... uphill in the snow. Then another 30 miles uphill home. But I never knew that we were poor.
My father was a one-legged butcher. His father, a blind seamstress from Scotland, carried him across the ocean in his pocket because they could afford only one ticket. They ate left over bits of bait from the pig English sailors. But they never knew they were poor.
They jumped ship at Ellis Island, where my grandfather met his bride to be, a beautiful young sign painter, who, God bless her, really wore the pants in the family. Sadly, she's been gone 15 years now. I love you, Gram! (If you're listening and can get to a phone, please call home...
... gramps has some questions about the trust.)
My father took the $15 from his paper route and gave it to my mother -- God bless her and all of you other women -- who invested in a little hole in the ground that turned out to be a coal mine. In those days, government stayed out of the way....please, please, please, I love your applause, but please...Oh, ok....
Government stayed out of the way, government stayed out of the way so we could cut the whole top off the mountain....Yes, yes. We need that kind of freedom today.
And now I stand before you, the first left handed second baseman ever nominated by a major political party to lead the next generation into the next couple of years.
Meanwhile, our opponents, who hate America, hate the idea of freedom, and want to mandate diet soda! Meanwhile, our opponents, who would like the United Nations to re-name the little document called the Bill of Rights the Bill of Lefts. Who hate that some successful people make $11 dollars an hour! Hate that success. Who can't answer the phone at 3 am, even when it might be their grandmother, or sister, or cousin, or cute little friend down the street.
And so, I humbly, never realizing I was poor, accept your encouragement. Onward. Onward. And upward!
God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.