Where are the grownups?

I miss my Dad. I miss him and all the guys like him who were and are
members of what we correctly call "the greatest generation".

Don't
get me wrong. When I was young I thought he was the biggest dope
around. All that "do a good job and act like you mean it" got hammered
into the thick skulls of my brother and me for our entire stay under
his roof. Of course we didn't appreciate it. We were way too smart for
that.

He and those like him are mostly gone now. Dad died twelve
years ago this May. His contemporaries are exiting the planet in
numbers over one-thousand each day just when we need them the most.
They were grownups. They and our moms got the job done without
complaint even when the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against them.
Think about it. First, they were the children of a worldwide economic
depression; then they were handed the massive crap sandwich we know as
World War II. They sucked it up and not only survived but thrived
throughout this one-two punch that would have certainly staggered, if
not flattened, we Boomers and our progeny. And...they saved the world.

What
concerns me today is: Where are the people who have the courage to know
what is the right thing to do and are able to do it? We seem far too
worried about how fat we are, how much money we have, and if the Eagles
REALLY ARE re-uniting for one more tour than we are about the things
that truly matter.

When my father was in the final stages of Alzheimer's,
he spent the better part of a day thinking I was someone else. I played
along and pretended to be one of his long dead Navy buddies. Then, as
my wife and I were leaving for the airport and a trip home to
California, he had one of those rare moments of clarity so common to
that disease. He looked at me and said, "Sorry I didn't recognize you
Kenny.""You looked just like a man." It was the nicest affirmation I
have ever received.

I miss you Dad.