October 25, the year of our Lord 2008
The Gray Morass was born
I choose the title of this blog because of a casual remark I made to my wife a few days previously, saying our country is sinking into a “gray morass”. We have lost our compass and there are so many “all about me” demands regarding the direction of our country it will be a miracle if the Nation can survive.
Some of my writings may be politically incorrect because political correctness has forced us to accept the unacceptable for fear of “offending” someone or something. We have also lost the ability to laugh at ourselves. My parents were 1st generation Americans of Polish extraction yet I love, laugh and pass on a good Polish or other ethnic joke which good spiritedly makes fun of stereotypical perceptions. We all need to laugh at ourselves and not take offense where no offense is made.
In 2024 I’m turning 78 years old, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Americal (23rd infantry) division, 1970-1971. I grew up on a farm my mother and father purchased in 1939. Mom was a secretary and dad was a weaver, living in New York City, they saved up to make this drastic move as they didn’t want to raise their children in a decaying city then, if they could see it today. We milked our cows by hand, ate eggs from our own chickens, made our own butter and cheese and raised our own fruits and vegetables that my mother canned each season to use during the winter months. Our farm was located on a dirt road in upstate New York, my father built our house one room at a time, amid the rationing and hard times of WW II. We lacked indoor plumbing, wood was our only source of heat. My father cut pulpwood and timber on our own woods to supplement our income when needed, as jobs were scarce and layoffs frequent. We never had a car of the same decade as we were living in until 1959 when we got a 7 year old Plymouth! Yet we borrowed no money, owed no one and asked for nothing, gaining what we had by the opportunities this great nation offered, if you worked hard and practiced frugality.
Through 2nd grade I went to the local, three-room schoolhouse, it had two classes in each room, with one row of kindergarten in the 1st and 2nd grade room. In the early 1950’s secularism was beginning to invade the public school system and my parents recognized that a better, Christian education was available at the Parochial school in the city, into which we were enrolled as I entered 3rd grade. I remember a friend and classmate once in the 3rd or 4th grade telling me he was “sorry that you’re poor”. I was taken aback by that comment as I never thought myself as poor and actually felt quite privileged. I was sorry for him because he lived in a rented apartment in the city, didn’t have a father and couldn’t experience the joy and freedom of living in the country with 150 acres to call your own, and in a home your parents owned!
Thanks to my parents foresight and guidance my siblings and I have achieved comfortable, no, luxurious lives compared to the lean times on the farm. These opportunities exist today but the liberal elite is loath to suggest that one pull one’s own boots on, insisting that the “disadvantaged” must be cared for and provided every luxury available at the expense of those who have made the effort.
I took an early retirement at age 55 from an engineering position in research and development and have never looked back. I wanted and needed to put all my energy into the business my wife started some years earlier, as the business was demanding so much of my time, I was burning out. Our business has continued to grow and is a source of pride and satisfaction in our own self-reliance. We have moved from our modest 20 acre farm in Connecticut to my childhood property, built a new house and barn and are restructuring our businesses to better enjoy the fruits of our labors. Everything we have was earned by the opportunities this great country offered, and we owe no one, except God and the wisdom of our founding fathers.
I believe the spirit that made this country great is still alive, however the push toward socialism, secularism and political correctness by those who learned well that “the pen is mightier than the sword” are turning our constitution inside out and silencing, no, criminalizing, those voices of opposition to that agenda. Though memory cannot produce an exact quote, I remember Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union banging his shoe on the table of the UN proclaiming they (communists) will bury us.
In addition to the usual suspects, there’s an overt movement out to destroy America as we know it, who they are I do not know. What I do know is there’s an unfettered movement, thanks to the freedoms granted by our constitution, bent on preventing myself and other patriots from exercising these same freedoms. Events validate the existence of this decidedly anti-American movement, destroying our free society.
This Blog is intended to add my voice to those in opposition to the destructive road we’re on.
The Author
New York State Resident
Registered Republican
Vietnam Veteran
Business owner
