Volley Returned

March 27, 2016

​Dear Andrea,
Since I have some time before we go down to the Bronx I thought I would start this response to your last entry.
You clarified something for me when you said you didn’t want to take the town by storm when you moved to New York, you wanted to participate. In essence you said the same thing I said but in a different way. I said this is the sphere I live in and have a direct impact on in referencing that I didn’t feel that I was responsible for the calamities facing us. In wanting to participate as you said then you are having a direct impact in the sphere you live in as I see it.

When I said you are not responsible for the world’s ills because of birth I think I was expressing an overall belief that I have concerning some people who take on the world’s burdens as their own, as if they were responsible. In the last few times we saw each other I sometimes sensed sadness in you, very fleeting but nonetheless there. I would catch a glimpse of you and it seemed you were deep in worrisome thought. Could be I was wrong in my impression. Then I read your post and it seemed the impression was right. As a parent I wanted to ease your burden so I wrote what I did. That doesn’t mean I didn’t believe what I wrote.

In regards to the Clintons I will try to explain my feelings. For many people of my generation we believed the presidency is an exalted position of great responsibility. We believed the president could do no wrong. We grew up with DDE and JFK and idolized them. When Bill Clinton came around it seemed like Camelot again. This fantasy was revealed for what it was to us and we were doubly disappointed, first by the president and his actions, then by ourselves for being so gullible. I was angry for being so naïve and started to take a more realistic view of what was happening and this affected my thinking.

In an earlier post I said we were the products of a changing world as we move through our lives. The years of you formulating your outlook on the world and your place in it were far different than mine. The world in the middle 60’s when I was a teen was totally different than the early 90’s when you were a teen. What I considered to be the political middle then is certainly not so now. This brings me to your closing words, “convince me otherwise”. I do not want my sons to be able to be convinced by their father to change their views. I want them to make up their own minds based on their own beliefs. We might agree on some things but we will also disagree. I believe in ten to twenty years our beliefs might change as the world changes, maybe not. No one knows.

Bye for now.

Love,
Dad