The Assemblagist

Oppor­tu­ni­ties for accom­plish­ing things are greater to-​day than they have been at any time dur­ing the last cen­tury — per­haps greater than ever. The world is in a state of flux.

Flux presages change; change means oppor­tu­nity.

Democ­racy is not dead. If it were, words such as these could not even be thought, let alone writ­ten down. No one knows what tomor­row w will bring; no one cares what the future has in store. Every­one lives in the bril­liance of to-​day. Every great civ­i­liza­tion has been built upon the ashes of its pre­de­ces­sor. The paper-​hanger is doing his best to present us with some ashes to use as a foun­da­tion for a new world — a more bril­liant world; a more cul­tured world than ever before. Ashes are not always the result of ruin since they might merely be a by-​product of a more com­plete and con­struc­tive reac­tion. In order to con­struct any­thing of last­ing worth, some­thing must first be destroyed. The parts of the destroyed objects must be refined, altered and reformed. The same process is now tak­ing place in the world to-​day. A bet­ter civ­i­liza­tion will be built on the remains of the old. Every­thing will not be destroyed — only these things which are of no value will be dis­carded, and those things which are still of value will be retained. Thus will be pre­sented the oppor­tu­ni­ties for every­one to find his niche and to make his way in a bet­ter, more pleas­ant world, gov­erned by broader, clearer-​thinking, more lib­eral states­men instead of the big­oted dem­a­gogues who run things to-​day.

I can’t find that as a quote online by googling it.

Bob at his retire­ment din­ner. Always laughing…

It may well be my Daddy’s own words but I don’t know. It’s typed on faded blue-​lined student-​paper so there’s no hand­writ­ing to ana­lyze. The flip side of the typed page is hand­writ­ten and is for sure my dad’s writ­ing. The piece of paper, folded in half, was found amidst WWII mem­o­ra­bilia of Mom’s, with let­ters from Dad com­pris­ing the bulk. The text sounds like it is from Dad, espe­cially his refer­ring to Hitler as a “paper-​hanger.” Dad found FluxArt dis­taste­ful and mocked Yoko Ono — thought she needed a bath. He thought hap­pen­ings were ridicu­lous and yet — the State of Flux – that he embraced.

I’ll add the rest of the page later, he talks about dem­a­gogues who seek to main­tain their sinecure posi­tions with the least effort on their part and at the great­est pos­si­ble expense to you and me — the tax­pay­ers. He also said, “Talk is cheap,” and undoubt­edly would have found Glenn Beck a real tawdry comedian.

Dad used to say the land of promise has become the promis­sory land. He paid cash for almost every­thing and had credit cards only for travel and extremely dire emer­gen­cies. He voted for Adlai Steven­son and, like his father Val, died too young for this world.

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