Thomas Jefferson and the environment

I'm hoping to go to Monticello next year. I know it will be a totally emotional experience for me. He was a man who experienced great emotional pain. Only two of their six children lived to see adulthood, and yes he loved his wife very much. He was also a man who loved dancing, reading, music, and food. I read he had all of his cheeses imported from Italy, and had a kickass recipe for macaroni and cheese... a man after my own heart. ;-). I think it is good to see them as the humans they were along with great and brilliant minds that birthed this nation. He will surely also always be one of my inspirations in life.

Thank you Jan. There wasn't a person ever born that was more conservative than my dad. He was a retired USN Commander with a Bronze Star from Viet Nam, yet he had degrees in biology and botany. He was a right-wing gun-nut who wouldn't let his own son deer hunt on his land. I saw him nearly stroke out numerous times because of Clinton, and I saw him revert to his childhood when he found an American Chestnut sapling on his property. He had a beautiful white pine behind the house that caught a beetle. He spent hundreds of dollars on some stuff the state forester recommended to kill the bugs but it was too late. For him, it was like losing a friend. My dad died 14 March, 2009, just a couple weeks after they came and cut down his friend. Just as well I suppose. He would have never survived Obama.

Sorry for your loss. It matters not the politics, when you lose a loved one the pain is just as deep. I lost my parents as well, my mother when I was only 17 and my father only a year after I was married... and he was an Archie Bunker if I ever saw one, but I loved him dearly. He hated "Tricky Dicky" but didn't like Johnson much either. He gradually pulled away from even talking about politics because it would upset him too much and he became very cynical about it all. And actually, his cynicism wasn't unfounded in my view. He could be as hard as nails, but then, get teary eyed at a sunset and write a beautiful poem about it. Go figure ;-).

I hope the two of you don't mind that I stumbled across your conversation about your respective fathers. Both stories, though brief, were quite moving. My Dad took off when I was 8, so I have no idea whether he is Republican, Democrat or Martian.

But I can nonetheless relate to your circumstances via my relationship with my Great-Grandfather. He was a crusty, hard-bitten farmer/rancher who fed his family off a dry land farm near the Canadian border that was one hell of a lot more "dry" than "farm." He had immigrated to the United States from Norway at the age of 16 and still had a strong accent 70 years later, when I was old enough to start having actual conversations.

He was as tough as old leather -- not a "conservative" or a "Republican" so much as he just thought that anybody who did not work as hard as he did was lazy and shiftless. And NOBODY worked as hard as he did. We used to joke that he was so mean that he didn't need a shaving razor, he just chewed his whiskers off from the inside...

The funny thing is, just before he died -- a couple months short of his 101st birthday -- he suddenly decided to tell me about the dust bowl years when he was in his late 20s. He said he couldn't coax a crop out of the ground to save his life. He, his wife, and their four children would often go an entire day without eating. In fact, he ended up sending the two oldest girls to live with strangers because they would be fed in exchange for housework.

Suddenly, he turned to me, eyes a little moist, and said that he didn't know if he had one of those "nervous breakdowns" they talked about these days, but there were a few months right in the middle where he knew dspair like never before or since and just getting out of bed to face the day was almost more than he could bear.

Well, I about fell off my chair in shock. But I will never forget that moment. I think in his own way he was trying to tell me that no matter how strong we think we are, EVERYBODY stumbles at some point. And that was OK, so long as you got back up, dusted yourself off, and kept moving forward...

Dang people, there is hope.

Peace be unto ya'll.

cztheday: 101! Bless his soul. Thank you for your story. He sounded like a good man to talk to. And I really believe that people in America decades before because of their hardships learned to respect and cherish what they had. I think society today is now way too pampered, and that has made many apathetic to what is truly important. Our grandparents and parents knew true sacrifice and knew to appreciate the simpler things in life. And for me that is what gives us the most pleasure.