Happy Birthday!

• by donr
• 2017-07-04 11:00:07
• General Posting
• 1113 views
• 6 comments

What do you call someone who is Genetically German, French, English, Spanish, Asian (Not otherwise specified),  African, Native American Indian (and Neanderthal)?

Easy - A citizen of the USA!  And it is our Birthday, today - so Happy Birthday to us - again.

241 (Plus) years.  Not very long, but respectable.  A whole bunch of us family, in-laws, out-laws, scoff-laws & friends gathered to celebrate our #2 granddaughter's college graduation over Memorial Day weekend (May27 - 30). 

We ranged from 82 yrs down to 6 yrs.  Unfortunately, Papa-George, the other grandfather & the oldest present (at 82), is suffering more than early stages of dementia, so I usurped the prerogative of oldest family member present & asked Granddaughter for permission to say a few words after dinner on grad night.   Being a gracious & respectful 22 yr old, she acquiesed.  Her mother, OTOH, birthed a full-grown Texas Longhorn steer at the thought, deathly afraid that I would turn the gathering into a brawl, or rant & rave about some off-the-wall subject, objected.  Against the normal rolling of the eyes typical of daughhters, afraid that fathers will embarrass them by flashing photos of them bare-naked on a bearskin rug, I prevailed, since granddaughter approved of it.  One stipulation - I had but 5 minutes!

Heh, heh, heh - I got my foot in the door - now for the full half hour speech.

So, what did I tell them?  All the things a good grandfather tells the kids.  Actually, I finished the speech I gave at Daughter's wedding, where I said that we (The current grandparents) owned the future, through the marriage of our children & any potential offspring thereof.  That the future I talked about was now here and the torch was now passed to a new generation.  (Shades of JFK's inaugural speech.)  How many men get to do that - in front of nearly a dozen of the same audience?

I pointed out that since 1862, Our collective gaggle of polyglot families had nearly 150 yrs military service by a dozen of us, in somewhere around 8 wars, and we, regardless of generation had a tie that took us back to the birth of the nation & the adoption of its Constitution in Sept 1789.  All of us, save one, took an oath to "...defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign & domestic..."

For, you see, one of the first laws, passed by the very first Congress, and Signed by G. Washington, the first President, within two weeks of the ratification of that Constitution, was the oath of office for members of the Armed Services.  It has changed but 5 times in the intervening years - all but one change was cosmetic.

For, you see, our loyalty is not to a king, potentate, president, or organization, but to a document, an idea, personifying what our nation is to be about.  The lives of Men are finite, but their ideas can transcend time.

To those who accept my invitation to our birthday party, I ask you to stand & charge your glasses with your favorite beverage - for I would like to propose a toast - To the Constitution of the United States!

Coda:  As I passed the 5th minute of my speech, Dear Wife nudged Daughter & told her the time.  Daughter said "Let him keep going - I want to find out where he's headed with this!  They're actually listening to him."  Then granddaughter took the floor & continued in the same vein for 30 more minutes.  She will start the 150th year of service by our families defending our Constitution...

Happy Birthday, to us...

Donr