get woke; or go broke!

Woke: to arouse conscious interest in (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

With the recent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump, the political atmosphere has become extremely contentious. And trust me: There is a reason behind every purpose. Even the nation’s Framers recognized the importance of dividing: “Divide et impera” (divide and command – Federalist 7). Yet, in our world, the antagonists are obvious, but the protagonists? Although, maybe in truth, most of the antagonists are us: WE THE PEOPLE. Because I cannot find a single protagonist anywhere. Now, I’ve heard it said: Knowledge is power. But when a lack of knowledge permeates societal norms, what guides the discourse of knowledge? So, in light thereof, let’s take a levity look at the nature of people and politics today using a part of my life as the foundation of basis.

To begin, around the corner, a neighbor who I’ve come to know is a reader of Ricology: A hit and miss participant. How do I know. Each week when I post, I’m able to see who reads and who doesn’t, thus I’m obvious to those who’ve read each email. And honestly, I’m not sure why some have subscribed, when they haven’t opened even one. Although: No harm, no foul, on my part. I’m just doing what I believe I’ve been instructed to do. A God given ability that in no way shape or form was formed or developed by any standard of bearing from my years in school. Which in perspective, perplexes me: Why me? Because when I look back on my life: Odd man out comes to mind. Trust me! In life, I make stupid look smart.

For context, I never learned my given name until I started kindergarten. And when I thought the first day of school had ended well, it didn’t. What I learned: Just because I was the only student who went home with a note pinned to their chest did not mean I was the sharpest student in class, even though I was proud of being the only student with a note pinned to their chest. Then, as the years rolled by, I began to see the truth in what I was oblivious to. At home, I had three names: Son, Damn it, and Ritardo, which caused the kindergarten fiasco in the first place. And as I grew, Ritardo became the home standard to which the other two faded into the history book of forgottenness. It stuck until I joined the Navy. Now, I bet every reader is wondering: What’s the point of this? Bear with me, I’ll get to that.

So, continuing my backward reflection, while living in Spain, I remember walking with Dad one day. I don’t recall the reason, but we were about to walk into the BX (base exchange). I was putting a piece of gum in my mouth when I tripped. As Dad was helping me get up, I’ll never forget: “Damn it! You really can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” Except, he’d always called me Son while Mom: Damn it!

Then the day I graduated high school. It was the year of our Lord 1976: The nation’s bicentennial, and I was graduating last in class. Not alphabetically, but numerically grade wise. The worst part, since I’d entered junior high, I always placed last in class. Even worse, having grown up in the military, when I started junior high, it was in California: 7^th grade. So, by the time I grabbed ahold of that coveted diploma, I’d been through six different schools, and always last in class. To those of supposed intellectual superiority, let that sink in. But first, before judging me and my lack of intellectual ability, look around.

Anyway, the night I graduated, Mom, Dad, and I rode together, Dad steering the wheel of the family car. Having grown to a family of eight, me being the “middle-child,” it was just the three of us attending. The ceremony was at the Theatre of Performing Arts in San Antonio, Texas. Both Mom and Dad being excited, when the event was over, found the principal, gave him the high fives, backslaps and accolades. In their overjoy of every teacher, principal and superintendent having turned a blind eye to my thirteen years of dunceness, they then carried him off to dinner and left me standing alone in the auditorium with my diploma in hand. A truer sense of the phrase “No child left behind” I don’t think exists in either case. Now, twist the words into a cohesion of understanding. But also, being problematic at the time, there was no such thing as a cell phone. So, knowing we were supposed to go to dinner, I had no choice but to sit outside the facility after it was locked up until later that evening when it dawned on them, I did not have a ride home. Sadly, I wore that stupid cap and gown longer than any other high school student in world history.

Well, changing direction and moving way into the future, the day presented when I was actually part of something larger than myself bringing another life into the world. And one can only imagine my fear: Would this newborn be a carbon copy of me? Maybe in unfairness, we gave him the nicknames of “Little Ric,” “LR,” and when he grew older, “R2.” Gadzooks! Would he be as confused as I was? I’d always been oblivious to the obvious, having tripped more than I walked. But by the time he was born, I’d begun to understand the obvious to the obliviousness being forty-two. And two things changed my outlook. I’d read the Constitution for the first time, and I started reading board-books to LR as soon as I could, having become a voracious reader, the antithesis of youth. Now, including those board books, because in youth, I never made it past “Dick and Jane,” the obvious presented. One evening, I broke open a board book … and before I started reading, R2 read it to me, page by page. I’d produced a genius! One cannot mistake my joy that day. He was no more than two and I never put together having read him the story so much; he’d memorized the words listening. Barbara corrected me. Although, he still proved extremely intelligent throughout his school years. R2 is now twenty-two, in college, and in some ways a carbon copy, but in many other ways, on a different plateau I can never reach.

But that Constitution! A pocket pamphlet handed me by Dad. The one I’ve read a thousand times over encompassing the interim of time during R2s upbringing. And to complete the package, Dad then brought the Federalist Papers (even though he hasn’t read them), while Barbara and R2 brought the constitutional debates and a litany of other works, leading up to Ricology. What I learned: Something is amiss. And not just amiss, but completely discombobulated. Part through the two-party system of intent to change the design of the Constitution into an intent of design to destroy the Constitution. And conversely; I may not have been the dumbest one in school after all. Especially when I look around and see what is taking place in our country today, while those of the supposed intellectual superiority follow stupidly along.

Now, the neighbor around the corner says I’m a prolific writer. I just wish I could write well enough to get others to become prolific readers, thus bringing Ricology to a useful purpose, creating geniuses. But another point presents: If anyone wants to see truth, they have to see the obvious in place of the obliviousness. In other words: Wake up! Read, learn, study. Trust me, the Constitution is not difficult to read or understand. And the Framers desire for the nation, even though they failed on many fronts themselves, was not intended to be what’s its become. And in closing: Why me? For the same reason as one individual the other day who made a Biden comment and I responded: “Why not him. Because most of us are just like him.” Except, in what way did I refer? But the better question: Why not you? In other words: Don’t be a Ritardo like me, be an oxymoron, different and woke. Only, get there before the nation is completely broke. Regards!