“It is my hope that the same courage, spirit, and honor, which has brought us together, will one day restore this Union.”

Friends:

  

The other day I learned an interesting fact about our founding fathers.  Apparently our nation’s second and third presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  As we know, the Declaration of Independence was written by Jefferson and delivered to the King of England, leading to the Revolutionary War and the founding of the United States of America.

  

At the same time that I was learning this interesting tidbit of trivia, I was watching a television show about someone’s relative who fought in the American Civil War.  And it struck me at that point that the period of time between the death of two of our founding fathers and the Civil War was a mere 35 years– the length of time that I have been alive.  I still consider myself to be fairly young, so to think that only 35 years separated the founding fathers from the Civil War was staggering. 

  

Which got me to thinking– what would Adams and Jefferson have thought about the Civil War?  A war fought by Americans against Americans, brothers against brothers, fathers against sons… Our founding fathers worked and fought so hard for independence, to be a sovereign nation no longer under the rule of any other nation; so many patriots were killed, and less than 35 years after the death of two of our greatest patriots, the nation was divided in a conflict which threatened to end the union for good.  How would Adams and Jefferson and Washington and Hancock and Patrick Henry and Paul Revere and Israel Bissel and Crispus Attucks have felt about the Civil War??  Wouldn’t they have been appalled by this threat to the Union they worked so hard to create?  How dare these Southerners declare their independence and destroy everything they worked so hard to create!  Who the heck did these people think they were?

  

And then it occurred to me.  I deal with this every day.  No, not on the level of a nation divided and the death of an ideology… but the disruption of a family’s legacy.  Brother fighting against sister, father fighting against daughter, with the result being the destruction of a family’s estate.  We are seeing so much these days of children who are fighting over assets; those assets that their grandparents worked so hard to create.  Grandparents who struggled through the Great Depression, who are no longer around to see the object of their struggles.  Just like our founding fathers who struggled to create this Union.

  

Now look, I can play devil’s advocate and I can argue the other side– after all, isn’t that what attorneys do?  I can argue that our founding fathers would have applauded the Southerners for standing up for what they believed in and demonstrating a willingness to die for their cause.  After all, isn’t that what the Patriots did?  Fought for their beliefs and showed that they would die for their cause?  I can see that.  I can also see the same argument being raised in the matters I see every day.  Wouldn’t the grandparents and ancestors approve of efforts to fight for what is right and not allow wrongs to go unpunished?  Sure, I can argue that way–

  

But at the end of the day, would the founding fathers have approved of the Civil War if its end result was the destruction of everything they had fought so hard to create?  And would the ancestors endorse litigation that threatens to deplete all of the assets that were earned with the years of hard work and exertion?

  

It may just be my own sensibilities, but I’ve got to think that the founding fathers would have been turning over in their graves about the Civil War.  They had to have wondered what the Southerners were thinking when they seceded from the Union and thought that they could tear apart the nation.  It would have felt like a slap in the face, as if all that they had worked for was stomped on and demolished.  And that isn’t even taking into consideration the merits of the Civil War.  Regardless of whether the impetus for the war was reasonable, was it all really worth the destruction of the nation?

  

Of course, there is always the flipside– that the strife between the two sides, the strife between siblings, can only be resolved through warfare.  In which case, batten down the hatches and prepare for ultimate devastation, because the wounds that are caused in warfare run so deep as to span future generations.  Ask the Southerners who still fly Confederate flags.

  

Have a great week.

  

Rob

  

www.robcohen13.wordpress.com

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“Everything old is new again.”

Friends:

  

It had never happened before, but I guess it was inevitable.  Two weeks ago (my most recent original posting), I racked my brain to find a topic, expressed it in my inimitable style, only to have the thesis statement of the topic appear to me after publication.  I thought to let it pass, but the quote was too perfect, too descriptive of how I was feeling with my last post that I had to bring it to you.

  

As you no doubt have noticed, my enjoyment of Charles Dickens grows and grows with each page I read.  I don’t want to sound repetitive (and in this case it is simply taking me weeks to plow through “David Copperfield”) but the coming of age story that permeates Dickens’ writings is so close to my heart as I watch society through the eyes of an adult, while trying to maintain enough innocence to watch through the eyes of my daughter. 

  

In reading my previous posting after the fact, I noticed a strong cynicism in my writing, a bit of aggression towards a society that I perceived as having robbed me of my innocence.  But we all go through that, right? 

  

It reminded me of an instance of such total bliss and innocence that I wanted to share it with you.

  

In the eyes of a child, policemen and firemen are our heroes.  We wave to them as they drive by, take field trips to the station houses, and play outside dreaming of ourselves as the men and women who protect us.  I was driving last week and pulled up next to a police car.  Did I wave to the officers inside?  Did I thank them for their service?  Of course not… I looked away and crossed my fingers that they wouldn’t find a reason to give me a ticket.  There was a time, though…

  

When my brother and I were in elementary school, we used to walk home from school, do some homework, and play outside.  Because we played outside every day at the same time, we saw the same cars drive down our street each day.  And one particular car was a police car, driving towards the Devonshire station at the end of the block, taking the officers inside to end their shift for the day.

  

One day, neither mom or dad were home when we got back from school and this was unusual.  Knowing that the police car would be driving by soon, we stood and waited for it, flagged it down, explained the situation, and hopped into the backseat of the car.  The wonderful policeman and policewoman took us to the station, where we called our dad on his car phone and he came and picked us up.  I wish I could remember dad’s reaction when we said we were at the police station.

