OCTOBER 29, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A11
PUBLIC SQUARE welcomes all points of view. Published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Keizertimes
Old days aren't coming back
By GENE H. McINTYRE
If it weren’t for having been raised
with the cultural admonition that ‘real
men don’t cry,’ it’d be easy for me to shed
a tear nowadays over remembrances of
my youth. During the small-person years
of my childhood, my mother didn’t work
outside our home so I often enjoyed
arriving home from school mid-after-
noon to a freshly-baked cookie accom-
panied by a cold glass of milk. If I had a
complaint to air, an inconsequential oth-
er-kid-related thing, she’d listen atten-
tively then offer heartfelt sympathy.
The adults in our neighborhood were
mainly first and second-generation
immigrants from Finland, my grand-
parents having arrived from there in the
late 19th century. Those people knew
how to get along with one another as I
witnessed few heated disagreements, I
never saw a gun brandished nor shots
fired while a fishing pole and clam shovel
garnished every home’s storage space.
Three mothers nearby baked their fam-
ily bread and were always good for a but-
ter-slathered piece upon a slyly-timed
“I’m so hungry!” announcement.
The Finnish Congregational Church
was one block from us. The Finns are
more commonly Lutherans but some-
how that FCC got built in the 1880s
(age took it down some 30 years ago).
It was home to a capacity crowd on
Easter Sundays and Christmas eves with
smaller gatherings other Sunday morn-
ings. The steeple held a huge bell whose
vibrations carried for miles, beckoning
parishioners and Sunday school kids
for whom it was widely hoped they’d
grow-up to deport themselves “like
good Christians.”
I never knew what political party
was followed by anyone. My parents
kept their political views to themselves
although I was aware they voted duti-
fully every election. Thinking back to
the fact that our part of Astoria —on the
west side — was nicknamed Uniontown,
the two biggest canneries being Union
Fish and the Columbia River Packers
Association, it makes some sense to me
that Democrat may have been the most
guest
OPINION
common affiliation. Otherwise, I remem-
ber seeing “I Like Ike” signs all over the
city before the election of 1952.
I’m an older guy who could remi-
nisce about one thing or another ‘until
blue in the face.’ My days of old will
never return any more than the days
could reappear for those who preceded
my arrival. Instead of begrudging lost
yesterday’s, it’s strongly encouraged
we meet head-on the challenges now
upon us by our dramatically-changing
weather conditions. One condition I
never noticed growing up was climate
change; nevertheless, we know it’s real
today and threatening human viability.
It is my sincerest hope that any succeed-
ing generations will not look back at the
2020s with the deepest of angry resent-
ments that we did not rise en masse to
action, proactively interceding to halt
the predicted doom should not enough
be done about it.
(Gene McIntyre lives in Keizer.)
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Colin Powell: Embodiment
of the American Dream
By MARC THIESSEN
Gen. Colin Powell was the living
embodiment of the American Dream. At
a moment when some argue that America
is an irredeemably racist country, his
extraordinary life offers a very different
message for young Americans.
In 1994, Powell spoke to the graduates
at Howard University—one of America’s
great historically Black colleges—at a time
of racial turmoil on campus. He took the
opportunity to remind them they were
blessed to have been born in the United
States. “You have been given citizenship
in a country like none other on Earth,
with opportunities available to you like
nowhere else on Earth, beyond anything
that was available to me when I sat in a
place similar to you 36 years ago.”
Indeed, the only privilege Powell was
born with was being an American. He was
raised in the South Bronx by immigrant
parents who came from Jamaica seeking a
better life. They worked in New York’s gar-
ment district—his mother as a seamstress
and his father as a shipping clerk. Their
son didn’t go to the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point or The Citadel. He was a “C”
student who attended the City College of
New York. But it was there that he discov-
ered the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
(ROTC)—an organization, he said, where
“race, color, background, income meant
nothing.”
When he traveled to Fort Benning, Ga.,
in 1958 for basic training, there was only
one motel on the way that would accept
Black guests. But at Fort Benning, he
found what he described as an “integrated
society” where no one cared about the
color of his skin, only what kind of soldier
he could become. “The Army was living
the democratic ideal ahead of the rest of
America,” he wrote in his autobiography
My American Journey, and his military
service “made it easier for me to love my
country, with all its flaws, and to serve her
with all my heart.” Over the course of his
remarkable career, he broke barrier after
barrier—becoming the first Black national
security adviser, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state.
Yes, he told the Howard University
students, racism still exists. But he urged
them to always remember that “racism is
a disease of the racist. Never let it become
yours.” He exhorted them not to allow “the
dying hand of racism to rest on your shoul-
der, weighing you down. Always let racism
always be someone else’s burden to carry
in their heart.” Most of all, he told them to
“believe in America with all your heart and
soul, with all of your mind. Remember that
it remains the ‘last, best hope of Earth.’”
America’s faults, he said, “are yours to fix,
not to curse.” Remember, he told them,
that “America is a family: There may be
differences and disputes within the fam-
ily, but we must not allow the family to be
broken into warring factions.”
He explained that when he talks to
young people, he tells them not to blame
external forces for the difficulties they
face. We all fail, he said, and when you do,
focus on “how to fix yourself, not to start
pointing fingers at people.” And never for-
get, he added, that in America anything
is possible: “How the devil did I become
secretary of state or a four-star general or
commander of the largest group of sol-
diers in the United States Army?”
He’s right. Only in America would
Colin Powell’s life have been possible.
May he rest in peace—and may his exam-
ple of unity and patriotism live on.
(Washington Post)
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