Shades of Johnny Horton

Greetings earthlings.  Are you keeping your stick on the ice? Are you walking on sunshine?  Feeling the Moonshine?  Hello lamppost.  Smell the roses.  Stop!  and smell the roses.  Third star on the right.   Sometimes I want to vent and rant because we people are so divided.  Why can't everyone just see things the way I do?  No matter what I do ..or don't do.....  I am hurting someone somewhere.   You can't be on the "right" side of everything.  That's what religion has tried to set up for thousands of years.  It don't work.   I think of myself as a "good guy".  I don't cheat on my taxes.   I don't cheat on my wife.  I believe in kindness and tolerance .. and the golden rule.  Yet in some cases I am a "bad guy".  Lloyd you don't believe in God?   Correct.   Ok Lloyd,  you don't believe in religion, but everybody believes in God!   No I don't.  But Lloyd do you believe in something bigger than yourself?   Yes.  Very much.   Let me think of an illustration :   Ok.  I pick guitar a bit.  Just a three chord strummer.  Always acoustic,  always steel six string.  I'm having trouble getting to my point.      You plug in a Fender Telecaster, tune it,  and hand it to me.  I'm gonna smile and feel the now,  and I'm gonna play an A chord.  Not up the neck.  Ballad style.  A second fret, one finger, master bar,  A.     I will play and sing one of two songs:  "From a Jack to a King"  or  "The Battle of New Orleans".           "In 1814 we took a little trip.  Along with Col. Jackson down the mighty Mississip.  We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans."            The song is about Andrew Jackson and a battle that took place at New Orleans. Col. then General
Jackson had defeated the British and the war was already over for two weeks!  I still haven't made my point.  I've been singing the song for 59 years.  Jackson became the seventh president of the U.S.          When I was 11 years old I used to get Jackson-  "old hickory" confused with  Col. Francis Marion- "the swamp fox"   of the  earlier Revolutionary War.  Another song:  "Swamp fox,  swamp fox, tail on    his hat.  Nobody knows where the swamp fox at!  Swamp fox, swamp fox ridin' through the glen.  He runs away to fight again!"   A Disney series I think.  Still I can't get to the point.

Andrew Jackson later in his career when he was in fact President was responsible for the infamous and barbarically cruel relocation of the Cherokee Tribe from their legal homeland. A 1000 mile death march of men women and children.  4000 Native Americans died.   Growing up I never knew about this.  Sheltered life.  Or poor student.  Or both.  In 1973 with the Wounded Knee uprising and Indian affairs resolutions I became aware of what President Jackson had done in 1838.  And the last Indian Wars battle was in 1890.  Somehow I didn't connect it to "Old Hickory" where they ran thru the briars and they ran thru the brambles!  So now the protesters want to take down the statue in D.C. of  "Ole Hickory".   My hero from 11 years old until I was about 20 on the green pastures of the University of Maryland.  I'm sorry but my old hero Andrew Jackson is a bad guy.   And  many of our Founding Fathers owned slaves including Patrick Henry and George Washington.  In their case I will just say that for blacks those were bad times and to blacks they were bad men.   No men are perfect.  No political system is perfect for all.  Still have yet to make my point.  So for 400 years in North America,  Blacks and Native Americans have suffered severely at the hands of the whites. And it still goes on.  Ok here's my point and you've heard it before.   I love America from sea to shining sea.  I love the flag.  The Constitution.  Thine alabaster cities gleaming.  The lady of the harbor welcoming the tired and poor longing to be free.  The star spangled banner in Triumph Shall Wave.  O're the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.   America is not great.  Never has been! She's a noble experiment.  The Fathers knew that!  We all know that! That doesn't mean she can't be great!  She's only as rich as the poorest of the poor!  Only as free as an iron prison door!  Only as strong as our love for fellow man!  Only as tall as we stand!  Stand beside her and guide her!  Beauty that words cannot recall!  Her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom!  Glory shall rest on us all!  On us All!                       Thanks readers.. I love you..        LLITTY        :::::+:::::