Sweet Lorane Community News – January 6, 2022

Fern Ridge-Tribune News
Creswell Chronicle
Pat’s Opinion Piece
January 6, 2022
By Pat Edwards

This morning, a Thursday, I woke up earlier than usual, knowing that I would need to put together my weekly newspaper column for tomorrow’s deadline… and that it was going to be a difficult one to write. You see, today’s date is January 6, 2022, and all of the anguish and fear that came to the forefront of my life one year ago today, is still with me.

I was born on September 11—another date of anguish and fear that I now share with my country and the world, but as terrible as that day was for so many, for me, personally, January 6, will forever overshadow it.

As I’ve stated before, I have never been a political person, but I have been a patriot all of my life. I’ve taken the Pledge of Allegiance very seriously, even as a child. Tears have always sprung to my eyes as the National Anthem has played or been sung before each of our children’s and grandchildren’s basketball games and at every other event I’ve attended, and I find myself singing along because my heart bursts with the love I have for my country. I’ve studied its history, even as a child, and I learned early about not only its glory, but its blemishes, too. In those days, anything involving horses was my favorite read, but that eventually extended to Native American and Black histories and what they had to suffer at the hands of my ancestors.

I’ve always been what was labeled as “conservative.” I’m a country girl at heart. Urban living has never appealed to me, although I didn’t always live on a farm. The free-love and drug culture that sprang to life during my young adult years horrified me. When old enough, I registered as a Republican, but I never believed in voting by party. I always voted for the person who I felt would represent me, regardless of the label they wore.

In 2019, Jim and I and my sister and brother-in-law, Barbara and Dwight Isborn, planned a trip we had all been wanting to take for many years. We booked a tour of Washington, D.C. and other historical sites in the area including Mt. Vernon, Yorktown, Jamestown, Williamsburg, Gettysburg and Philadelphia, visiting every monument and museum we could in the 10 days we were there. It was a dream trip for each of us, and being able to walk through those hallowed halls of the Capitol, White House, National Archives, and all of the national monuments and war memorials, made me swell with pride, knowing our country’s history and what had been established so long ago by our founding fathers and fought for by our veterans.

So, when I watched what happened on that day, one year ago. I was horrified. It completely and profoundly broke my heart. Despite being dissatisfied with the political climate, I never thought I would live through a time when I would witness so much disrespect for our democracy or the institutions that represent it. Though I wasn’t strongly political, over the past decade I did not like the path either party represented in the voting booth. In 2016, I was so upset by the choices given us that, for the first time in my life, I refused to vote for either. In my opinion, neither candidate represented who I was or the moral fabric or patriotic standards that our country has always stood for.

Even before January 6, 2021, I watched friends and family members turn against each other because of differing political views. Arrogance and a “Me First” mentality at the extreme ends on both sides has become prominent. The pandemic has been made into a political issue when it should have brought us all together as our common enemy. Patriotism has also become a political issue, as well. Showing how much we love our flag more than “the other side” seems to be used as a badge for who is the most patriotic, when, for me, the ultimate disrespect for our flag is shown by flying it out of the back of a pickup until it is in shreds.

Radical views on both sides of the spectrum are warring with each other and we in the middle are trying to figure out a way to keep our families together and once again be able to have a conversation with friends without politics entering the picture. We need to stop believing everything we read on social media or our favorite news network, and put aside the conspiracy theories and lies that are prominent.

Those who instigated the happenings of January 6, 2020, need to be held accountable, and we need to elect representatives on national and local levels who are willing to work with each other and compromise in governing our country and state in order to put our democracy on solid ground once again.

I know only too well that my words will not sit well with some, and in the end, they may not even be published, but this morning when I woke up, I knew that it was time that I expressed them.

May God Bless America.