Campus Bedlock

At the U. of Hawaii, things got a little testy recently when a request by two homosexual students to reside in the “married” dorm was turned down.

The students promptly filed a discrimination lawsuit, claiming that the university’s decision “devalued the couple’s relationship as inferior to different-sex couples, violating the Hawaii Constitution’s guarantee of equality,” according to the Star Bulletin.

The bizarre situation inspired blogger J. Grant Swank to muse in print about why America has come to the point where lodging for a same-sex couple is under consideration, i.e., that their status as a twosome should automatically equate their relationship to that of married students, with all the available perks....

“Because you’re not married. You might have a relationship, you might be a “couple”, you might be a lot of things, but married isn’t one of them.”

Spot on!

You sound a lot like my dear departed Granny. She had a wonderful way of cutting through the BS and setting people straight with just a few words. This nation, and the world in general, could use a big dose of her logic and experience right about now.....and maybe a few taken to the woodshed for a good switchin'......

Just like Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies when she would yell at Jethro and make him go out back and cut her a big switch to tan his hide with.

Sadly, common sense has become almost an oxymoron these days. I'm so thankful that I was raised by the generation who lived through the Great Depression (may parents were much older than usual when they married, so I'm not quite as old as that might make me seem).

Hopefully, my wife and I have done a good enough job of teaching our kids how to "cut through the BS", or at least to be able to spot it a mile away. They are showing good signs that they get it.

I'm so thankful that I was raised by the generation who lived through the Great Depression

Yep. I'm the same. My father was born in 1913 and my mother in 1922. My father was 49 when I came along, and my mother was 39. I'll be 45 in a couple of months.

It has been utterly amazing to me how much of their generation's wisdom has been lost in just a few decades.....

We're about the same age (I turned 44 in Jan.) and about the same for our parents. My dad was born in 1917 and mom was born in 1923. The really interesting part for our family is that I am the oldest of three kids, so my dad was over 50 when my sister was born. We are all adopted, but looking back on it I am amazed that they not only chose to adopt kids at that age, but that they weren't put off by having babies around the house when most folks their age were attending their children's weddings or even starting to have grandkids. They just did it all very mater-of-fact like. They married late in life, tried to have kids of their own, and when that didn't work they figured out how to have a family anyway and got the job done.

I've always been amazed at the work ethic my dad had. He "retired" more times than I can remember, but always seemed to go back because he was asked to, or he was just bored. He was well into his 70's when he finally "retired" for the last time (and he kept his State electrician's license up to date till he was into his late 80's). Of course, that just meant that he had more time to work around the house and develop new hobbies, like attending all the town council meetings and pointing out the stupidity of some of their plans (dad took special delight in messing with local bureaucrats).

We've tried to pass along a lot of their wisdom to our kids. Homeschooling has helped us do that and kept them from being totally indoctrinated, but I know that we've probably dropped the ball in many ways. I know that I don't make my kids work as much around the place as we had to as kids, but we do have discussions about what constitutes the kind of quality work that employers look for but don't get from today's generation. We'll see.

Every year older I get I understand a little more of the wisdom of that great generation. I like to start up conversations with old folks who appear to be that age. I miss being able to talk to my dad, but I know talking with others that age helps fill the gap (at least for me).

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