a new hope with the recent election....

A lot of folks have weighed in on our recent election and what they think it means to our country. So here I go with my two cents….
This historic inauguration hopefully will mean a better life for a granddaughter....now 11...who is biracial.
An event I never thought, in my twilight years, that I would live to see.
I was raised in the mountains of West Virginia, and though I had little contact with blacks growing up, my folks taught no hate of my fellow man just because of his or her race or background.
Accept a person for what he is.
I was in the U.S. Air Force in tech school when President Truman integrated the services.
So when I got to my permanent station, Bolling Air Force Base, I was assigned to a room with three other airmen..
The master sergeant was black, the staff sergeant was Polish Catholic, the buck sergeant was Jewish and myself, raised in the Hill in the Holly Roller churches of West Virginia.
Our little "United Nations" got along fine...no cross words just four guys who became good friends and shared any duties that came our way.
Equality supposedly was here, but not quite yet. The master sergeant would give me a lift into town, but would not go into a bar or restaurant with me. There was still that "racial atmosphere"
But I think a piece I wrote when my granddaughter,
Amanda was still in diapers, sums up the hopes of the future for the human race:
I called it "A young life...our hope for the future":

A young, innocent life. She eats, she sleeps, she plays, she utters sounds.. And when she needs a change she lets you know in no uncertain terms.
An individual, a personality in the making. Her eyes follow your every movement. She smiles a shy smile...a smile that warms your heart. She crawls across the floor as fast as those little legs and arms will let her. She bangs on a pan left for just that purpose.. She comes up to you and pulls herself up to become a part of your life. She touches you in a way no other can....
She's your future and the future of others.. SHE is the future...
And in your heart you hope the crazed, greedy world will let her survive, grow up feeling the joy of living, feel the despair that all of us feel at onetime for another. She is a blending of two cultures. She is the hope that can bring the human race together as one.....
Her sparking eyes, her smile. ..those will touch a lot of folks during her lifetime.. I look at her and wonder: Will she have happiness or will tears spill over the edge? We are on this earth such a short time.

While the famous and infamous are remembered for their deeds and misdeeds, the others...the ones that make this world turn and turn yet again, only live as long as they are a part of a memory....
A grandchild remembers....
A great-grandchild remembers...
A great-great grandchild remembers....
A great-great-great grandchild remembers.....