Sandy Burton, Golfer

Sandy, in thinking about our exchange of emails, I've tried to understand where the differences between us comes from. I thought about our youth: both of Scottish descent and each approached golf early. I started caddying at the age of nine at our local Country Club
while, I surmised, you began playing golf much earlier at a local Country Club. Seemingly such a little difference is much greater when analyzed.  

Young caddies of my era were never allowed to enter the Clubhouse, maybe the locker room to pick up a golf bag, but so rarely. Caddies, me included, felt second class like a serf to the gentry. We were always cordoned away from the elite Country Club set when special events were organized for them. Yes, caddies thought themselves an inferior race in this time period just post WW2. 

I imagine you have a different perspective of your early years. When stratification begins early it intensifies over the years. I've carried over into the latter years of my life a sense of denied equality that must be overcome. I chose Public Service as my method to right these ills. I look at those who have little or nothing as victims not takers. I look at the Country Club elites as takers from the public trough displacing many truly needy. Superior elites spend their time shuttling between golf courses ultimately seeking one which suites their game always trying to be superior, being King of the Hill.

Poor Franklin Graham gets tripped up on history. His white Christian males found hordes of reddish Native Americans to murder in their European clammer to declare themselves conquerers of this new land. Many thousands of years earlier Native Americans had already explored this continent and all this time lived in concert with nature. Today, from their seats of financial power situated in Country Clubs, when the strenuous day of golf is over, financiers get their heads together to concoct new ways of lowering their taxes but paying for it by raising taxes on those least able to afford it. 

I am an unabashed proponent of equality among humans, even though, most listed by Franklin are in need of real help. And I understand the majority of those he called takers would never make it to the first hole let alone ever find par. No matter how life affects us we are all subject to death. I doubt a White Supremacist like Franklin Graham or people who support his edicts will have an any easier way beyond this life than I expect for myself. How in the World can these people be not only bigoted but be believers in miss information while they openly pray to a benevolent God. Wrapping oneself in the flag when on bended knee praying to the personal image of their God does not grant one a path to the hereafter. Jesus, it is said, prayed especially for the least of us. I am one of them and many of my friends are similar. 

Only you can determine where you are positioned on the rung of life.

Respectfully, Ronald C. Downie