The Roberts and The Webbs

The Webbs and Roberts were as different to me as night and day. Both had their dark and light sides, but to visit them was to be in different countries, cultures. The Webbs were from Idaho, Mormon country, not only with an Old Testament quality to their belief system and life style, but a kind of stoic, common sense notion of what reality was. The Roberts were from Oklahoma and Louisiana, Grandmother Nellie May had Mary Baker Eddy by her bedside, along with the Bible, but the atmosphere was more open, not at all Biblical, more experimental and free wheeling in my memory.

Food and drink were more lavish in the Roberts realm, Grandfather made wine from the grapes he grew in the backyard. The Webbs were tea tottlers, my memory is of fresh baked bread and cookies, sometime cakes, bean soup ( lima bean soup with Ketsup), and saltine crackers. Both grandfathers were good vegetable growers and I have fond memories of working with both of them in our victory garden, and with Grandfather Roberts in his.

Because my parents were so young I had a lot of time with both sets, and because I was the firstborn grandchild, and a boy, my Grandfather Roberts lavished trips and outings on me

(a library trip is mentioned elsewhere in the BLOG). He sometimes unveiled portraits for clients in their homes and took me along for the ride. He wanted me to listen to Caruso sing arias and read to me from history books, for example H.G. Wells.

Looking back I think I was unfair to the Webbs because they were not as flashy, not so "interesting." But they were there for me all the way, and the uncles and aunts and their married partners were all good, interesting people. Uncle Jess was particularly important; having married Aunt Haroldeen and being childless, he/they became important to me because

I was available to them and they to me. I wish everyone could be as fortunate as I was with my grandparents and uncles and aunts, and that they could live near them and savor their influences. Perhaps that will be the case again in the future, I hope so.

Sovereignty

Sovereignty at the time of the original Tea Party meant a chief of state in a monarchy; a king or queen; monarch, and that is still the number one dictionary definition. But to a nation struggling to define itself and throw out a monarch which had chartered companies which then could impose taxes upon them and their tea, a new intellectual immigrant from England was to insist upon what is today the third or forth definition, complete independence and self government.

A landless, brillant thinker and writer, Thomas Paine was recruited as an immigrant by Benjamin Franklin, and would soon be upping the ante on the semantics of democracy in our forming nation. It is no wonder that he is not brandished by the present day Tea Party; he was, for one thing, a deist, knew how important it would be not to have the nation framed in by Christian, Biblical belief.

His belief was that "Sovereignty as a matter of right, appertains to the Nation only, and not to any individual; and a Nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of Government it finds inconvenient, and establish such as accords with its interest, disposition, and happiness." (from Paine's "Rights of Man"). Wouldn't he be surprised today when our corporations are considered individuals under the law, and that they seem to be today's sovereigns, represented by the 1% in the fashion of the companies chartered by the kings and queens of earlier times? It seems that today's Tea Party might pick up the writings of Thomas Paine with some benefit, albeit inconvenient and difficult for their beliefs.