What we have here is a copy and paste - meaning I didn't correct anything - of an open letter addressed to the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Only some of you will enjoy it.
Help me, help you, . . . because one day I’ll be dead . . .”
- Joe Doakes’s Father
(Who is still kicking so long as the gin is flowing and there are olives to be had)
March 30, 2012
Dear President Obama,
My old man owned a factory in the South Bronx. At one point he
employed 100’s of men. These men came from every race, color, and
creed. All were tough and my father was tougher. If you lived and
worked in the south bronx in the 60’s into the 70’s you had to be
tough. When my father was teaching me to shoot he he gave me the
basics; “if you feel the need to pull it, you had better be prepared to
use it . . .” Along with all of the rest. I asked he if he carried
one. His response. “Too small for crowd control . . . flare gun . .
.” Long before those moments I was pretty fouled up.
School was one big disaster after the divorce. Regardless, my old
man, not one to mince words or acts, picks me up from school and takes
me to Friendly’s to try to sort this out a bit; back in the day they
would put a smear of butter on the bun and that was a good burger.
Anyway, we are all finished up and we get set to go, get in this
convertible, and he gets all set. My Oldman is Elvis. In fact when
people say he’s dead, I say no, it’s my Dad he just in hiding. We start
home. A custom “8 track” is blasting Charles Aznavour, “Yesterday When
I Was Young,” and we are heading home. Some guy decides to cut us off
because my Oldman will not make a left fast enough for them; so they cut
around our outside and take the left in front of my old man. Elvis is
now on the hunt. My Oldman cuts the guy off. Shoves his car onto a
sidewalk, instructs me to “look that way!” Pulls the guy out of his
car, and then some lady comes out of the house, and my father instructs
her to call the police. Long story short the police take the guy away
that cut us off. After the quiet dinner and then the citizens arrest my
old man gets back in the car, did not even break a sweat, and looks at
me and says, “Help me, help you, because one day I’ll be dead.”
Who do you think you are kidding Mr. Obama? You think we are mad for
trying to return to a time of economic sanity and rapid growth when
people had work and this nation made things in something called
factories. Yet, you sit their and say no to everything that would
create the very conditions that would make that happen; and you have the
gall to call us mad? The world is nuts. I’ve got the scars to prove
it, so does my father, and his father before him. Both inside and out.
But just because you are scared, hurt or wounded, does not give us
license to do the wrong thing or shirk our responsibilities to our
fellow citizens or our families. We are trying to free our economy from
the burden of government and get it growing again, you can’t do that by
telling people that they have to do it your way. When this nation is
full of people trying to live as Frank Sinatra once sang so eloquently
“My Way.”
I didn’t have “dreams of my commie father.” I had a father who might
have done it “His Way,” but he always did the right thing even if he
was scared, and he never, ever, blamed anyone for anything. He looked
at his hand and played the best cards he could and made a difference in a
lot of lives.
One must ask after three friggen years what have you done? One year .
. . I’ll give you that, two . . . it’s a push hold your breath we might
make it . . . three . . . you’ve got to be flipping kidding me . . .
Respectfully,
Joe Doakes