  

Sometime between then and now, I feel that a distance has developed, separating us from those wonderful men and women who protect us.  People asked me if there was a specific instance, some isolated and identifiable incident that tore the innocence from me and turned the quiet and close world of black and white Kansas into the colorful world of Oz, inhabited by witches and villains.  I wish I could tell you.  I could say it was the LA Riots, but I was already 16 by then… was it something earlier than that.

  

I don’t know, nor do I really care.  It doesn’t even matter at this point what triggered it; all that matters is learning from it for the sake of being prepared for when it happens to my daughters.  When the world will expand to a size which is unfathomable and erratic and, more importantly, unpredictable.  It can feel like a ton of bricks… 

  

To return to the basis for this post and why I chose to return to a previous topic.  I have read a lot and have seen so many wonderful and literative sentences.  But this was perhaps the most beautiful in terms of what it describes and how it describes it.  It has resonated with me and will for many years to come… and it sums up everything I have been feeling these past few posts.  Enjoy and be taken in by it.  It truly is something special to absorb:

  

“It was as if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, and its peace and honor given to the winds.”

 

The mastery of the English language is something that is special and so incredibly difficult.  To craft a sentence like that is next to magical.

 

Have a great week.

“Young hearts be free tonight. Time is on your side.”

Friends:

 

There was a time when we didn’t know any better, when things were so much simpler.  We had an innocence and a purity which we have never been able to recapture.  It is a shame that youth is wasted on the young.

 

 When we are young, we don’t know about crime or disease or war.  We don’t know about things that go bump in the night or terrorism.  Pirates only exist in Neverland.  We have an outlook on life and the world which is nice and tidy.  The princess always wakes up, the bad guys always look cartoonishly scary and obvious, and mommy and daddy always tuck you in when you go to sleep.  

 

 But real life, the life of the grown up, is nothing like that.  It may be a question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, but at some point we leave childhood and the blissful naivete that lives there and enter the world of reality television, terror in the skies and tragedy.  Bambi’s mother died, but far off-screen– in real life we don’t have the luxury of averting our eyes or hiding under the sheets, believing that when we look back, all will be well again.

 

Of course, we all know that some children don’t have the luxury of living in oblivion, they can’t simply bury their head in their mother’s shoulders until the evil sorcerer leaves the screen.  They are forced to accept reality at an early age and have to decide how such reality will shape their future.  Will they struggle against reality and maintain their virtuousness as long as possible, or will they prematurely jump into adulthood despite their persistent immaturity?  For every story of a young girl who finds her way to success despite the turmoil and misfortune of a poor childhood, there are 10 more that result in crime or death or persistent pain.  Why…  

 

I hate to go back to the well yet again, but think about the more notable novels of Dickens.  Did you think of “Oliver Twist” and “Great Expectations?”  Maybe “David Copperfield?”  Notice anything similar about those books, the most popular of Dickens’?  They all depict the life experiences of the young.  Child characters who view the world from a three-foot vantage point, staring up at the human race with mouths agape.  Even the illustrations which accompanied the serialized novels when first published depict the “heroes” as tiny creatures in a sea of giants.

  

And yet, despite the tragedies and challenges they face, the evil and treachery that they experience, they find a way to maintain their innocence, to maintain a view of life as having been un-foretold.  They start out in the bleakest of circumstances, but through virtue and decency, they overcome their plight.  Sure they don’t do it alone; of course they have help along the way.  But it is their character that attracts such wonderful people, benefactors, who help out.  Neither Oliver nor Pip nor Davy ever seems to say a cross word or act out in frustration; it isn’t their nature.  They are kids who don’t know better; Oliver doesn’t realize that Fagin is villainous and David doesn’t see that Steerforth is a bully.

  

Our kids have that same ability.  You can call it gullibility or susceptibility, but I call it paradise.  Wouldn’t it be nice to return to a time when the world was small, when all we knew was right outside our window?  Where being good and living right meant safety and eventual happiness?  Who wants to really live the life of the tragedian, where everything is gloomy and the sky is always cloudy and dark?

  

We can be that way again.  It takes work, but if we teach our kids that they don’t have to change, that bullies get their due in the end (always!) and that the good guys always win, wouldn’t that create a society of happiness?  Wouldn’t it make life more fulfilling?  Reading the stories of these young heroes is a sobering but heartwarming experience.  There is a certain amount of joy that one takes from living the growing up process all over again and seeing it through the eyes of the pure.  However that pleasure is tempered by the 11 o’clock news.

  

Did you immediately think about “A Tale of Two Cities?”  Talk about tragedy and heartache!  All innocence has been lost; all that remains is the real life of war and terror.  We all cower in fear (and snicker with delight) when the Queen of Hearts screams “Off with her head!”  But there is no glee when our hero faces the guillotine at the end of “Two Cities.”  Real life rears, and then takes, its ugly head.

  

It is incredibly easy to understand why Dickens wrote so many wonderful stories about children…  It is the ultimate escape from reality– more fantastic than fantasy.  It returned him and his readers to simplicity, to innocence, to pleasure.  A pleasure which, sadly and “real” enough, we can never recapture.

  

  

Friends– for the first time since I began these writings, I will be forced to miss a week.  I will see you all again on the 21st.

Rob