From The Editor
Following in Their Footprints
This month we feature several stories about heritage — Latino heritage in particular since it is Hispanic Heritage Month. Writer Marisella Veiga heard about the Cuban men who meet regularly in Gainesville to share their histories of coming to this country in exile. She eagerly took this assignment because her father had also led his family — including the young Marisella — to the United States when Castro came into power. As she ate lunch with these gentlemen and heard their stories she became transfixed by the tremendous influence these patriarchs had on her life and others whose lives they fought to improve.This month I wrote about my Route 66 trip with my friend Joy in the Senior Times travel guide. Like Marisella, Joy also took a peek at the road her father traveled during his young life. We began at the place of his birth in Oklahoma and then as we followed Route 66 west often Joy would pause and remember that her father and his mother had made that very same journey in 1936, again in an effort to improve lives.
Both women expressed gratitude for those who had gone before because today their lives resemble nothing of the hard knocks taken by their parents. But because of those hard knocks both have led lives full of hope.
As we sit in our comfortable homes and ride in our air-conditioned cars, it is impossible to imagine losing everything either to a dictator or to the vagaries of nature. But it is in those times of adversity that true character shows and develops. Joy once told me that the measure of a person does not come when things go right, but it shows in how they conduct themselves when things go wrong.
I believe without a doubt she is correct. It is easy to be calm and resourceful and patient when life glides along on smooth ice. But melt that ice, punch a hole in it or hit a bumpy patch, and how we balance, slide or even fall defines us much more than any other tangible success achieved in this lifetime.
I salute all of those who faced with adversity and said, “Things could be worse.”
As I think of my own heritage I remember a grandfather who died before I was born, but who set the course for my family in this country. Grandfather Stephens left the clay mines of Cornwall, England, and traveled alone at the age of 21 to upper Michigan where he worked in the copper mines. He eventually became a Methodist minister and educated himself since he left formal schooling at the age of 10.
September is Grandparents month as well so it is appropriate that we turn to our heritages and remember what brought us here. Now all of you grandparents out there have the opportunity to bring your heritage to your grandchildren so they too will remember what went before.
Take the time this month to do it all.