Kids Today Have It Tough

I feel sorry for the kids in school today, what are they going to tell their grandchildren?

Drop by any school in the morning or afternoon and look at all the school buses and parents cars lined up to shuttle the kids back and forth. The little darlings have to walk all the way from the school building to the curb. That’s adventure?

Just after I finished the fourth grade my parents moved to a ranch in the mountains of Colorado. During that first summer I got acquainted with the various cows, horses, dogs, cats and extraneous varmints that inhabited the ranch. Fall and school was the farthest thought from my mind.

As always, fall appeared and I was trundled off to school in the ranch pickup and properly enrolled in the fifth grade. The next morning my mother tucked a lunch under my arm walked out the back door and pointed across the pasture towards a distant ridge line, “School is somewhere around two miles away, just behind that ridge. See you this afternoon.” She disappeared back into the cabin to do whatever mothers do when they send their first born out to get devoured by mountain lions. After that first morning she didn’t even bother to point at the ridge line anymore.

When the snow got too deep to walk in my dad took me down to the bar and rousted out a retired cow pony named Chief for me. To my dad he was a cow pony; to me he was an elephant with a horse skin on him. I couldn’t possibly reach up far enough to get a saddle on him, which was the first step to riding him. I assumed that was the first step since my dad had left to go do foreman things. I stepped back and studied that monster realizing that he wasn’t going to shrink and I wasn’t growing that fast. I learned to hoist my saddle up on top of a corral rail, climb up there with it and wait for Chief to wander past me whereupon I would fling the saddle on his back. Sometimes I missed when he wandered fast. I learned to compensate since he only knew two gaits, slow wander and fast wander.

The years have passed and somehow that small school house has magically changed its location. Not only has it gotten further away, there have appeared insurmountable mountains and raging rivers ‘twixt me and that seat of learning. Did I mention the bears?

Listening to my contemporaries talk to their grandchildren I have found out that back when they were kids it seemed to be a standard policy that no school was ever placed closer than five miles to any student. And every one of those students lived in an area where there were blizzards 365 days a year, interspersed with dust storms. “I remember back in nineteen-ought-and-froze-to-death, the year of the GREAT blizzard (as opposed to the everyday blizzard that took place in May) I had to chop a cord of wood, slop the hogs, and lug well water before I even made the trek to school and then…..”, and the story goes downhill from there.

And that’s just the average story, I have heard of some kids that really had it rough!

What are the kids today going to tell their grandchildren? “Rough? I’ll tell you it was rough back when I went to school in Selah. I remember one time when the temperature must have been in the thirties and I had to make that entire one mile trip in a school bus with a busted heater!”

You know, somehow that just doesn’t sound the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a tremendous amount of respect for our elected politicians, it’s when they start talking about a “kinder and gentler” Internal Revenue Service that I end up rolling around on the floor with a towel stuffed in my mouth.

I have been among the select few who have participated in the modern interpretation of the Spanish Inquisition referred to by the IRS as an “audit”. It took place in a grey fortress in the Los Angeles area. After a humorous interlude involving a full body cavity search I was ushered into a steel grey cubicle furnished with steel grey appliances of torture that the steel grey occupant tried to pass off as a desk and chairs. He very quickly established the ground rules pertaining to our friendly visit; he pointed out that that it would be far easier if we all agreed I was guilty saving a great deal of aggravation and utilizing the remaining time working out just exactly how guilty I was. I was one of the lucky ones, I was able to leave the building with an empty briefcase and an extra pair of socks, the right one had a hole in it.

That was my first one. A few years later it was my turn again. Fortunately I had remembered the routine from the first audit and arrived for my second one fully prepared. I had the deed to my house, the title to my car, my bankbooks, credit cards, negotiable bonds and various other items of value. I simply walked back into the steel grey cubicle, piled the big stuff in the corner, signed the paperwork giving all my worldly goods to the United States Government and threw myself across the desk begging for mercy. The IRS agent recognized that I knew the rules and rewarded me by allowing me to keep my wife.

With national elections hovering in the future, many politicians are already looking towards the insecurity of having to go look for work and they are casting about frantically for a popular issue. The IRS is a natural. If they are a Republican, Democrat, Green Party, Socialist, Communist, Whig, Federalist, or Independent they all recognize the common bond of IRS dislike rampant in the hearts and minds of the voters. Mass appeal, mass support, and they have no danger of accidental alienation. Not even from the employees of the IRS.

