If you have kids you also have a large amount of it. It comes with the birth of your kids. From how much hair they were born with, their awareness, their first smile, their first step, so on and so forth. This pride is one of the perks of dealing with the challenges that being a parent brings. Pride is kind of a strange thing though. It is not static by any means. It grows, it shrinks, it disappears, it explodes, and it comes in varying amounts. When kids are young there are always many demands on the parents time, all the things that need to be done to try to maintain a reasonable and responsible life. The kids, no matter how many, all come with their own personalities and at a very early age, their own opinions. It amazes me how early both of those things become noticeable. Shaping and training also starts at this very early stage. My son (a horse trainer) has an opinion that training is ALWAYS going on, either you are doing the training or you are getting trained, I think that really is more prophetic than he even realized. Good or bad, kids are always being trained by word and deed. Isn’t funny how kids will pick up words or emotions that their parents wish they had not. Example: While my brother was visiting his sons family in a different state his 4 year old (I believe at the time) granddaughter, impatiently, wanted to show him something in her room that she was excited about. He wasn’t responding to her plea as quickly as she wanted so…….. standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips she announced in an authoritative voice, “Grandpa, you are starting to piss me off”!! Training had indeed taken place. Grandpa didn’t get up right away, but a few eyebrows did. Now just how much pride came with that situation I’m not sure, but it buttresses the point, “training is always going on”.

Those of us that are old enough to have grand kids and even great grand kids get extra doses of pride with the advancements and accomplishments that they achieve. Along with the prideful deeds that we enjoy so much we also get our share of disappointments. If our kids succumb to outside bad influences, or from bad examples within the family, our pride is replaced with shame. Depending on how severe the infraction, and at what stage in development the kids are, our responses vary a lot. Everything from, “I should have been there more” to “ok thats it…… he made his bed and he can lay in it!!” Both “extremes” that are usually said out of the frustration about the lack of the “personal control” that a parent can feel.

Todays news is filled with excerpts from a personal computer that has some disgusting video which is being replayed over and over.

Talk about “dirty laundry” …………. but this isn’t just dirty laundry. This is a window into the workings of our national governments corrupt and illegal behavior at a level that is hard to believe. It deeply involves most of the law making and law enforcing agencies at the federal level to one degree or another. You have seen it all. The responses from the public have been almost as disgusting as the videos. Puzzling too…….. because the righteously earned National outrage that one would expect to be instantaneous is MISSING!!! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??? Is there no limit to the things that people are willing to accept as partisanship? Right and wrong……. good and bad……. legal and illegal……… moral and immoral……… or is it once again the battle of the good against the EVIL? More on that later. Here I am thinking of the pride the “leader” of our country must feel…….. as a parent……. watching these videos being blasted across the whole world with all of its repulsive implications. No matter how deeply Joe is involved in his sons behavior, to SEE it on TV HAS to be gut wrenching. His sons weaknesses and obvious foreign manipulation is being excused as a political issue and that might help ease his disappointment and embarrassment, but as a parent I know that it wouldn’t ease mine. Maybe his ambition is enough swallow it all as the price to be paid for…….. for what?……… for whom? He has become a babbling old man that embarrasses the whole country and our allies every time he speaks publicly. How much dementia is necessary to be so deeply involved in all of this and not have your eyes filled with tears as you see your son sink into the abyss of all that you have been taught is “EVIL“! Maybe the brain fog of dementia is enough that it helps but then that doesn’t explain the whole family’s involvement. How far does the evil reach? All of the implications involved with our current situation present difficult answers that might turn this around, but whoever is doing the manipulation will not give up easily.

But……. one man……. alone……… even the most powerful man in the world……. with his thoughts…………… in a moment of clarity…………. in his prayers………… with tears in his eyes and ache in his heart…………… is it PRIDE or SHAME? Does he ever think, “how did I get here”! I can’t help but pity him….. as a dad…… but the pity I feel for him does NOT decrease the resolve I feel to fight THESE ATTACKS on our way of life. Fight the evil and work for the good. Do not give blind allegiance to a party or a movement. THINK folks THINK…….. don’t just “feel”. Make YOUR parents proud!! From the kitchen counter over coffee, it’s………….. Dave of The Woods