Rant #2,302: Pride (In the Name of Love)

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and much of our country has the day off from work on this Monday.

I don't, never have, and probably never will.

I have to go to work today, hence, I had to wake up at my usual 3:30 a.m. to prepare for my day, just like I pretty much always do during weekdays.

Today is supposed to be a day of giving back, of serving your community as Dr. King would have liked us to do, so I guess that he would be happy with me because I am serving my community by working and bringing in a paycheck.

Even when I was teaching, way back in the early 1980s, no district I worked in at the time recognized the holiday, so I always worked today, and so it is just another day on the calendar for me.

Something tells me that on this day of service, most people don't do much else but sleep later, so their day of service is for themselves ... what would Dr. King think about that?

Personally, with all this hubbub about doing something to benefit your community today, I think he would be OK with most of us just sleeping the day off.

Everyone has to recharge their batteries, and I suspect that although it appeared that he worked 24/7/365 to battle injustice, there were days where he just had to take it one step back and take it easy, so although some might think that is showing laziness, and not resolve, I don't think he would be too upset if you just spent the day around the house doing next to nothing.

I wish that I could do that too, but it is not meant to be.

It just so happens that my wife is off today, not because it is a holiday, but because she has to work this coming Saturday, so she was given today as a day off.

The bank she works at happens to be open; why should commerce stop? And you just know that there will be plenty of people there, counting their money and doing other transactions.

I guess today is their day of service to make sure that their money is secure and gaining interest in the accounts where that is supposed to happen.

Believe me, I am not trying to make fun of the day, of Dr. King's work or life or legacy by saying what I am saying.

I guess I am a bit envious of those of us who do have off today, because I know that at work, today is going to be a very sloooooooooow day.

I deal with the government, and yes, most of the government will be closed today, so the people I deal with are at home while I am at work.

Believe me, I will be counting the minutes and seconds for the day to end.

But this so-called day of service ... the media hypes that up for what perhaps it should be and is for some, but for most of us, we will do our service in our beds.

Dr. King was a great man who did great things during his short life, and he was gunned down at perhaps the height of his influence.

I remember that day like it was yesterday, and honestly, I do not have very fond memories of the day.

In fact, if Dr. King had lived, I seem to remember that my old neighborhood was on his schedule of places to visit, and perhaps as a schoolkid in 1968, all of 11 years old, I would have had a chance to meet him ...

And we would have talked baseball.

Just the other day, a childhood memory came back to me when I saw on the Internet what I don't think is one of his most famous photos. It was a photo that I had not seen in decades, and I think there are actually variations of this photo. Here is one of them.

It is King playing baseball with his son, I presume his oldest son, Martin Luther King III, seemingly in the backyard of their home.

How many fathers did the same thing with their sons? Mine did, and I did it with my son too.

It is just such a basic thing to do, and when I saw that photo again, it just brought back so many memories of days gone by.

Most of the famous photos of King are him standing at a podium and making his famous speeches.

But in this photo, he was simply being "dad."

It is my favorite photo of him, and if we take anything out of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day today, is that he was much like our fathers were, a family man who put his family first, and then went about his job of dong what he did.

My father did exactly the same thing. It might have been from a taxi cab, but his values were much the same as Dr. King's were.

Let's celebrate that side of Dr. King today on his special day.