I suppose it will not come as a surprise to many here that I am often sort of "backward".

You may have heard the "conventional wisdom" that young people are usually more liberal and this is due to their inexperience and, well---ignorance. As they grow older and wiser, so the old chestnut goes, folks just naturally become conservatives and understand how things "ought" to be. Well, I am doing things "bassackwards".

With a dad who was a union member and Democratic precinct committeeman and a mother who was a federal civil service employee who cried when Adlai Stevenson lost, I was never a "conservative". But, for a few years in my early twenties, I was what would now be termed a "moderate". I had an entry level management position with a large corporation, had just married and was trying very hard to be a grownup. Grownups were serious, didn't smoke pot or have long hair. "Successful" grownups "fit in"; they didn't make waves. I wanted to be successful.

But, I had been stamped a Democrat at birth and it turned out that the seeds of "liberalness" were sown into my soul. It took a few years, but I eventually decided I did not want to be "successful" if it was going to cost me my soul. I decided to be who--and what---I really was: a liberal Democrat who cared about people and saw nothing at all wrong or naive about the Golden Rule.

As the years have passed, I have become more liberal, not more conservative. I may look like a somewhat bedraggled senior citizen, but INSIDE I am a 19 year old in a tie-dyed tee, elephant bells and a roach clip hanging next to the pewter "Peace" symbol on a chain around my neck.

I am much more dangerous as a gray-maned liberal than I ever was in my youth. You see, I have already managed to make it through my "three score and ten" and no one can take that away from me. I just don't care what "powerful people" think of me and that means they cannot intimidate me. I am free to say what I think and do as I please without regard to who that pisses off.

"It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul!"