"Not From the Finest"

I grew up in a middle class suburb of New York in West Orange, New Jersey.  I had a quintessentially  normal childhood for a kid growing up in the 50s.  I would go out and play in my subdivision neighborhood unafraid of intruders or bad people.  I went to Hebrew school three times a week like most of my friends.  I could just go up to any of my friend’s houses; knock on the door and be welcomed with a smile and an invitation to wait until my friend would come downstairs and we would go out and join other friends until the sun set, doing mundane things like playing stoop ball, ‘catch a fly and you’re up’ or trading baseball cards.

As my world expanded and I went to junior high school, my exposure to people and families less fortunate and perhaps less schooled in the niceties of a middle class upbringing increased.  My mother would approve or disapprove of new friends as she got to know them.  In some cases she would caution me about someone who I brought home and warn me about them saying that they or their families were “not from the finest…”. 

Over the years that phrase has stayed with me.  If I describe someone to you as ‘not from the finest’, it conjures up an image of a person with perhaps legal problems, being a bully, doing drugs or drinking.  But even more, it also implies a negative image to whomever was described as a product of other people, namely their parents.

When I got older and dated different women who had occasion to meet my parents, that phrase was used when my mom was unimpressed with whomever I brought home.  She would say, “Just be careful son, that girl just seems like she is ‘not from the finest’.”

That phrase has become a sort of golden rule for me as I travel through life.  The people I choose to associate with, or be with, or do business with all seem to weather that subtle filter.  My mother was right, from the getgo.  I always was somehow  diminished in any relationship where I did not heed that quiet admonishment.

And so it is with our current political situation in America today.  I glanced up at the TV the other night and the commentator was describing 14 portrait thumbnails on the screen of all the people in the Trump orbit that lied about having any contact with the Russians just prior to the 2016 election up until the present; and since then have misdirected and lied about their interactions with a known enemy of the United States—Russia.

My mother would have looked at that group of people and said, “Larry, stay away from those people..’they are not from the finest’.

And she would be correct.  They are the lowlife “best people” promised by Donald Trump.  They have been swept into office and power by the person who now holds sway in the Oval Office.  My mother, seeing that graphic on the screen would have said, (Need I repeat it?)"Stay away, they are not from the finest".

If only the American people had been blessed to have my Mom as their Mom….maybe we wouldn’t be in the fix we are in today.