Uncle Sam is a bad bookkeeper
To cash or not to cash, that is the question.
It’s Memorial Day weekend, so of course I’m thinking about my late father, who dropped out of Hamden High School to enlist and become a U.S. Navy pharmacist mate attached to Marine Corps units during two tours in the South Pacific.
His service in World War II, which ended when he was 19, remained the highlight of his life, though Father rarely spoke more than the basic details of carrying morphine, a .30 caliber carbine and a sidearm in the jungle, and being called “Doc” by the leathernecks who depended on him.
He became a teacher and a newsman, living another 73 years.
A child of the Great Depression, Father really never stopped working, and suggested more than once that upon his death, his ashes be used for the innards of an hour glass, so he could keep working even in death. Just turn the hour glass over and over, and over again.
Little did he know. My father, an FDR Democrat, died in January of 2018, so he got a good enough look at the current occupant of the White House, whom he considered a bad joke and a threat to the American people, and thus a perfect fit for the right-wing millionaires who think they are conning the world from their perch in the U.S. Senate.
The recent stream of mail from the White House would have really gotten my father laughing, particularly the disaster-relief check for $1,200 made out to the two of us, along with a form letter in English and Spanish from the Wallbuilder-in-Chief.
The Depression Kid always loved checks, especially from Uncle Sam. Forget direct deposit. As wobbly as he was on those bad knees in the last couple of years, the Social Security and teacher’s retirement checks that arrived in the mail gave him a reason to go down to the People’s United Bank on Hope Street in the Glenbrook section of Stamford and converse with the clerks.
The estate still isn’t settled, so I will soon be paying taxes on some nominal bank interest, just like last year. As taxpayers, even if one of us has kicked the bucket, it seems that the estate should benefit the ways of all taxpayers in the national folly of this plague called COVID-19 .
So here it sits, 1,200 smackaroos, along with some claptrap from the White House occupant, signed in a vague auto-pen that looks like the electrocardiogram of an atrial fibrillation patient, above the name President Donald J. Trump.
“Our top priority is your health and safety,” the message lies.
“Every citizen should take enormous pride in the selflessness, courage and compassion of our people,” some of the copy reads. “America’s drive, determination, innovation and sheer willpower have conquered every previous challenge — and they will conquer this one too. Just as we have before, America will triumph yet again — and rise to new heights of greatness. We will do it together, as one nation, stronger than ever before.”
This is over the signature of someone, on this Memorial Day, who has done more to divide the country than Richard Nixon or Herbert Hoover.
New heights of greatness? Like standing in a store and an idiot walks by, wheezing, not wearing a mask in his freedom to spread the coronavirus?
As the national death toll from COVID-19 pushes toward 100,000, about 3,800 in Connecticut, there’s no sign of “triumph” in sight, even if this tainted propaganda, endorsed by someone who has shown virtually no selflessness, courage and compassion, says so.
I suppose it does take “sheer willpower” to keep millions of Americans without health insurance and enlarge the gap between rich and poor like it hasn’t been since 120 years ago, even as plans go forward to slash Social Security benefits because the billionaire tax cuts of 2017 have tripled the federal deficit, once such a big issue among conservative scolds.
The other day was the 75th anniversary of the victory in Europe in World War II, with very little notice in this country, and muted commemorations in Europe because of the coronavirus.
In August, a similar anniversary for the victory over Japan is coming. On that day in 1945, the Depression Kid was stationed at one of the piers along the Hudson River. He joined the throngs in Times Square that rejoiced in an actual triumph over an actual enemy.
He would absolutely love the fact that two years after his death, Uncle Sam is still paying up. He would also understand why I won’t deposit the check. It’s blood money.