The Yankee Dog

Returning after a bit more than a year. Family somewhat battered by illness and disability. The elders - of whom I am one - nauseated by the malicious destruction of the tentpoles of this society and the hysterical degrading of the legacy we have fought to maintain and advance. Constant triggering of paranoia and fear of everyone not exactly like us, of nature, of facing up to the tasks needing to be done if our descendants are to survive. A gigantic collective temper tantrum thrown by citizens who felt aggrieved and put their trust in a drummer selling nostrums of verbal flatulence. Cruelty rules as predators parade.                                                                                                              

The term Yankee Dog is an old one. During my childhood it was said to be used by our enemies: the Japanese and the Nazis and, a bit later, the North Koreans and Chinese and Russians. In the comics I read it was usually hissed by a soldier clutching a weapon and eagerly dispatching a brave American or one of our allies. More       disturbingly, as I grew older I read newspaper stories about various political speakers squawking the term like furious parrots, damning not only their enemies, but the innocent as well. I equated this with the cruel and pointless practice of my teachers in public school of punishing an entire class for the actions of a few troublemakers.

But by the time I was in my mid-teens, though, I was a kind of troublemaker, a renegade possessed by and with social and political beliefs that garnered me a surprising number of foes denigrating my ancestors as well as my family. According to whatever passed for knowledge rattling around in their tiny brainpans, my forbearers had, among numerous other offenses, been abolitionists and fought for the Union. Gloriously true. I took pride in those facts, so it no great step to choose to be what others used as a slur. I was a Yankee Dog: a young stomp down never surrender rock-ribbed radical sworn enemy of totalitarians left and right and defender of the downtrodden.

This idealized self-portrait shone brightly for awhile before fading from age and the encroaching shadow of cynicism. It became a kind of badge pinned to clothing on certain occasions.

Now I take up the portrait again, embracing the fact that at my age (in my 70th year and now the oldest family member) you can do worse than be flamboyant when facing down tyranny. Thus, the Yankee Dog; much older, gray, a bit stooped and tired, but still here.