Thanks, Tom. The thing that continues to astonish me is that despite denying basic human rights, the perpetrators still seem compelled to justify their actions with egregious lies. Their rationalizations are wholly fabricated, but the billionaire-owned media amplifies this bullshit until it becomes part of the debate. Look to the so-called "border crisis," which has never been a crisis and is in fact reflects a necessary part of the American labor force. Look in any field, on any construction site, or in any kitchen to confirm.
This inability to call things what they are seems to be largely an American phenomenon, seen in the “hearts and minds” rhetoric of the attacks on civilian populations in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Americans have a need to be seen as “good guys,” but by whom? By an imagined jury of history, maybe, or by the neighbors back home who must be convinced that what’s done in their name is somehow necessary, even noble. The language gets cleaned up and focus-grouped until “pacification” covers for massacre and “collateral damage” erases children.
The code says you can do almost anything, as long as you can still look yourself in the mirror and tell a story in which you tried your best and meant well. Meanwhile people continue to suffer and die, and the power entrenchment continues unabated. The honesty of calling things what they are is utterly lacking in modern discourse. Thanks for the reminder.
I am born of NE, grew up in IL. My father had Parkinson's from before I was born and 60 years after. Got up every day. Went to work despite his lifelong battle with the disease. Used his skills to promote social and economic justice to people who respected him but not, initially, the ideas. He changed lives. Never said a word. Never boasted. I never knew until my 20s how well respected he was. He never said. He lived by the Code. I never, until now, realized that. Thank you. He was from NE, too.
He sounds like one of the quiet giants. The kind who never needed to explain himself because the way he moved through the world did it for him. Getting up every day with Parkinson’s already takes more strength than most people will ever understand. Getting up and going to work anyway,that’s a different kind of courage.
He didn’t preach justice. He practiced it.
He didn’t announce his values. He lived them.
He didn’t tell you who he was. He showed you.
Men like that don’t leave speeches behind. They leave a shadow you grow up inside without realizing it’s shelter.
Yes. It's how I lead most of my life. Oh, when younger and female I proclaimed my achievements so as not to be overlooked. Didn't work very well, so I stopped and just followed my Dad's lead. I realized ALL the people in life I have respected and loved adhere to The Code. Those whom I do not respect or like much are self promoters or naysayers putting other people down, being unreliable. We need those who follow the Code more now than ever. Thank you for putting it into words. It helps focus who we want to be.
Spot on. I struggle mightily with those who "rationalize" the selling of their principles, souls and reputation. For what? Ego, greed, fear, racism, misogyny? Your words give me solace that the code stills lives (and is demonstrated) daily by good people doing good work. Thank you
"The person who is warm to the powerful and cold to the powerless has shown you exactly what their warmth is made of. It is not warmth. It is investment. It is the careful allocation of courtesy to the people who can return it with interest. "
Listen to this piece if it is the only thing you hear all week.
Tom Joad’s grounding clarity and simplicity takes me back to sitting on my grandma’s porch in Soso Mississippi, listening to my father and my Uncle Oree talk in their low southern drawl …… my great grandpa’s fiddle sitting silently in the corner unplayed since his stroke
As a family doctor still practicing after 42 years I have learned that my “product” is not numbers of patients seen per day , not numbers of referrals to a health system, not “5 star reviews”
It is the difference my patients make in their world, and the joy they have doing it.
Lordy Tom how well you write. And then there is the content of what you are saying. The lessons and the insight. And yet it only gently calls the thing out.
You too Tom, like Lindsey you just say the thing that must be said.
My Dad was the oldest with five sisters. At 13, my grandmother would send him to the local bar on Friday to try to get some money from his father on payday. My Dad told me that but never whether he was successful or what that asking may have caused to happen. At some point my grandfather no longer lived with his family. My father carried them all after that. By 18 he married my Mom who was just 16 in 1947. By 1955 they had 4 kids. And still he carried his Mom and sisters and us.
In 1956 my Dad moved our nuclear family to San Diego. His 2 unmarried sisters followed us. Back in Massachusetts the other sisters tended to my Grandmother, two were married. The other was addicted to alcohol. She became pregnant and the man took off. My Dad looked for him but discovered no man by that name had served in the Navy as he told my aunt. My aunt and child were then looked after too.
My Mom had 5 sisters also. Her Mom and Dad and 3 of her sisters lived in San Diego also. In 1960 Mom’s Dad dropped dead one Easter sitting in a half circle of the men passing time in the driveway. I saw it happen. He was just 60. And so now the taking care of family multiplied. I would need a piece of paper and a calculator to count my cousins. For the rest of his life my Dad was the Dad to most of these folks. He got the calls to bail someone out or to lend money that would not be paid back or the other emergencies. Mind you all of these women worked including my grandmothers. One in a plastic factory doing piecework and one held two waitressing jobs. All but 2 of my aunts married and they all worked too even my alcoholic aunt.
