Papa, Peasants, and The Apple tree

CHAPTER ONE:


As sanity spreads across our minds, we ask ourselves that forbidden question. It is a question a sane man asks of himself, yet dares not announce this madness to the world, or even in confidence to his friends and family. “What is it…what is it within our nature, that we give credence, succor, and aid to madmen, to men who are least qualified to be our leaders, our managers, and our taskmasters. Is it some consent or just lack of denouncement, or otherwise some action we did not take to prevent monsters from accessing the tools, the means to perpetrate their madness upon the innocent….or is it that somehow, madmen and monsters are destined to roam unleashed, until their madness is finally met with madmen who are equally hungry and mad run against them.” Then again it is probable that the tools find their way to the madmen by men more sinister, yet more calculated; yet prefer to watch the madness play out. Like the Greek and Roman myths, the gods capriciously playing man against man merely for their own sport and enjoyment. We would prefer to believe that evil always pay, and the innocent are to always gain their reward, but a simple look at history will tell you that this isn’t the case. Then again, this is my strength, which is philosophizing and looking at the intricate details of a world, in which men lived, and struggled,
yet had no time to consider the significance of their actions. How like man to believe that as a single man, anything a single man does can affect the world in any fashion. Yet, some men do; but the masses of men, are workers in the hive, who work away their lives to support the rest of the brood, and of course to allow the lifeblood, the queen to live in the greatest of ease and majesty, like the cabal that rules.


Micheal Barna was born a poor peasant, who although having a father, became a bastard, owing to the fact that his father was already married to someone else. He was the proverbial fiddler, who like to play his instrument and dance and of course to make merry. And as my Dad, that poor Ukrainian peasant would like to tell me time and time again throughout my lifetime, that one half of the world dances, while the other half cries. A study in balance, life is a little of misery and joy, good times and bad times. Yet, it is something we internalize and accept and reject all at the same time. It is something where we can accept that our enemies are tormented, while expecting that our friends and family experience anything but the goodness of like. Rare is a man who can accept that evil men will have good times, and the most saintly of saints will experience the woes of life. My father was from a generation that did not expose his or her feeling and traumas of life to anyone. They would put the best face they could upon the world, and what happened in the past, was left there. Sometimes it would surface a little here and a little there while growing up. However, for the most part, it was a rare occasion that he should reveal the mysteries of the past and life growing up. Inside you could see the pain and sorrow in his eyes, you could see the joy and exuberance of the simple things of life there also recalling the simple things, that only someone who had little, and knew how to enjoy little things to a point, where they were great joys. As joyous as a fortunate bride is shown an engagement ring of thousands of dollars, or a fortunate young man being given the keys to a wonderful sports car and allowed to travel with it as he pleases…ah such a thing my Dad would assign to little things, as a good meal; where one ate until one had no longer a desire to eat again for the rest of the day. Such things as I had the good fortune to have given to me, which I did not appreciate in the same venue as my Dad, such as enough to eat, good shoes upon my feet, and a warm coat to cover up with in the winter, and a good bed with pillows and a blanket to cover oneself, and most of all a roof that kept the elements at bay outside, such things a peasant is content; but as a boy growing up as a rural American in the northeast did not put such high praise, because, one does not praise what one is accustom to, that perhaps is our bane in this world. We tend to overlook what we already have, and instead yearn for what is not within our grasp. After all what man is truly satisfied, what man is truly content? Even if one man longs for things of the spiritual realm, even there exists a yearning to have ever more understanding, ever more discernment, ever more answers to questions that evade us as men with desires. It is perhaps the desires of men, that bring him not only unhappiness, but also unhappiness to all others who also desire. Sadly acting to satisfy one desire will most assuredly spawn the seeds of more desires. Each requiring attending to, like a garden that has ever the need for sun, water, and good soil. Unfortunately, within the fruits of these gardens, weeds of dissatisfaction will usually grow faster, so that what we reap will once again not taste so sweet, leaving us insatiable. The poor have no real estate, perhaps, that is why the rich have called it so; to the peasant, it is much like the human body itself, temporal. The poor merely pay as they go for the privilege of existing upon the land owner’s property, but he cannot hold it within his hands and give it to his children. He can only pass on his debt to his children with the hope of redemption ever leading on the peasants, the hope that they shall be redeemed from their debtor by the eternal hope of salvation. So it has ever been. Whether it is the ruling class of kings and queens, commissars and czars, politburos and politicians, they do so unto their own ends. Corporate entities, the elite and those beholden to them, to the poor it matters not the titles and promises of the authoritarians for they are much the same no matter what titles they bestow upon themselves. There have always been men who enjoy a beautiful bird inside the proverbial gilded cage, they believe that because of their power and their greatness, the bird sings for them and them alone. What they do not know, is that the bird sings because he remembers freedom….much like he remembers stories of salvation and redemption. Just as the corporations look out from their towing buildings, peering through their windows to the ant farm that they perceive below. Know that a little knock here and little shake there, the poor homes and passage ways of the poor will collapse, yet they are spared the horror themselves in their cubicles and hidden estates located deep in the rural areas, safe from the foraging hordes below them. They never consider the ants that look up or the bird looking out at them through the iron works of his cage and see them as wizards in glass. The ants know, and the birds know, what the wizards with all their spells and knowledge and supposed wisdom of man never truly see; that they are trapped much the same as they are inside their glass towers.

