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Show A Day to be Civil I wonder why bedroom to get her as I nervously waited by the door. I waited patiently as the it takes Civil Rights Day to remind us to be Civil each Day. Several people minutes ticked by very slowly. I could hear a "discussion going on which eventually chuckle and wonder turned into an argument which eventually turned into a raging storm. The exchange of words between mother and daughter that I (and my friends in the car) heard that evening still hurts me to this day. The mother wasn't going to let her daughter go out with why we have Civil Rights and I Day; I guess dont want to argue The argument grew and the words harsher as they were exchanged like gunfire back and forth; becoming more heated and more hurtful. Finally, as they both came into the living room where I was waiting, the Jordans faces plastered everywhere has been an adjustment for him. But this is a more personal column, one that I remember as ifit was only yesterday and as I sit to write about it, it still hurts. I have never really told anyone about an incident not many years ago when I was going to high school and was only a lad of 16. 1 knew a girl Michael went back into the girls REDD boorish same. njnif kaac PIPING III rairie Dawg able Toilet 4 Septic Service Southeast Utahs Complete Portable Toilet Service Sanitary Liquid Human Waste Hauling Septic Tank Maintenance Pumping rn t We Guarantee Our Workl 1 CALL 459-149- 9 800-847-26- 58 ALANS BODY SHOP Car Care Needs Windshield replacement & rock chip repair ;. Tires Brakes State-Of-The-A- rt & 3 or 877-4194)7- Monticello 84 h. 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Perhaps the hardest part is not the sting that I felt that night surely time has dulled my senses - but it is the belief that I still carry around the greater burden; Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother as do you know youre I suppose my date and I both learned a great PLUMBING puammHEATAfficoNDmoNm . sprinkler systems 2; k some that I wasnt the right... it was that I wasnt the MONTICELLO PLUMBING & HEATING MECHANICAL :c--; mother, she was doing what she thought was right. Protecting her daughter from someone as up that day. Any innocence .to obey her parents or do what that I had managed to believe she felt was right. She left with in was gone. I was crushed. Up me that night and we talked to that point in my life I had about it. Any carefree fun we heard remarks here and there were hoping for that night was but had defensively brushed spent apologizing to each most of them off without other. Her eyes were swollen letting them get to me. I and red, her cheeks tear wanted to scream at the lady stained as she apologized over that she had no right to judge she graciously accepted. I was excited and I believe she was also. The night arrived and we drove to her house and I went to the door and knocked and asked if my date was ready. Her mother seemed polite, but a little taken back and Michasl W. Redd With my perspective of a parent now I try to forgive the deal about ourselves that night. I had to bear harsh accusations. I was falsely Mexican! I can still remember accused the without the feeling as I looked in her to explain. My opportunity eyes as she eyed me with date, on the other hand, had contempt and disgust. to wrestle with two very hard I was only sixteen... I grew principles that night; whether her on a double date; which : Civil. that it wasnt girl was crying and yelling that she was leaving and the mother screamed back, "You are not leaving this house... you are not going out with that from Blanding and had asked in fact, she probably doesn't remember it at all. The sordid event is probably just another blurred incident in the tumultuous time of raising a teenage daughter. She probably had no idea that 25 years later, forgiveness, some future CaveGuy. On the other hand, the lessons from her own heritage - experiencing hate so rabid that a people were driven pretend like it out of Missouri to trek was okay. I was hundreds of miles across a sorry that I wilderness seeking underwasn't the right" standing and freedom from color, the right wrong and hateful accusations seemed lost on this woman. the religion, I don't know. It is not mine to right" race, or sociothe right" judge, for that I am grateful. economic class! But she put another burden on Then it hit me me that day. A burden that has me. much about all the politics behind it But I think we could all use a Day to remind us to be Civil. I overheard one man, raised in a different generation, half jokingly (and half not) say, Yeah well maybe they should have killed a few more... and then we could have taken the whole week off. I am sure that seeing Tiger Woods and been much harder and that is that I have had to forgive her. She has never asked my and over for her mother. Since then, I have learned that more often than any of us want to, we are left to apologize for someone we love, just because they didnt know how to act me, that she didn't know me, that I was actually a good kid, that I got good grades, that I was popular at my school, that I was class, president five times, that I was in Who's Who in America, that I went to Boys State, that I refused to be put on a vocational track at school, that I was going to college, that I had lettered in four sports, that by any measure I was successful. But inside all I wanted to do was puke. My stomach hurt and a part of me just wanted to crawl away and leave and THE SAN JUAN RECORD Wednesday, January 17, 2001 - Page 10 1 Monticello 1266 North Reservoir Road Blanding i |