Grumpa Joe's Place

Wow! Too many projects with too little time to finish them. Does that sound familiar? Let me tell you something folks, it doesn’t change with age. As long as a person has his health, and mental faculties, he will continue to want to be a useful citizen of this earth.

Several years ago, during the election cycle pitting John McCain against Obama, a friend asked asked a question. As a conservative He was concerned because as a conservative, and the candidate aligned with his political philosophy was an older man named John McCain. He looked at me and asked, “how old are you Joe?

“Seventy,” I replied.

“Do you feel that you have the energy and mental capacity to be president?

“Yes,” was my answer. 

The real question in my mind is whether nature will be good to me, and let me keep my health and energy as I age. I fully intend to stay healthy, and today, I am reasonably healthy, but will I stay that way for much longer? I don’t know, neither do you. Only the Lord knows what is ahead of us. All we can do is, “Remember yesterday, Dream tomorrow, Live today.” 

So what if our current conservative candidate is old? He will select a younger Vice Presidential partner, who will rise to the occasion if it is necessary.  It is also a fact that young men die too. Many of them live a higher risk life style than older men, so their chances of meeting with injury or accidental demise is probably greater. Remember Christopher Reeves, “Super Man,” broke his neck while enjoying his passion, i.e. riding a horse. More recently, Heath Ledger died of too many medicines at one time. To quote Forest Gump, ” Shit Happens.”

 Life is filled with stories about people who die when they shouldn’t.

Instead of worrying about a candidate’s age, and his prospects for surviving life, we should concentrate on which political philosophy we want our kids, and grandkids to grow up with. We should be discussing our life values and the reasons that we believe in them.

My parents were staunch Democrats. They made one “X” under “D” on their ballot. They believed in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the saviour of the working class. Mom and Dad, lived through the depression, they blamed President Hoover for everything that went wrong with the economy. Yet, when I think about how they taught me to live, they were as conservative as the day is long. They never spoke of conservatism, but they lived it. They wouldn’t have understood what “Green” meant, but they lived more “Green” than any modern citizen does today. Their bottom line philosophies:

“If you don’t have the money, don’t buy it.”

“When you have land, you will always be able to feed yourself.”

Mom wasn’t talking about acres or hundreds of acres, she was talking about a back yard. She made our tiny yard into a farm. She raised vegetables, chickens, flowers, and some grass too.

“Never waste.” Mom knew how to mend socks, shirts, and pants. She knew the value of re-cycling hand-me-downs, and somehow we managed to survive without knowing we were poor.

“Welfare is for people who are worse off than we are.” My Dad would have hung himself before he accepted money from the government. He came to this country with the clothes on his back, got a job, learned English, took abuse from his co-workers, and managed to feed and educate three kids.

If you believe in big government, and the philosophy that Big Brother should take care of you, that’s okay. You should vote for the Liberal.

I happen to believe that the government is way too big, and the National Debt is out of control. If you want to tax me to pay off the debt, okay. If you want to tax me to pay for more social programs, go fly a kite.

I’m voting conservative even if the candidate is 101 years old. He’d be the much wiser choice.

I just turned eighty-seven, and I voted for an old man, who in my eyes is a teenager compared to me. I still feel mentally capable of doing the job, but I am a little slower than I used to be.

Filed under: Aging, Characters I knew, family, Garden, Memories | Tagged: aging, Conservative, Green, liberal, politics | Leave a comment »