Good - Better - Best

   My father was a union electrician for almost forty years. He pulled his own weight and went to work for forty hours every week. All the while, he provided for my siblings and me. Many days he came home exhausted or just frustrated with his working conditions. Despite his long work days and unending responsibilities, he eventually progressed into a management job and retired just a few years ago.


   I suppose I grew up the same way that most of my peers did, hearing the same old tale of how my father walked five miles to school uphill, both ways, yadda yadda yadda. You know the tales our parents adamantly stuck to. (Total bull because I live in the mostly marsh area of Louisiana) All my life I can remember him harping on me to get a better education. Throughout my school years he constantly pushed me to put more effort into my education. He would say “Son, you don’t want to end up working at a dead end job like me. Get yourself an education and life will be much easier for you.” Ultimately, I graduated high school, and after a few years of working construction, decided to try my hand at college, only to drop out after less than a semester. Too much of my day was filled with a job that “paid the bills”, not allowing enough time or dedication to further my education. I still had no idea why my father placed such weight on a good education. His bills were paid; he didn’t face the layoffs that the construction industry did, what was wrong with his way of life?

   Now I am faced with the task of raising three teenagers, I am just starting to see how much of a struggle it must have been for my father. I worked construction for twelve years before landing a job at the electrical powerhouse my father retired from. Every day at three a.m. I rise to another day of what I would equate to as “lower, middle class America”. Not a poor man’s way of life by any means, but no Donald Trump living here either. And after all the years of hearing my father preach to me, I find myself giving the same sermons to my children. Now I am not for one minute complaining about, or poor mouthing my current situation in life. That, in its entirety, is the reason for tonight’s blog.

   You see, as good as my father’s job was for him, and as good as my job has been for my family, I, like my father, wish for my children to surpass my accomplishments. As Americans we have always been this way. It is not greed, but instead an undying commitment to better ourselves. I would love to see my grandchildren reach even higher goals than my father or I could ever imagine. My third grade teacher taught our class a rhyme that has stuck with me to this day. “Good, better, best, never let it rest, until your good is better and you better best.” This train of thought is dying quickly in America. As a people we “accept” the flagrant abuse of our welfare system. It is no longer a helping tool, but instead has become a way of life for a new generation of Americans. The pride that once came with accomplishment and over-achieving is fading from our children’s mentality. It has become more and more common for underachieving to be accepted and nurtured.

  I have heard the saying “Acceptance is condonance.” Is this what we wish for our children? A way of life where the public condones welfare, food stamps, government health care, and acceptance of all biblically unethical ways of life? I still cannot stoop to this new administration’s backward un-American ways. I, like much of the population, know in my heart what is right and what is wrong, and will not let the government bully me into condoning a way of life that Americans have never before accepted. We must continue to help our country stay on the right path and not accept any alternative other than the path we have previously condoned. It is our moral duty to persevere against this destructive administration’s agenda of “change”.