Sign on Highway 99 in California, March 1937, by Dorothea Lange, via the Library of Congress.
By Ashley Herndon
OCEANSIDE, Calif. | Note this picture from times past. Thanks to your parents and grandparents, they got us where we are today.
Herndon
This picture of course was from a previous decade. I am old enough to remember seeing that sign and similar magazine pictures and believing them wholeheartedly. The days of good uncensored public educational opportunities made them possible.
Show this to the homeless and the other hungry people. It seems millions of people are still trying to get here and an awful lot of people already here are trying to keep them out. Shouts of “Close the Border” resonate throughout the land.
According to professional economists our country is booming. Some even say it is because of immigration. I personally don’t have the data so I can only read and think about what I have read. But “booming” sounds good to me.
How many of our current residents would go to the Salinas Valley of California or Florida or locations in many other states and take a job at or below minimum wage bending over all day to plant and harvest food for people who would not say to them “Good Morning,” much less stop to chat? Not being a scholar of any sort, I most likely see things differently from some others, but I do all I can to stay away from social/political myopia and navel gazing.
If we are the “Highest Standard of Living” country, then why are there so many people
who have to stoop to pick our foods? Across the nation, some governors are sending bus loads of folks to cities out of their state for whatever reason. I read just this week that those cities’ crime rates are lower than some of the states that are sending them away. Go figure.
How do some state executives who claim to represent “State’s Rights” impinge upon other States? I am not the brightest star in the sky but isn’t that a bit more than hypocritical.
The current buzz in some quarters is “Christian Nationalism.” It sounds like some elements are trying to take us from a secular nation where freedom of worship is a person’s (not the government’s) business. I can remember as a child in Sunday School at Morningside Baptist Church being taught to “Love my Neighbor.”
Then as digital messaging grew, my children thoroughly enjoyed the televised National Public Radio program, “Mr. Rogers,” who sang a neighborly song every day. Though he passed away in 2003, we celebrated his birthday on March 20. His kind manner and his way of teaching is sorely missed today, for both adults and the younger set. Ten to 0ne, some of his messaging would be censored today.
I suppose a good thought for today is from the Old Testament: “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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