You know, I didn’t understand when my parents insisted I watch (on our black & white tube TV) the first sledgehammer blows to the Berlin Wall. (You know, I still remember what the guy looked like as he struck the blow??)

They felt it was so important. I was… 13? 14? Somewhere around there. It was a live broadcast, so it must have been on the 13th of June, 1990. Or maybe in 89? I can’t find a video record of it just now, but the images are clear to me. (Aspie memories are excellent. I rather wish they weren’t sometimes.)

If you’ve read through my blog, you’ll know I didn’t have an easy childhood. So, for both of my parents to come together at that point meant something. I paid attention. My mom, then, had been verging on being a non-functional alcoholic for a while. A long while.

Dad was just himself, cool, distant, unreachable. He’s a Vietnam vet btw. Not that it seems to matter. A whole… what do they call it, police action?? Was fought in the name of putting down fascism?

I understand now. I mean, aside from the whole oh-my-fucking-gods-it doesn’t-make-SENSE concept of the angry cheeto’s wall idea….

I get it.

On a level I didn’t then.

No walls. Never walls. It completely rejects the very basis of the ideal that was America. (‘Cause it sure as hell isn’t that anymore.) Do you know that America has now been rated as a flawed democracy?

I know it’s not the worst part, but… it’s a personal part that I’ll never understand. Both of those same people? Who insisted we three kids sit down and watch the first blow? Who talked to us about freedom? My parents? Voted for the angry orange.

I remember being made to watch this video, too.