Around 1962 my nuclear family had moved to Los Angeles where my Dad had gotten a better job. 3 more kids were born. In 1965 when the Watts riots broke out and a car rolled down our street with long guns out the windows my Dad piled us up into a station wagon and he rented the smallest U-Haul trailer and we could only take what fit and he drove 9 days across the country back to Massachusetts. I was 9.
My Dad still was the Dad to all the others and us for the rest of his life. He only ever talked about sports and a pinch of politics. He went to church every Sunday and never spoke of that either. We 7 kids had to go with and took up the whole row after being late every week we would have to walk to the front row which others avoided. It was awful getting those disapproving looks.
My Dad never said a word about his caregiving of our huge family. He just did it. I knew it by watching and listening.
I did ask him near the end of his life why the move to California. He turned to me and said, “for the adventure.”
Thank you for this Tom….it flows like gentle rain that you can’t take your eyes off and can’t get the sound out of your head and smell out of your nostrils. You stay fixed to the end , at
least I did, at two in the morning. And you feel grateful for the gentle reminders, all of them, in the end. I appreciate your honesty and your work!
What a magnificent piece of writing. These are values I’ve always looked for, but had never put a name to. I live in Virginia. I can just picture Lindsay standing between the state and all of us who are having our votes stolen. I stand with her.
Your dad sounds a lot like mine. He saw things that needed doing and did them, and that was all there was to it because that was just what you did. Prairie practicality, I guess. Those of us raised rural on the Great Plains understand almost innately. It's heartening to hear about people - young people - like Lindsay Garcia speaking truth to power in black and white because that's what needs doing. I wish I could materially support them all, but I'll do my best by sharing pieces like yours. You say it so much better than I ever could, in a way that makes people confront themselves. Thank you.
The Empty Wagon hit home for me. I'd never heard that before, but I knew the meaning of it. Anytime someone starts telling me how smart, rich ,successful, yada yada, yada, they are I immediately tune out. Because as you said, the people who actually do things don't need to announce it.
Thanks, Tom. The thing that continues to astonish me is that despite denying basic human rights, the perpetrators still seem compelled to justify their actions with egregious lies. Their rationalizations are wholly fabricated, but the billionaire-owned media amplifies this bullshit until it becomes part of the debate. Look to the so-called "border crisis," which has never been a crisis and is in fact reflects a necessary part of the American labor force. Look in any field, on any construction site, or in any kitchen to confirm.
This inability to call things what they are seems to be largely an American phenomenon, seen in the “hearts and minds” rhetoric of the attacks on civilian populations in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Americans have a need to be seen as “good guys,” but by whom? By an imagined jury of history, maybe, or by the neighbors back home who must be convinced that what’s done in their name is somehow necessary, even noble. The language gets cleaned up and focus-grouped until “pacification” covers for massacre and “collateral damage” erases children.
The code says you can do almost anything, as long as you can still look yourself in the mirror and tell a story in which you tried your best and meant well. Meanwhile people continue to suffer and die, and the power entrenchment continues unabated. The honesty of calling things what they are is utterly lacking in modern discourse. Thanks for the reminder.
I am born of NE, grew up in IL. My father had Parkinson's from before I was born and 60 years after. Got up every day. Went to work despite his lifelong battle with the disease. Used his skills to promote social and economic justice to people who respected him but not, initially, the ideas. He changed lives. Never said a word. Never boasted. I never knew until my 20s how well respected he was. He never said. He lived by the Code. I never, until now, realized that. Thank you. He was from NE, too.
He sounds like one of the quiet giants. The kind who never needed to explain himself because the way he moved through the world did it for him. Getting up every day with Parkinson’s already takes more strength than most people will ever understand. Getting up and going to work anyway,that’s a different kind of courage.
He didn’t preach justice. He practiced it.
He didn’t announce his values. He lived them.
He didn’t tell you who he was. He showed you.
Men like that don’t leave speeches behind. They leave a shadow you grow up inside without realizing it’s shelter.
You saw it now.
That’s the gift.
Yes. It's how I lead most of my life. Oh, when younger and female I proclaimed my achievements so as not to be overlooked. Didn't work very well, so I stopped and just followed my Dad's lead. I realized ALL the people in life I have respected and loved adhere to The Code. Those whom I do not respect or like much are self promoters or naysayers putting other people down, being unreliable. We need those who follow the Code more now than ever. Thank you for putting it into words. It helps focus who we want to be.
Thank you for being part of this great group of people I have found!!
Thank YOU for being worth our finding!
Your dad had superb mindfulness - perhaps Zen of the flat land.
Spot on. I struggle mightily with those who "rationalize" the selling of their principles, souls and reputation. For what? Ego, greed, fear, racism, misogyny? Your words give me solace that the code stills lives (and is demonstrated) daily by good people doing good work. Thank you
Another great piece, Tom. And this:
"The person who is warm to the powerful and cold to the powerless has shown you exactly what their warmth is made of. It is not warmth. It is investment. It is the careful allocation of courtesy to the people who can return it with interest. "
this was bang on the money.
Listen to this piece if it is the only thing you hear all week.
