Thursday, October 1, 2015

"WHAT IS THE GOVERNMENT?"



                                 “What Is The Government?”

I have just returned from Indiana where I helped lay my 100 year old father to rest. Memory tapes have been playing in my mind now for several days. Some are funny and some are sad. Some are the sort of experiences that tend to shape and mold our lives.

One such experience happened when I was about nine years of age. I was walking with my father to the most distant field on our small farm. Even to this day I can take anyone to the exact spot where this incident occurred. This was during the time when rural families would sit and watch the radio! My father insisted that my brother and I be silent while the news was on the radio. I had listened to enough newscasts to have heard of something called the “government.”  On that memorable day, just a father and young son walking together, I asked, “Dad, what is the government?” Without hesitation and with absolute certainty he replied, “Son, in America the government is the people.” Dad’s answer then was far from this small boy’s understanding.


Subsequent schooling and 20 years of proudly wearing this nation’s uniform served to bring my father’s short, yet

laser like answer into sharp focus. Over the years I shared his love for American history, especially about fellow Kentuckian, Abraham Lincoln. Just a year ago I sent him a magazine about Lincoln at Gettysburg. I like to think his answer to me when I was nine first echoed on that scared battlefield when President Lincoln said, ”… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth. "


























































































































































Glenn <><
Just West of Yesterday






































































































































































                                 
            
                                   



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