By Don Rush

I never gave much thought to the scientific study of how particular qualities or traits are transmitted from parents to offspring. Wel, never is a long time, I will say until I became a father I never gave it much thought. Needless to say, deep contemplation on that subject (nor really any other) did not happen and before I grew to grayhairdom, I came to my own conclusions about “self.”
Quite simply I thought, you are who you are, a solitary sentient being, an individual who takes his or her own path through life.
Heredity, schmedity — especially if you consider that learned folks say each body has between 20,000 and 25,000 genes — and only a pair from your ma and another from your pa. From your parental units you “inherit” your nose shape, eye color, skin pigment and a couple of other physical traits. But the essence of yourself has nothing to do with how your DNA stacks up.
It seemed only logical.
I reckon I was happily ignorant and I admit it, I was wrong: Genetics are stronger than I first anticipated. Never one confused for being a brainiack, I figured this out a few years ago. It hit me as I harkened back to those thrilling days of yesteryear at the old Rush homestead on the mean streets of Clarkston, oh wait a minute. There are no mean streets in Clarkston proper. The mean streets are all in Clarkston’s ghetto, Independence Township. Everything in Clarkston has been and shall always be quaint, charming, historic, nice and white.
Where was I — oh yes, tripping down memory lane.
I remembered one of my father’s 2,874,000 directives (not to be mistaken with the 987,654 lectures) given to me when I was but a lad.
“No singing at the dinner table.”
Not that Dad sat at the table whilst we ate dinners. He had his spot a few yards away on the living room couch directly in view of the family television. I don’t think my singing was bad, now that I think of it, and it may have been impolite to sing and eat at the same time, but I think the real reason was, said singing got in the way of the sound from said TV.
And, why was I singing at the kitchen table? I do not know . . . maybe I was tuning out the chatter from my three younger sisters or maybe I just had a song stuck in my head that had to get out. I just sang and Dad just said don’t. Fast forward a few decades.
I don’t know if the genetic link is strong between Pops Rush and myself, or between myself and Number Two son, Sean. You decide.
One Sunday about 10 years ago, we sat dining in our kitchen, I looked over to the four- (almost five) -year-old Sean and said, “No singing at the dinner table.”
So, was it specific Rush DNA sequencing causing Sean to sing at the dinner table as I used to, or was I genetically predisposed to giving Sean the same what-for my dear old dad gave me upon hearing the warblings of young vocal chords at the table?
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Boy, ain’t it amazing what straws a man will grasp for when he has nothing to write about?
* * *
When George Orwell penned his now widely read novel, 1984, in 1949 he wrote of an oppressive, tyrannical government. He affectionately called this governing body, Big Brother.
I, like many, read that book while still in public schools. I don’t have a copy of it, but, with today’s technology I was able to go on-line and find this quote from the book: “People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your onetime existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.”
Zip forward to 2016 and boy, how the times have changed. We have zero privacy. We have given it away and there is nothing we can do about it now. Facebook and other social medias and an over reaching government collect all we think, say and do — everyday. Were Orwell just now writing his futuristic nightmare, would Big Brother be an oppressive government or would it be a puppet government actually run by corrupt corporate types?
I would like you all to cut out this column, shove it in a book somewhere and then let’s discuss this in say, 10 years. Let’s see if we are allowed to sing at our own dinner tables — or if we even have our own anythings like dinner tables.
Comments to Don@ShermanPublications.org

  big brother, clarkston, don rush, george orwell