By Sarah Arnold
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When you have your audience and are successful why do well paid board members choose to lose it by catering to a fickle audience? Every board member who voted for this change should be fired.
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James Patterson, the prolific author's wife, Susan, has just written a book which is being released tomorrow and is entitled: "Things I Wish I Told My Mother."
This got me to thinking. I have only two things I would have said/asked my father but I would love to be able to ask him a lot in view of what has happened to our country since his passing.
First, I would tell him I loved him and I would have asked what attracted him to my mother. As for other matters.
On occasion, because I am conservative and he was, at the time, liberal as I tended to be, why did I part ways from him? My response is a very simple and quick one. My father was brilliant and thus he was not stupid enough to remain a liberal. In essence Democrats left him with their radicalism and hatred.
Furthermore, my father was a brilliant lawyer, he loved the law, he loved using the law to help people seek and receive justice. He seldom lost cases and won some big ones. He helped, along with others, Birmingham to rid itself of Bull Connor the segregationist police chief and he also, with others, helped the city change it's form of government. He also had the Klan's Charter taken away for attacking black scout girls and their white scout assistants.
He was a fighter. He believed in appropriate police enforcement, he believed in the rule of law, he would have opposed the tolerance of rioting. He was sick at the killing of the president, his brother and MLK. In fact my father wrote a published letter asking for calm a week before JFK visited Dallas and received a reply from Bobbie shortly after JFK's assassination which my son has.
My father worked with several of Bobbie's top lieutenants during the Civil Right strife in Birmingham and campaigned for Bobbie in New York when he ran for The Senate. Bobbie put him up at The Carlisle Hotel, in his suite and slept in Bobbie's hotel bed. I told my father Bobbie was unsavory but he did not listen. I also kidded him when he returned from New York and asked him would he ever bathe again?
As for MLK, dad was very supportive and found it hard to believe the Kennedy's had mixed feelings and that the FBI tracked MLK because Hoover thought he was a dangerous communist.
I would ask my father would he have voted for Trump the first and second time? I can only speculate he would have voted for Trump the second time having possibly voted for Jeb for the nomination then president the first time. Dad would have been repelled by Hillary and particularly her "deplorable" comment. He would have seen through her thin legal veneer.
The big question I would have asked him was what motivated him to send me to Military School.
My father was also as passionate about Israel becoming a nation as he was about black citizens receiving their Civil Rights. He, no doubt, would have been turned off by Obama and Biden both as to Israel and the way they manipulated the nation at the cost of Israel. He did not believe in weakness.
I believe he would understand (not approve) why black radicals have taken over the black population because of lack of education and would have concurred with Professor Moynihan's thesis. My father and I parted ways again when SCOTUS resorted to bussing. I believed the more appropriate method of integration was for each state to transfer the better teachers into black neighborhoods. The problem of integration was intractable no matter what solution was proposed.
One thing I know for sure, he would "cvell" over his 5 grandchildren, his 9 great grandchildren and his 4 great, great grandchildren. He would be particularly proud of the fact that they did not smoke, take drugs and were all good citizens.
Finally, I have to assume he would have understood the need of his partners to merge with Sen. Baker's law firm in order to survive in the competitive environment all professions face today.
My father was a practical man and I believe , as I made my own way in life, my influence would have increased because, though he did not always agree with me, he always was willing to listen once he thought I was smart enough to have an opinion.
I truly miss him and encourage every child to focus on how little time we have on earth.
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