Today I am feeling robbed. Not as in our house being burglarized or something of that sort. In terms of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coming up on July 4. Let me explain. It will take a couple of minutes. Or four centuries.
Except for some recent Irish ancestors (gr grandparents and 3 gr grandparents on different sides), and my immigrant Cowing ancestor (who was sold as an indentured servant in Massachusetts in the early 1650’s after being taken prisoner during the English Civil War), most of my family has been here since the Great Migration (1620-40) in which about 20,000 people came from England looking for a better opportunity. Before I go any further, yes, I am aware, of course, that there were people here already, and they were systematically killed or displaced. Some of my ancestors actively participated in that and I regret it although I can’t change it.
My brothers and I are descendants of twenty one Mayflower passengers, a number of whom died in their first winter here. Luck of the draw. Many of our ancestors lived in eastern Massachusetts. Scratch long enough and you’ll find a Mayflower person.
I can just about field a baseball team with my Revolutionary War veteran ancestors. Not to brag, which I’m not. It’s a fact. Most came back home but not all. One that didn’t was Robert Munro, the 63 year old ensign of the Lexington Militia. He died on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775.
I grew up knowing that I had ancestors in the war, including two whose last names I bear as my middle and last names. But my parents always told us that we should never boast about ancestors because we didn’t do anything to inherit them. It just happened.
I don’t want to differentiate between myself and someone who came here from a different place and went through the citizenship process very recently. I’m no more an American than they are. We’ve just been here longer. All of my earliest American ancestors came from somewhere else too.
So the anniversary feels personal to me. I know it does to others too, such as to those recently granted citizenship. I applaud them. It’s for them too. My personal connection is different, not better.
So, feeling robbed? We have a senile man child in the White House who sees his role as President to be making a spectacle of himself and lining his pockets and those of his friends. He has no idea what this anniversary means. For him it’s an opportunity to build some cheesy wrestling arena on the White House grounds and celebrate his birthday with a gaudy spectacle that will, no doubt, be played to a half filled Today I am feeling robbed. Not as in our house being burglarized or something of that sort. In terms of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coming up on July 4. Let me explain. It will take a couple of minutes. Or four centuries.
Except for some recent Irish ancestors (gr grandparents and 3 gr grandparents on different sides), and my immigrant Cowing ancestor (who was sold as an indentured servant in Massachusetts in the early 1650’s after being taken prisoner during the English Civil War), most of my family has been here since the Great Migration (1620-40) in which about 20,000 people came from England looking for a better opportunity. Before I go any further, yes, I am aware, of course, that there were people here already, and they were systematically killed or displaced. Some of my ancestors actively participated in that and I regret it although I can’t change it.
My brothers and I are descendants of twenty one Mayflower passengers, a number of whom died in their first winter here. Luck of the draw. Many of our ancestors lived in eastern Massachusetts. Scratch long enough and you’ll find a Mayflower person.
I can just about field a baseball team with my Revolutionary War veteran ancestors. Not to brag, which I’m not. It’s a fact. Most came back home but not all. One that didn’t was Robert Munro, the 63 year old ensign of the Lexington Militia. He died on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775.
I grew up knowing that I had ancestors in the war, including two whose last names I bear as my middle and last names. But my parents always told us that we should never boast about ancestors because we didn’t do anything to inherit them. It just happened.
I don’t want to differentiate between myself and someone who came here from a different place and went through the citizenship process very recently. I’m no more an American than they are. We’ve just been here longer. All of my earliest American ancestors came from somewhere else too.
So the anniversary feels personal to me. I know it does to others too, such as to those recently granted citizenship. I applaud them. It’s for them too. My personal connection is different, not better.
So, feeling robbed? We have a senile man child in the White House who sees his role as President to be making a spectacle of himself and lining his pockets and those of his friends. He has no idea what this anniversary means. For him it’s an opportunity to build some cheesy wrestling arena on the White House grounds and celebrate his birthday with a gaudy spectacle that will, no doubt, be played to a half filled arena.
We have a President who appears to be semi literate at best, whose favorite bedtime reading could very well be last month’s profit and loss statement. He is the most unpopular and least trusted president the country has had, because he is incompetent. And he is building himself a fortified bunker beneath the ruins of the East Wing of the White House to comfort himself in his paranoia.
The President has robbed this country of the opportunity to collectively take a look at who we are and decide what we can do better. There is a glimmer of this in Ken Burns’ American Revolution film. But that’s only a start. What can we do better so that marginalized people in our country aren’t so marginalized, and those who weren’t born here are seen as just as valuable as someone like me who was. We have been denied that opportunity. Robbed by a pathetic old rich man and his cronies who cling to him not because they respect him but what they hope to gain through association with him. These are people who would slit his throat and dump him in the nearest ditch in a heartbeat if it served their purposes. The sad part of that is he thinks they all love and adore him.
So there we are. What will I do on July 4? I don’t know. Maybe drive up to Lexington Green. We haven’t talked about it yet.
We have a President who appears to be semi literate at best, whose favorite bedtime reading could very well be last month’s profit and loss statement. He is the most unpopular and least trusted president the country has had, because he is incompetent. And he is building himself a fortified bunker beneath the ruins of the East Wing of the White House to comfort himself in his paranoia.
The President has robbed this country of the opportunity to collectively take a look at who we are and decide what we can do better. There is a glimmer of this in Ken Burns’ American Revolution film. But that’s only a start. What can we do better so that marginalized people in our country aren’t so marginalized, and those who weren’t born here are seen as just as valuable as someone like me who was. We have been denied that opportunity. Robbed by a pathetic old rich man and his cronies who cling to him not because they respect him but what they hope to gain through association with him. These are people who would slit his throat and dump him in the nearest ditch in a heartbeat if it served their purposes. The sad part of that is he thinks they all love and adore him.
So there we are. What will I do on July 4? I don’t know. Maybe drive up to Lexington Green. We haven’t talked about it yet.
