Page 8 - November 2020 Voices

COVER STORY

Moving forward to this year of 2020 with Many factors have led up
so many firsts and divisions among family, to the great divide of 2020—

friends, and social media folks, I see a lot of the year people want to end
behaviors that my family would not tolerate. and forget. But we must
The lesson my father taught me was you can never forget because we
accomplish whatever you want to with enough must learn and evolve.

determination. He taught me that just because The difficulties of 2020
you have a certain belief system, that it does not offer us many lessons
mean it is always absolute—especially if it hurts and experiences that can
another person. He ate the turkey he disliked. make or break us. The

Today, my observation is many people are choice is ours. Let’s take a
tightly adhering to their belief systems as if life step back and breathe. Love,
itself depended on it. We are living in troubled kindness, and compassion
times of Covid-19, shutdowns, and raging wildfires leads to understanding.

that destroyed homes and life. Couple that with Understanding will
our politicians acting like spoiled brats where accomplish much
us kids would have been taken to the woodshed more than a well-
for such behavior. (Oh by the way, we did have placed verbal

a woodshed.) I yearn for a return to the values I b a r b ,
learned growing up. Today’s political divisions Molotov
are so vast that I wonder if we can ever come cocktail
together again and remember what is important. hurled

If this sounds like a sentiment from a love during a
child growing up in the 1960’s, so be it. Love protest,
and unity can fill hearts just as easily as hate or
and disagreement. Behavior is always a

choice. My Dad showed me how that works.
It starts with the little things. It always
starts small. He knew this and always ate
the turkey. It was a small concession borne

out of love for his wife and family. Peace was
more important to my Dad than whether he
ate turkey, besides Mom fixed about 20 dishes
so he had a lot to eat.

8 ONE COMMUNITY