Busy Morning a Drifty Mind

Ted arrives this morning! He called me 5 times last night and texted me a couple of times. I think he is excited to be coming home. We've promised him omelets here tonight for supper and tomorrow night I will take him to the Royal Panda, a favored place for him. He eats sushi, I eat crab legs.

This restaurant is owned by "Tony" and he lives here in my neighborhood. I remember when we first moved here, Tony had a little restaurant in a strip mall. Oriental food and good oriental food. As time when on and Tony's business prospered, he built a huge ornate building next to a Walmart store. Smart man. He catches all the Walmart traffic or at least a part of it. Now I know "Tony" isn't his given name. I'm sure it's something none of us could pronounce and Tony barely spoke English when we first met him. I'm sure he bastardized his name for the country he was in.

I remember shortly after 9/11 when this country had gone stark raving nuts. Accusations were flying accusing people of being anti-American. If you were of a nationality that was easily spotted as being from another country, you were beaten, verbally abused, your store was burned or you were run out of business. I was so proud of this country (said sarcastically). Tony was very nervous. He could see what was going on. He embraced this country and all he was able to accomplish here but it didn't help.
Tony is a soft spoken man; he spent years building up his business and I've had him sit at our table many times while we dined. I had never heard Tony disparage this country. He was just trying to survive in a country where he had basic knowledge of the language.

Some woman here went into his business and then went public accusing him of slandering the United States. I thought I would never know that kind of hate here. I was watching television when the story broke on the local news channel. I found emails being circulated accusing Tony of defaming the flag and spouting hate against the USA. I knew this was impossible and every email I received, I blasted back with a "reply to all" on their stupidity. People were forwarding this hateful email and new ones were being built. Tony was scared. I went to see him at his restaurant. We spoke minimally about it. He was bowed. We knew with the hysteria about at that time that the least said and reported was best.
Months later after the initial big page news article on this, an apology was issued by the paper. The woman had made up this story. Of course the apology was not front page news. It was good news and that seldom sells.

People world wide condemn the country of Germany for following Hitler's rein of terror. Condemnation for the prison interment of the Japanese US citizen during WWII here. They say it couldn't happen again. They say they don't know why the people followed Hitler. I know. I saw it here. I saw the small snow ball start rolling and picking up speed. I listened and watched and was frightened. We were supposed to be frightened. Propaganda is a powerful tool. It works. I saw it in action; something I never thought I would experience. We were getting primed for an invasion. Tempers were flaring; we were staged for an invasion.
And we did.

Did I get side tracked in this post?

This started as a post on my plans for today and ended right ...................HERE.