If I did have a choice in the matter,
I don’t remember it. I’m not complaining; I hit the jackpot, with diligent and educated parents, and neither the pressures of abject poverty, nor excessive wealth. We never went hungry except by choice, and we had little concern of being robbed of our accumulated riches. A thief at our house could have walked away with a set of encyclopaedias, any of 65 weeklynewspapers and 5 dailies, homemade toys and several bicycles. I’m the third of six boys, and the small town of Calhoun, Kentucky was our oyster. To top it off,
I was born a male with light-coloured skin, a member of the most numerous and privileged generation of humans in the recent history of North America. I feel for those who missed that boat, and entered the world through another portal.
For example, our newly-elected king, Charles; he’s one year younger than I, same language, skin tone and gender.
He has never had the freedom to roam at will around a small town and the surrounding countryside, just gawking at all the things there are to see in the world. Wait; he wasn’t elected? Well, how did it come to this? Oh, his Mom, Elizabeth, was elected, and he just took over when she passed on. NO? What kind of system of government is that? Surely, he must have chosen his parentage, and opted into the high-roller clan, who own millions of acres of valuable real estate, where they raise cattle and sheep, farm vegetables and maybe cut a bit of firewood to heat their immense houses. No? Well, I could guess all day long, and still not come any closer to understanding how this system works. Frankly, I think we as a nation could grow up and de-energize the system whereby one family commands extreme wealth, while others are hindered by lack of land, housing, food or clean water.
Robert Wills
Thorne and Shawville