Tom Joad’s grounding clarity and simplicity takes me back to sitting on my grandma’s porch in Soso Mississippi, listening to my father and my Uncle Oree talk in their low southern drawl …… my great grandpa’s fiddle sitting silently in the corner unplayed since his stroke
As a family doctor still practicing after 42 years I have learned that my “product” is not numbers of patients seen per day , not numbers of referrals to a health system, not “5 star reviews”
It is the difference my patients make in their world, and the joy they have doing it.
It is The Code.
Lordy Tom how well you write. And then there is the content of what you are saying. The lessons and the insight. And yet it only gently calls the thing out.
You too Tom, like Lindsey you just say the thing that must be said.
My Dad was the oldest with five sisters. At 13, my grandmother would send him to the local bar on Friday to try to get some money from his father on payday. My Dad told me that but never whether he was successful or what that asking may have caused to happen. At some point my grandfather no longer lived with his family. My father carried them all after that. By 18 he married my Mom who was just 16 in 1947. By 1955 they had 4 kids. And still he carried his Mom and sisters and us.
In 1956 my Dad moved our nuclear family to San Diego. His 2 unmarried sisters followed us. Back in Massachusetts the other sisters tended to my Grandmother, two were married. The other was addicted to alcohol. She became pregnant and the man took off. My Dad looked for him but discovered no man by that name had served in the Navy as he told my aunt. My aunt and child were then looked after too.
My Mom had 5 sisters also. Her Mom and Dad and 3 of her sisters lived in San Diego also. In 1960 Mom’s Dad dropped dead one Easter sitting in a half circle of the men passing time in the driveway. I saw it happen. He was just 60. And so now the taking care of family multiplied. I would need a piece of paper and a calculator to count my cousins. For the rest of his life my Dad was the Dad to most of these folks. He got the calls to bail someone out or to lend money that would not be paid back or the other emergencies. Mind you all of these women worked including my grandmothers. One in a plastic factory doing piecework and one held two waitressing jobs. All but 2 of my aunts married and they all worked too even my alcoholic aunt.
Around 1962 my nuclear family had moved to Los Angeles where my Dad had gotten a better job. 3 more kids were born. In 1965 when the Watts riots broke out and a car rolled down our street with long guns out the windows my Dad piled us up into a station wagon and he rented the smallest U-Haul trailer and we could only take what fit and he drove 9 days across the country back to Massachusetts. I was 9.
My Dad still was the Dad to all the others and us for the rest of his life. He only ever talked about sports and a pinch of politics. He went to church every Sunday and never spoke of that either. We 7 kids had to go with and took up the whole row after being late every week we would have to walk to the front row which others avoided. It was awful getting those disapproving looks.
My Dad never said a word about his caregiving of our huge family. He just did it. I knew it by watching and listening.
I did ask him near the end of his life why the move to California. He turned to me and said, “for the adventure.”
That was my Dad.
“For the Adventure” is the greatest line I have ever heard. I’m stealing that!!!😀😀😀
I just wrote a reply and accidentally touched the screen wrong and it is gone. Did you steal it?
😉
My Dad was a voracious reader and would love to know one of his lines was used by a writer.!Have at it.
His name was Frank MacDonald. Not a bad character name either eh?
Sounds good!!
Thank you again for another stellar piece. You can really hit them out of the ballpark.
Thank you Jane!!
Thank you for this Tom….it flows like gentle rain that you can’t take your eyes off and can’t get the sound out of your head and smell out of your nostrils. You stay fixed to the end , at
least I did, at two in the morning. And you feel grateful for the gentle reminders, all of them, in the end. I appreciate your honesty and your work!
Thank you so much!!
What a magnificent piece of writing. These are values I’ve always looked for, but had never put a name to. I live in Virginia. I can just picture Lindsay standing between the state and all of us who are having our votes stolen. I stand with her.
Thank you.
I hope more people pay attention to her.
Your dad sounds a lot like mine. He saw things that needed doing and did them, and that was all there was to it because that was just what you did. Prairie practicality, I guess. Those of us raised rural on the Great Plains understand almost innately. It's heartening to hear about people - young people - like Lindsay Garcia speaking truth to power in black and white because that's what needs doing. I wish I could materially support them all, but I'll do my best by sharing pieces like yours. You say it so much better than I ever could, in a way that makes people confront themselves. Thank you.
I am proud of where I am from. The media wants me to feel ashamed I’m from the Midwest. Not any more.
Same.
The Empty Wagon hit home for me. I'd never heard that before, but I knew the meaning of it. Anytime someone starts telling me how smart, rich ,successful, yada yada, yada, they are I immediately tune out. Because as you said, the people who actually do things don't need to announce it.
Great essay.
Thanks John!!
This is exceptional work. Thank you for giving it to the world.
That is so nice!! Thank you!!
All of this tracks, and yet what I can't square is why so many people in rural areas voted for the empty wagon??
Loved the 5th paragraph about the flat land in western Nebraska.
Thanks!!
I feel small now; got some work to do on myself. great article!!!
Thanks Don!!