My family has come home for a visit and
like always the central meeting point is our parent's family room in
front of the television. Some old habits never die because that is
where we spent most of our family time growing up, watching a
consensus program. In other words it was one we could all stomach at
the same time, especially since in those days, we only had one TV.
Most of the time the station played
whatever dad wanted, period, and usually what dad wanted was sports.
Today was no exception. We were
watching tennis, a Serbian versus a Swiss National, then a Scot
versus a Spaniard. But all of us were simply passing time, waiting
for Serena, no last name needed, to take the court. We didn't know
it, but we had a long wait, because the men played very long, very
entertaining matches, well past Serena's scheduled time of entry.
Like always, the conversation bounced
around the room. We tend to think alike since we're family. However
we, all of us, tend to come to the same conclusions in vastly
different ways and this is what makes the conversation so much fun.
Never an argument, but always different view points and, yes, times
that we agree to disagree. The disagreement always signaled by
someone deciding to go help Mom in the kitchen, which meant, they
went upstairs to watch reruns of Perry Mason or Cannon with my
mother, until they cooled off.
Mom never just sat and watched and
talked with the rest of us. She was more “sniper” in her
approach. In other words, she would walk to the top of the steps,
test the air, launch a volley of thoughts down the stairs toward us,
then suck on her teeth to let us know she was done talking and walk
back into the kitchen to catch up on her show, totally unconcerned
about any blow-back opinion.
Group conversation in my family has
always crossed generations with no one being deemed too young or too
old. If you could talk, and you had an opinion, then you spoke or
jumped into the fray. The young asked questions and sometimes got
several answers. It was up to them to sort it out in their/our heads,
which sometimes led to off shoot conversations for clarification.
Sometimes that clarification amounted to, “don't listen to that
fool, he crazy.”
Next to sports, the other favorite
topic is current events and politics. The generation of elders prior
to this generation was Republican and the talk was exceptionally
lively, back in the day. Nothing like an old Black Republican to mess
up Sunday dinner. These members have since passed on to that great
GOP caucus in the sky. Although I would suspect that based on the
composition of today's GOP, if they were still here, my folks would
have transitioned into Democrats. But that is only my supposition,
based on remembered stances that they periodically took. The current
elder generation is Democrat with a heavy dose of anarchist, ready,
willing and able to fight, if and when the revolution comes. The
conservatives at this time tend to be younger to middlin' in age.
This day was Saturday, September 10th,
2011, and with prompting from the television, our thoughts turned to
9/11, remembering where we were when we heard or saw. For all of us
the images in our mind were as clear as the day we watched the Towers
fall. It never occurred to me that you could knock down a sky
scrapper, and I still can't wrap my head around what I saw that day.
Going around the room, the second plane into the building, the
picture of the second plane frozen in the moments before it struck
the tower and burst into flames, the pancake collapse of the
buildings, the people falling, choosing to transition in their own
way, rather than die by fire, the tears we all shed followed by
tremendous anger and outrage that someone would dare attack our country.
We lost four cousins that day. All
worked at the restaurant on top of the building.
That anger was palpable in the room
among us. My dad, a World War II veteran, stung by the ongoing
discrimination against Blacks even as they served their country. My
brother in law, snatched out of college to become cannon fodder in
the Vietnam war, spending his time on the USS Long Beach parked in
the Gulf of Tonkin firing missiles at the Vietcong laden coast. My
niece, a naval veteran who now makes her living as an air traffic
controller in Texas. My nephew, recently discharged from the United
States Marines, but not before being injured on his first and only
tour of Iraq. Two of us lifelong, active campaigners and outspoken
critics of the wars and any and all discrimination against Blacks, women
and minorities, carrying scars, wounded in our individual ways, drawn
together by name and an act of terror against our home.
The general consensus was that Bush
should have listened to Joni Mitchell and paved a parking lot over Al
Qaida's ass in Afghanistan. Never should have gone to Iraq. Should
have finished what was started in Taliban country. Very supportive
of President Obama, but not real happy with his continuation of Bush
policies crafted in the wake of 9/11.
Another thing we all agreed on, is that
America still has some unfinished business, some scores to settle,
for the USS Cole, for Dar Es Alam, for Lebanon, with Iran and Saudi
Arabia. We're not real happy about Israel either, We collectively
need a Michael Corleone payback for past injuries suffered at the
hands of those who dared to strike at us.
An unspoken consensus in the room....we
were all still crying, inwardly and outwardly.
Healing is taking a very long time.
