Cross Cut Saw

An articulate black woman talked to me recently at a social function. She was telling me that she had just received her Masters and was about to start on her PhD. She related how hard she had worked to achieve this academic accomplishment and how proud her parents were of her. I said, “Is there a man in your life”? She said, “Through middle school high school, college, the thought has ravaged my psyche” “Where will I find a soul mate”? “The black men I know are not worth the ammunition it would take to kill them... dropouts, hangouts, no ambition, no morals, complete lack of character.” “Why, Dr., would I give myself to such a man?” This is the greatest problem for most educated ambitious black women. “I am not going to spend my life preparing for a good life to support a nothing. I want children but I want the father of my children to be respectable.”

Character determines destiny. The lack of character in males is not just a black problem. I am totally amazed with the feminization of males. I am told that there is no longer a competitive spirit in males... athletics, female conquest, or even personal and business ambition. Time after time, year after year, hiring young men to work for me and I can only use college graduates, I find their zest for accomplishment wanting, respect for an older accomplished person totally lacking. Three young men, working for me, fresh from military service, on the job, just walked off. Even before I left the military, many years ago, it was obvious that most young men entering the military were mamas boys. One after another, still holding on to the apron strings rather than go through the rigors of basic training would find some reason to get a chaplain or psychologist's excuse. Esprit De Corps is the greatest weapon the soldier possesses. Like team spirit on the athletic field, maleness is essential in war, athletics, religion.

I remember, when a woman could not use a female name after having written a book , she used a male nom de plume. I have not forgotten a woman on one of my arctic trips. She told me that even though she had graduated medical school she had never practiced because she was a woman. In the 1950s, when I was in school there was only one girl in my class. Dr. Margaret Swanson, professor of pathology (UNC-CH) said to me the time will come when women doctors can do something other than teach . From 1980 until now women graduates in all of the health care fields, law and most other professions, have doubled. Females now outnumber males in most professions, business, even politics. Unlike Michelle Obama, picking the pockets of the treasury in her mad flame as “Queen of the good life” (42 days , $10M spent on vacation this year) Many women politicians are consecrated conservative concerned Christians.

From the founding of my family at Morristown, NJ to the colonial Lucas family, who owned most of Wilson county, I have had a profound ancestry. It took me many years to realize it, outstanding ancestry, exceptional parents... all this, my life, made COMPLETE in my commitment to Jesus Christ. My father got much smarter when I went to college. I realize now that the entire community., the entire church had watched my parents, in their youth, and then marry. It was the Great Depression, few remember how hard it was. I was their first child, their wealth. I know now that the entire community and church watched the development of a child of these exceptional parents... the most attractive, social couple in the community. I remember the first time I came home from college, the large church built in 1874 by may ancestors, all so excited that Thomas was home from college. It was not me but my parents they were honoring. Time after time, people I hardly knew, church members,preachers, people I hadly knew would say to me (my parents attended all churches, loved to sing) “our church revival does not get started until we hear your parents in the congregation”.

Times were hard. My parents were the hardest working people I have ever known. My father was determined to make a man of me. The other boys in the small country school may have stayed after school and played ball. My father had me on one end of a cross cut saw, sawing wood for the “cook stove”, the “wood heaters” in the house, even the wood curing tobacco barns. Later, my younger brothers were not exposed to such hard work. Oil was used in the curing barns and heat for the house but, during those hard times my father owned 300 acres of woodland and wood was cheap. It just took two men with a cross cut saw to fell the trees saw, split, and prepare the wood for use..

I Started plowing early, one of our mules, “Nell”, taught me to plow. Treasure the memories of hard work, the competitive spirit, giving even your eyesight in warfare for your country.

GOD, give us men!
A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps

God Give Us Men: Gilbert Holland