The people lurking in the hallways of the IRS fear not for they know that nothing will really change. Two reasons: one, these same politicians have their returns audited by the IRS. And, two, to change the attitude and policies of the IRS all employees of that agency who have been ruthless and irresponsible in their duties will have to be discharged. The taxpayers of the United States cannot afford to pay unemployment benefits to the entire Internal Revenue Service agency.

What are you?

For some strange reason my life is showing an increase in social obligations, I seem to be doomed to spending an increasing amount of time at parties, dinners, functions, and being around groups of people I don’t know. At some point during the festivities someone is going to find me lurking in the corner wondering why my martini tastes like kerosene and start a conversation with me. Invariably, after the usual party patter is out of the way the question is asked, “What are you?”

My stock answer is, “Cranky, out-of-sorts, grouchy, and tired of suffering idiots.”

Without hearing a word of what I’ve just said they respond brightly, “I’m German-American”. Or Swedish-American or one of any number of hyphen Americans that seem to be so “in” today. The identification of an individual based on ancestral background has replaced the equally boring, “What’s your sign?” Personally I’d rather go back to being a Pisces and listen to a brain deadening analysis of my psyche by some white wine imbiber who believes our lives are influenced by the meanderings of Ursa Minor.

The “what’s your sign” people are much easier to deal with than the current crop of hyphen Americans. The vast majority of these uncomfortable people seem to be looking for a place in society that they can’t create for themselves. It is not good enough for them to be an American, they have to be something else American.

Let’s use me for example, or not, as you please. When this question arises at a social gathering I have the impulse to scream “FIRE!” at the top of my lungs and jump out the nearest window. This is not always practical and there are times I get locked into the conversation. Then I am forced to admit that I don’t know what else I am other than American. All the members of my family are Americans, and the large majority of their friends are Americans.

This does not even slow down the hyphen American who’s hot on my trail. “Well, you must be Irish, you have an Irish name.”

I try to point out that I have a friend named Boeing and he’s not an airplane.

That doesn’t work and they bore in for the kill, “You should be proud of your Irish heritage, you shouldn’t try to hide it.”

I’m left with the impression that should go out, buy a funny shaped hat, drink lots of Irish whisky, and talk with an unintelligible brogue to be acceptable in this person’s circle of friends.

Let’s assume that I am of Irish descent. Only assume, mind you. My ancestors obviously left Ireland for a very good reason to come to the United States. Once here they became Americans. Their offspring were Americans, and their offspring, so on and so forth for many generations. No connections with Ireland, no desires to join the IRA and blow up women and children in department stores.

I’m an American with no apologies. No hyphens. No second guessing. Am I always happy to be an American? No. I argue with my government, the courts, the tax laws, and my morning newspaper. Could I do this in any other country? No. Do I want to be anything but an American? No.

I live in an imperfect country in an imperfect world. I do know that I live the best country available and I’m grateful of the foresightedness of my ancestors, whoever they were, that chose to move here.

Some people are here because their ancestors were brought here against their will. That was then, this is now. Nothing can undo that, history has one constant and that is that it is unchangeable. Talk to the vast majority of these descendants of forced Americans and you will find that they do not want to live in the country of their ancestors.

My major problem with hyphen Americans is they feel this deep need to inflict their concept of their culture on the rest of us.

If that’s the purpose of the hyphen then I demand equal rights. If I am descended from Irish immigrants I want my supposed culture inflicted on you. Since I must respect your hyphen, you must respect mine. I demand that one day a year be set aside as Irish Culture Day and everybody paints themselves blue and hangs from trees.

I will, as a free American with a hyphen, accept no compromise on that.

Introducing Terry Sexton

Terry Sexton was a writer for The Dean Martin Show, The Carol Burnett Show, and Laugh In.

He wrote comedy routines for Rowan and Martin, Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Will Jordan, Skiles and Henderson, and Frank Gorshin. He also wrote Robert Goulet’s Australian Tour.

In the 1960’s Terry Sexton was writing commercials for Fred Arthur Productions, a nationwide advertising agency located in Denver, Colorado.A commercial he wrote for a bank in Kansas City won a “Clio” for the agency.

As a stand up comedian he performed at the Beacon Club, the Bali Hal, and was house comedian for the Woolhurst Country Club in Denver, Colorado.He appeared at The Underground and was house comedian for the Aspen Country Club in Aspen, Colorado. He was a regular performer at the Spotlight in Santa Monica and Ye Little Club in Beverly Hills.

In the 1970’s he realized that he could no longer tolerate the seamy side of the entertainment industry and had to find a career that had a higher degree of ethics and morality. He became a car salesman.

In 1992 Terry Sexton and his wife, JoAnn, started the Jethro Gazette.