What It Means

I grow weary, at times, of the world around me. I tire of the Clinton criminal enterprise. I tire of the fascist Obama administration that destroys those who disagree with it or do not knuckle under to extortion. I tire of missing emails and appointments of unabashed Communist enemies of my country to important posts. I look back at the country I was born into and realize that country is no more. I am standing in the doorway, ready to leave, reliving the days of my youth, and wondering what our lives here might have meant, if anything.

When I think of the things I’ve seen
And think about what they might mean
I realize that in my time
The world had made a leaping climb
From a young singer they called Bing
And football run from single wing
To small computers driving cars
And spaceships taking off for Mars
That Hallowe’en in ‘29
When I arrived all still seemed fine
But then the Great Depression came
And life no longer seemed a game
Tall trees I climbed, be home by dark
Some baseball in the local park
A teen, the war news every day
The battlefields so far away
The radio, a Silver horse
The ad for Charles Alas course
Then television! Milton Berle
The Op’ry and Minnie Pearl
The jet planes lined up at the gate
The Boeing and the DC-8
The Cold War with the Russian bear
The Fulda Gap, a steely stare
A world we thought would never change
Had leaped ahead, and all seemed strange
Computers came and cell phones too
Good life for all not just the few
I find though that as I grow old
Those youthful times now shine like gold
The trees I climbed reached to the sky
While far below the eagles fly
The baseballs I had hit so hard
Were line drives clear on out the yard
The creek we swam in to get cool
Seemed an Olympic swimming pool
We walked for miles, my mongrel mutt
Beside me in the dirt track rut
As fine a dog a boy could find
And sometimes he would even mind
The days of youth forever gone
The days of waking up at dawn
In the back yard inside a tent
With not a clue what it all meant
It meant that one day we would see
Our children young and such as we
We know at last what it all means
We’ve done our part to pass the genes
Entrusted by those gone before
To those now standing by the door
Reliving now our youthful dreams
While grandkids stand beside small streams
And watch the dragonflies and birds
And know there’s beauty in such words

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