LESSONS LEARNED

I've always thought I had a pretty good command of the English language. I attribute much of that to my father, who insisted we use words properly; that we challenge ourselves to broaden our vocabulary. One of his hard and fast rules was that if we didn't know what a word meant or heard a new word, we looked it up. When one of my daughters was in the fifth grade her teacher gave each of her students a button to wear on their shirts or jackets. It was bright yellow with red letters that stated "We never guess, we look it up". I think that was meant to cover reading, history, geography (do they even teach that anymore?) and,of course, English.

I know I'm not the run-of-the-mill language buff. I have a dictionary in the magazine rack next to my chair in the living room and if I come across a word I'm not familiar with, I look it up; there's a dictionary/thesaurus near my desk; and if something comes up on television, or in the newspaper and I don't know exactly what it is or means, I run to the computer and look it up. My gosh, that lesson has stayed with me!

In today's world our word usage has expanded immensely. I have to admit I don't know what some of the new lingo means and when I look it up I don't even understand the technical language, but I try.

Lately, and even though I don't want to get into politics, I have strong feelings about come of the current topics, but what I really want to see is something I call common sense put into place. Can something as simple as this prevail? My most current conundrum is the situation with gas prices which hit and hurt just about everyone in this country and are part of the myriad proposals facing us all. There seem to be many solutions and blame connected with this subject, offered by many people. One of the words bandied about is the word subsidy. It seems big oil companies need subsidies.

Excuse me but just look up the word subsidy. It means; financial support, financial assistance, financial funding, financial backing, grants and subvention. Notice all those 'financial' words. I always thought subsidies were a system used by government at all levels to help a struggling entity, to give a lift to new business or programs, or to help people with real needs.

Now here's the problem I have with this subject. How, I ask, does a company who boasts and posts bigger than enormous profits for one quarter of the year, qualify for a subsidy? What kind of financial help do they need? Are they in need of financial assistance? Financial backing? Grants? Small struggling businesses, businesses that, with some help, could expand thereby picking up some of the people who are looking for jobs, and people and programs in need might qualify for subsidies. But major, giant, thriving businesses don't need subsidies.

I think I might share this with some of our congressmen, maybe even the President. It's one small voice but perhaps we should raise some small voices. It's not against the law to raise a question or prompt a discussion. Subsidies for giant oil companies?

Another lesson my father taught me was that it was a privilege to be an American citizen (he was naturalized) but with that privilege came responsibility. We've always been a nation of responsible, privileged people. We help the poor and downtrodden. We share where we can. Isn't that just common sense?

I think we've all learned this kind of lesson sometime in our life. Lessons we should use.