LEAVE A LEGACY

There is not a week that goes by that I find myself hearing comments by people, young and old, suggesting they would rather have lived in some time in the past or wish they could live in some utopian time in the future. Since words and thoughts are contagious, the full blown message is Annie singing "the sun will come out...tomorrow". After giving it some thought, I'm sure it probably could be a sunnier, rosier, and easier if I had a genie or the prolific "Candy Man" who in the song is someone....

Who can take tomorrow
Dip it in a deam
Seperate the sorrow
And collect up all the cream?

I mean, let's face it. Looking back on yester-year or the good ol' days, there is surely some things that are long gone which we don't have today that I want. And surely some things that we have now in a negative way that didn't exist then, that I just don't want to live with today. But if that is as far as our focus can go, we may short change ourselves of one of the greatest blessings that the United States Of America and the freedoms fought by all cultures have given us. That blessing is Legacy which carries more importance in our wonderful intersection of heritages than anywhere else. By one definition, a legacy is something handed down by an ancestor or predecessor from the past. Yet, like everything else, this can be a neglected and unappreciated gift when we become like spoiled children. Not that we don't "honor" with our mouth the past. But our revealed murmuring and victim like attitudes reveal once again how when spoiled we often suffer. And it's not because we "need" more but often because we have neglected or are oblivious to "who" and "what" we have. Do we understand what it is to inherit a country where we have the freedom to enterprise? Do we understand what dreams we are living in today that our some of our ancestors prayed for and some of which they thought were impossible? If we do not appreciate the answers, what possible Legacy can we be giving to the next generation? We will cover more of those specific prayers and hopes from the past in future Leave A Legacy segments. But without dispute, I am thankful for the life that I have in America today. There are great men and women who have gone before me to allow me to live a life more advanced than the parents of this poor Mississippi boy could have dreamed possible. I am walking in their dream. I am living their Legacy. The ques

tion is, what kind will I leave?

"Candy Man"? I have been given, with the gift of this country, much better than that. I (we) have had passed down by in essence the shoulders of "Candy Men & Women" of a prior time. To quote Isaac Newton, "If I can see further, It is by standing on the shoulders of Giants".

"For The Hero In You"

RK