As Micheal was dealing with the socialist idealisms, which are only ideals by which men wish to get other men to do their bidding. Stephanie Tozzi was living in the crumbling of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was witnessing the death of the royalties of old Europe, and amongst these ashes was rising a fascism that believed it was the destiny of knowledgeable men to usurp power and control from the pitiful masses who needed to be lied to and coaxed with greater lies, which are only ideals by which men wish to get other men to do their bidding. As Austria strove to prolong the mirage, that all men should be enlightened and be prudently governed by the vestiges of the old empire, it was no match for the wolves and the pups they were raising up in Germany. Austria was but another pen of sheep waiting to be lead by the corruption of philosophical ideals of Nietzsche and amalgamations of death cults, disguised as proper Christian ideals in which they we destined to ensnare the world in their clutches, because they were the uber race picked to enslave mankind. Stephanie grew up in Salzburg, which in many respects was a world away from the poverty and deprivations of the Ukraine. My mother was part of an upper middle class of a world where gentility was a part of life. Where streets were cobbled and lights abounded at night, with air of a vibrant middle class is enlighten with the smells of thoughtfully prepared meals, the sounds of pleasant conversation, and where a light attitude usually prevails over an area where the grim necessities of life aren’t quite so harsh, and not quite so worried over.

It’s interesting to note here, like all parents, we are truly only too happy within our hearts to know that our children do not have to bear some of the harshness of life, as we had to in some of the things we had to do; if only for awhile while they are still young. We may yearn that they should appreciate the sacrifices and struggles that we have gone through, but I can only fathom what my parents had indeed lived through. We have all heard the stories of parents who had to go to school through the snow, without shoes or a proper coat, braving the elements…but I somehow doubt that we would subject our children purposefully to these things, if we have the means with which to provide them with transportation, shoes, and the basic necessities of life. Most of the dreadful things my parents lived through were not things they wore as badges upon their chests. A despairing solitude in bearing the scars of what they had witnessed, of what they had to do, of struggles of existing in a time, where existence itself was a struggle. Where even thoughts of a nature that were inconsistent with what was being propagandized were dangers within themselves. It’s that basic fear of the ultimate test that all men harbor inside their hearts. When coming face to face with the ultimate survival of ourselves and our families, would we ourselves have the strength and the courage to refuse the devil, or to dance with him for a while, while others suffered, and while others looked into the abyss and said that this is wrong, and stood up for convictions for which no human would ever know or witness. For the executioners who passed sentence upon a resistor, would be the only witnesses between the Almighty and the ones who met and paid the ultimate price. Just what possesses a man to exact a toll from another, which he would not exact from someone else just because of what one thought (or at least said), or because of ones race, or ones religion, ones economic status, or ones position. Like a roadblock set up arbitrarily at any given point, which one must pass through. Where the men standing at the head of the queue posses weapons of death which will pass judgment instantaneously, they will wave others on by; who have at least for the moment passed what ever litmus test conjured up by powers which one has no control over, and suddenly a finger points in your general direction. Even as you see the nervous relief on the faces of those who have made it through already, stare backwards. You turn around for a moment to see if perhaps the chosen one is behind you, but as you turn back around, a more insistent voice and a more direct finger shoots almost as an arrow aiming for your very soul. It is with the ...