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The Sour Grapes Conundrum

Charles Hayes

    For many years I have seen it coming, the American Bust. Always it seemed still afar. Like myself perhaps, getting older but still a part of the main. Now, like Father Time, it is knocking at my door. And it isn’t the first knock. It isn’t something that, if I wait a while, will go away. So I prepare. Not getting so sad and depressed is part of that preparation. As I have done with so many of life’s disappointments, I use the “sour grapes” phenomenon to weather this unwanted happening. Meaning that the so seductive sirens of the American Bust are likened to grapes that are too high on the vine to reach. I tell myself that, though they look sweet, they are probably sour. That makes it not so bad. And it allows me to avoid continued participation in the destruction of this country.
    I have little doubt that the country I learned to live in is gone and drifting farther away from the time when making merry and doing “good” things was desirable. I am quick to turn my back and tend to things that seem truly a part of home. I forgo the higher fruit with its luster. Too many people try to equate the two, home and higher living. For them, I suppose, it is a way to avoid any problem with those higher fruits. Not for me. Those grapes are really sour and they are really out of reach.
    This America has long been high up but I always considered it unfair to try and harm it or bring it down. Apparently that is not so anymore. Many people now, who can gain or not, have no problem with it. Like ambitious Jacks scurrying up the capital beanstalks, their glowing reputations strapped to their backs, they go at it for higher living. Or at least a clearer sound of the siren songs. They are the ones that brought this country to its knees so the likes of today’s powerful people could better wield their head lopping axes.
    I am also guilty and I am sorry but my sight is no longer mistaken. I believe in myself, though it is a dubious credit at best. For me, unlike before, ambition is no longer anywhere near the top of the vine. It is an ever present punji pit waiting for a mis-step. Sadly though, I must still hate the sour grapes.



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