Precious Days...Then and Now

Outside View: September Song
By Cheryl Felicia Rhoads

A UPI Outside View commentary
Published 9/16/2004 2:02 AM

HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- It is September in this election of 2004. I am reminded that my father loved to sing "September Song." The lyrics declare "It's a long, long way from May to December and the days grow short as you reach September."

Indeed. Yet, as I watched the Republican convention and the renomination of President Bush at Madison Square Garden, I also had vivid memories of my mother.

Four years ago I watched with my mother when George W. Bush first accepted his party's nomination. Mom was living in a nursing home in the Chicago area. I kept looking over at her, pointing out on the TV when we knew somebody on the convention floor. Later that November, my mother cast her last vote for president.

Back in 1962 she had ostensibly gone to New York to help my older sister after the birth of her first child. Well, that was Mom's cover story Although delighted at the birth of a new grandchild, she also had been long active in conservative causes. So, like a truant schoolboy, my mother snuck off to Madison Square Garden to attend a Young Americans For Freedom rally for Barry Goldwater! My dad stayed behind in Illinois, calling to update her on their own home front. He was always supportive as mom battled more publicly in her political columns over issues my father was also passionate about.

The sister previously mentioned also reminded me that dad also articulated as well as anyone those conservative concerns like ... the case against progressive taxation.

Ultimately my father was just more of the homebody of my two parents. In a reversal of traditional roles ahead of its time, it was my dad who sang as he watched over me when I had the measles. Meanwhile, my mom and my older brother attended the Republican convention in Chicago in 1960. My father and the recuperating 6-year-old me eagerly hoped to spot them both on the TV!

(Oh, my mom was more often there for all the usual motherly duties, but she was certainly at her best guiding her family on our duty as citizens for the health of the nation.)

OK, but later when nobody was convalescing from anything .... except the creeping socialism in the Democratic party, Mom headed Barry Goldwater's volunteer office in Chicago in 1964. (In fact as a 4th grader, I myself sold Goldwater soda pop to help "the cause.")

We had a giant gold button that hung at the back kitchen door. Emblazoned with Barry Goldwater's face, the button also displayed "AuH2O," the chemical elements for "gold" and "water." In the front of our house, my folks posted a sign that read "THIS HOUSE SOLD ON GOLDWATER."

National Review and Human Events were among the periodicals delivered regularly. If the mailman was cautious when he came to our house, it was due to the latter and all the political paraphernalia on display. Even in a then Republican suburbia, we stood out.

My parents are now gone. My dad died in 1975, when I was in college. My mom passed away three years ago, only a couple months before terrorists attacked our country. One of her pallbearers was the same grandchild whose birth brought her to New York in 1962. Now a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, he told me he hoped it would be OK if he wore his uniform that day. His strongly pro-military grandmother must have been thrilled from her view in the beyond.

My mother and father never knew about "September 11th." In their time it was just another date in September. "September" was just the song my dad beautifully sang. Yes, my parents knew the cold war and other social battles, but they didn't know about any of the controversies of today regarding stem-cell research and same-sex marriage. They never knew Michael Moore, but as they were disgusted with Jane Fonda's behavior, I suspect they were also upset by the controversial congressional testimony of a young lieutenant named John Kerry.

Sometimes in today's United States, I'm glad that mom and dad aren't here to know about this thing or that. But after observing the Republican convention of 2004, I feel that they'd both think that the United States is in fairly good shape for all its current challenges. I think they'd decide that the torch has been passed along just fine. Many gave great speeches, but when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke of his gratitude to the United States for its role in fighting the communism that oppressed his country of origin, I was especially moved. Although, now "historians" are trying to challenge his memories, Arnold is right, even the "conservative" parties of Austria were socialistic. And that night, when the media feverishly stressed the California governor's role as a moderate, I still felt like Schwarzenegger was thanking my parents and all those like them for their conservative activism all those years ago.

Each generation makes its mark in moving the world toward darkness or light. Both my parents stressed character and patriotism to me and my brothers and sisters. Now, we siblings don't always agree on politics. And as a family, none of us have ever been short on opinions regarding anything! But we all learned the lesson my folks taught us about the precious light of freedom that is America.

I feel that perhaps just like when she was last there in 1962, a couple weeks ago somewhere in Madison Square Garden, my mother's spirit "reported for duty." But my dad probably called her from home, only this time from heaven, where having arrived first he welcomed her along with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. He probably suggested that they all let others carry on the never-ending struggle for liberty. Still I believe all of them, the movement leaders like Goldwater and Reagan, and the grass-roots believers like my parents, somehow they know that all of their efforts, great and small helped make it possible for an Austrian boy to eventually address a Republican convention as a governor of California.

The refrain from "September Song" concludes "These precious days I'll spend with you." They were precious days 40 years ago for the United States' fight against tyranny. My own parents' courage and conviction guides my own voice today These are precious days in the United States' journey now. They are as crucial in the fight for liberty as then, perhaps more so.

But this particular September day, I say thanks mom and dad for all you both did then. Your example lives with me now and always. Do you hear me? I just glanced out my window and saw the U.S. flag on my porch gently flutter in the wind. Yes, I think they heard.

(Cheryl Felicia Rhoads is a writer and actress living in Hollywood, Calif.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)


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