Why
the Nation Needs My Parents
Published in Marietta Daily Journal July 17, 2016
Around 11 pm, having arrived with my
high school team from an away basketball game, I began the two-mile trek from
the school to our house out in the country.
On the edge of town, one of the city’s three policemen stopped me and
asked why I was out walking so late.
After
also securing my name, he asked, “Are you Walter Hines’ boy?” “Yessir,” I said. “Oh, ok,” was his response as he drove away.
Being
Walter Hines’ boy often made my life easier.
My father (1894-1979) was well known in town. Perhaps that was because he went to the bank
fairly often to borrow money or because he did all of our shopping in town
since my mother (1900-1965) didn’t think she could dress nice enough to go to
town.
My
father lived through WWI, the Depression, WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam
War. Although two of his sons engaged in
some of the bitterest fighting in WWII, it was the Depression that most deeply
stamped his mind, producing story after story of frugality and sacrifice.
My
mother bore her first child at age 17 and her last (her 17th) at age
47. A working mom, her work place was
fields and huge gardens. She had no
problem with Southern heat and, as one of our pastors put it, “wasn’t too cute
to sweat.”
My
parents laughed much. Their joy came
from their children and the friends and neighbors who populated their small
world.
That
world actually wasn’t so small. My
father had a high school education. He loved newspapers and magazines. In our humble abode I can say we never lacked
for intellectual stimulation.
Our
mother didn’t contribute much to that stimulation. Her incredible gifts lay elsewhere. Her 7th grade education produced
the ability to read, but she often stumbled while reading. One of the joys of my life was to pronounce
words for her. Once she ran into so many
difficult words that she said, “Can you sit down beside me and read it to
me?” Obliging her on that afternoon,
before saying goodbye and leaving for college, is still one of my most precious
memories.
So
why would I argue that a nation, especially the most advanced nation on earth,
could learn and benefit from a tenant farmer and his semi-illiterate wife? Because one night at supper, after I had told
about a friend at school being punished for stealing, my father said, “Well,
starve to death and be ready for heaven, but don’t ever steal, even for
food.” And because my mother, whenever
her children would tell her of their misfortunes, would listen and then
invariably say, “Well, just go on.”
My
father’s words would be called absolutism today. (You mean we can’t steal food even if we’re
starving?) He granted moral relativism
no quarter. He would be aghast at
today’s twisting and contorting of what he considered absolutes.
My
mother’s words bespoke the outlook that one should not fret, but hold up and
face the wind.
Oh,
Mama and Daddy! America needs you. We
need to honor manual labor again, to get out of our houses and do something to
make us sweat as you did, to go meet our new neighbors, of whatever background
and race, and then take them something.
Daddy,
we need to give somebody our last dollar as I saw you do a couple of
times. We need to admit that demon rum
is still demonic, that teenagers are not wiser than their parents, that being
good is better than being smart.
And
Mama, thank you for not aborting any of us.
Many today would cast you as a victim or even look down on you for
having so many children. And you would
only chuckle.
Neither
of you knew about England’s Wordsworth and Milton, but Wordsworth’s praise of
the great Puritan poet John Milton went like this: “Thou shouldst be living at
this hour / England hath need of thee / Return and give us manners, virtue, and
freedom / Thy soul was like a Star and dwelt apart / Thou didst travel life’s
way in cheerful godliness.” That fits
both of you.
Neither
of you would recognize America now, but neither would you be downcast. You would frown at our bent for therapy. You would show us how to hold to integrity
and how to look upward and outward.
I’m
praying America will start doing just that, and I’m holding on to hope, just as
you would.
Roger
Hines
7/14/16
Mr. Hines very well put.
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