Growing up I remember my dad outlining detailed social justice plans.  He wanted everyone, especially poor people to “get a fair shake.”  He was against large tenement housing, rather he suggested that subsidized housing be mixed into “normal” neighborhoods.  My dad spent his youth trying to fit in. 

“I worked really hard so that I could buy argyle sweaters to wear to school.  I went to Lowell and argyles were the popular thing to wear.  I would take the bus to Pacific Heights and get off and walk home to the mission so that no one would know where I lived” dad said.

My dad joined the army when he was 16.  He dropped out of high school to enlist.  I wonder if the pressure to fit in got to be too much, or if he was feeling patriotic as it was during WWII.  My dad was a smart guy.  He was always coming up with solutions.  As a kid, when he would give me a solution, I hardly saw the problem.  Now I wish I paid better attention.

I am a dyed in the wool Democrat.  I feel a keen sense of fairness that only seems to emanate from the Democrats.  I don’t follow exact planks and platforms, but the Democrats are for the little man - the Republicans are for the machine - at all costs.  This is what I learned from my dad.  It is what I feel in my gut.  It makes me blue.

• Penny - hammock in the backyard
• Pebble - my grandson giving me his dragon to display on the mantle “forever”
• Ponder - does bad manners and meanness HAVE to be used in politics?