s it! Stop it right now! You, over there — you, sit down — you are all nothing but a bunch of nasty little Nazis.” My children were included in this assessment. 

As a child, I had witnessed firsthand at concentration camps in Germany and Poland some of the results of this Nazi scourge. To this day I can recall the smell of burnt flesh that remained in these places even six to eight years after the end of the war.

I took no exception to Mandy’s words. I understood her frustration and I knew that she was telling the kids that they were out of control so knock it off. As my mother would often remind us: "The purpose of language is to be understood."

I knew that Mandy did not consider her children or mine to be Nazis. I’m also aware that Mandy went into her spiel in the privacy of my home in a time long before all the electronic gadgets we have today.

I think Hank Williams, Jr. made a stupid mistake to say what he did on air about our president, vice president and congressman. I heard people say how, "un-American" it was for him to make these statements. Well, I’m thinkin’ that the fact that he said what he said and that he felt free to say it is as American as it can be.

This is America. We speak our minds. I don’t have to agree with you. I don’t have to like you. And I can carry on like a banshee in disagreement with you. Mr. Williams is, in my opinion, a "good old boy." As such, many of his values would not line up with mine. I have to figure that if someone of my ilk appeared at his door, the welcome would not be warm and fuzzy.

And, you probably won’t be hearing that Mr. Williams or those who share his, let’s say, "non-inclusive beliefs" have accepted an invite to come over to my place for dinner. This is America.

Remember the chorus in that old song that went: "You gotta go where you wanna go, do what you wanna do with whoever you wanna do it with,"  sung by The Mamas and The Papas. I know the song was about being with one guy or something like that; but I recall that we (those of us of the ‘Woodstock’ generation) took pleasure in singing "We can say what we wanna say, to whoever we wanna say it to."

We didn’t hurt anyone. We didn’t insight riots. We spoke our minds. This is America — for me, for you and for Mr. Hank Williams, Jr.

C.M. McLoughlin, a writer and editor from New Jersey and New York, can be reached at mcloughlin43@gmail.com.

About this column: Thoughts and musings from resident Carolann McLoughlin.