Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorrie coey who wrote (19733)	1/13/1999 12:05:00 AM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

Tom Brokaw's book "The Greatest Generation," started me to thinking about my profound respect for my parents and their generation. I haven't read it yet -- just bought it tonight as a matter of fact -- but the title tells the story. It's not that they were made of better stuff, I think, but that they did so much with it. No other generation in history ever will start on horseback and end on the moon. A friend's mother tells the story of when he was a little tike and his Pop came home from the Marines, he refused to go to bed until "that man" left. "That man" had less than an eighth grade education but rose to a high position in the organization that I work for (much higher than I, with my college credentials), has written a book and many magazine articles, and is universally revered by those who know him. He's now 80 years old and still hunts, traps, and fishes, and could walk you and me into the ground -- unless of course you are a marathoner. If you've read "A River Runs Through It," you've seen his name in the acknowledgements -- he's a legendary fly fisher. Though he never got an eighth grade diploma he has an honorary doctor's degree, and well deserves it. He's been my hero since before I can remember. Another hero, my own father, did get a high school diploma two years after I was born by going to night school, and after he had spent eight years in the Marine Corps at Pearl Harbor, on a heavy cruiser that was later sunk, as a recruiting sergeant, a weather forecaster, a glider pilot, navigator on a B-25, and other stuff I can only dream about. In the 53 years he was married to my mother, I never heard him speak a harsh word to her. My wife's father had only a high school diploma, but he flew a B-17 out of England and was shot down after 14 missions. After that he got free food and lodging courtesy of the Germans. He too is 80 years old now. A boyhood neighbor fought in North Africa against Rommel.... Another marched in the Bataan. Sports figures and movie stars are mere cartoons when you have heroes like that in your life. But I have others -- all women. Three of them are the wives of the first three men I mentioned. My mother and mother-in-law total 106 years of marriage to one man each. My mother and her new husband have 109 years of monogamy between them. Their marital longevity did not make them heroic, but it is indicative of other qualities that did. A few men in my own age group I respect and admire, but the heroes my age are all women. I'm not quite sure why that is. I think it is because they achieved much against great odds. I think the thread of commonality that runs through my men and women heroes is a kind of strength to persevere -- to do what is right, even when it is difficult, painful, life-threatening, and costly. They weren't perfect, but they didn't split hairs and they survived. Finally, I don't think they saw each other as either inferior or superior because of their sex. The men did mostly what men do and the women did mostly what women do. But the men got down on their knees to mop floors and care for kids, and the women helped butcher the kill. Some of them even hunted and fished themselves, to their greater glory.