A Temporary Problem

[Valin]

Ricochet:

Kevin Walker

6/16/12

 

Lynn Walker was born in Texas in 1925. A few years later, his father Grover, who worked at the local oil refinery, was hit by a truck near the plant’s gate as he was bicycling to his job. Grover died a couple of days later, leaving Lynn’s mother, Lavanna, a widow with seven children to raise during the Depression.

 

(Snip)

 

He never lacked compassion for the less-fortunate, though—he simply always believed that assistance in most cases should be temporary in nature. Lynn watched with sorrow as urban housing projects and welfare created a permanent dependent class that stripped recipients of dignity and self-sufficiency. It angered him to see illegal immigrants take American jobs. It infuriated him to see the government become a bloated behemoth, taking too great a proportion of his income, which he would have preferred to have invested in our economy, creating growth and employment.

 

(Snip)

 

Referring to the review of the Obama years unfolding on the TV screen, Lynn uttered the first full sentence I’d heard him say during our visit: “This…is a temporary problem.” (He had returned his Virginia absentee ballot two weeks earlier, voting for Romney/Ryan, and for George Allen, who graciously attended the wedding of Lynn’s granddaughter Sarah, a former employee.)

 

(Snip)