Ralph K. Ginorio-118-Keep Right 7/30/21: Introduction

When Mike Patrick agreed to allow me to write a regular Op Ed column, he asked me to begin by introducing myself. While reasonable, this task stymied me. Who am I to hold forth about universal issues regarding human freedom that relate to our lives here in North Idaho?!

I was born in Manhattan of Yankee/Irish and Cuban/Puerto-Rican stock. Growing up in the Bronx and in central Connecticut, I fondly remember being allowed to participate in the Sunday dinner conversations where my extended family debated politics and religion. Yes, where most healthy families avoided such topics at gatherings, my family focused on them. My overwhelmingly Liberal relatives gave me a love for the vibrant discussion of ideas.

Some of my earliest memories are of walking the streets of the Bronx in the mid-1970s. These streets resembled 1945 Berlin more than those of an American city. Buildings reduced to rubble in the Race Riots of the 1960s were as common as those which were intact. Garbage was piled in the streets in man-high berms because of strikes and the subways were filthy and covered with graffiti. Nothing worked! I learned young about how Liberal Democrats govern cities.

I personally witnessed the 1977 Blackout Riots in New York City. I watched from my grandparents’ fifth floor walk-up as crowds of people become a “Mob”. I saw people give up their individuality, transforming from individual grasshoppers into components of a destructive locust swarm.

My political awakening occurred in the malaise-ridden Carter years, particularly during the Iran Hostage Crisis. I was an enthusiastic witness to the impotence of Carter being replaced by the moral clarity of Ronald Reagan. My experiences with New York and Jimmy Carter made me a Conservative.

My single Mom became the first female Police Detective in Wallingford, Connecticut. For twenty years, she dealt with cases of rape and child molestation that sickened her Korean and Vietnam War combat veteran colleagues. She is my hero!

At Bates College, my innocent hopes of joining a refined world of reasoned discourse were shattered by a Feminist Professor who equated saying words like “mankind” with rape. When I told her that she was trivializing this horrible crime, she kicked me out of her office. Like most College Leftists, she exhibited no intellectual curiosity, no tractability to reason, and no respect for dissenting free speech.

I became deeply embroiled in politics during college. This, in addition to my poor self-discipline led to my failing out. This failure made me! With God’s help and the ongoing love of my fiancé, I built myself back from that abyss. I learned how to work hard, and went to night school. After a decade in the proverbial wilderness I had my degree, a loving wife, successful management experience, and was on my way to become a History Teacher.

My vocation is to introduce young people to their cultural heritage. History tells us who we are as Americans and depicts both wisdom and folly. I have the honor to help acculturate coming generations by coherently teaching the full scope of Western Civilization from universal creation to the present.

More than anything, I teach how the individual always can change the world. No one is irrelevant! Our opinions, whatsoever they may be, matter. It is our duty as free people to develop thoughtful convictions about what is worth living for, dying for, and even killing for, and then engage fully in the civic discourse that will sculpt our future.

This is why I want to write; to examine how universal controversies connect to our everyday lives right here at home.
***
In Maine and then Idaho, Ralph K. Ginorio has taught the history of Western Civilization to High School students for nearly a quarter century. He is an “out-of-the-closet” Conservative educator with experience in Special Education, Public Schools, and Charter Schools, Grades 6-12. He has lived in Coeur d’Alene since 2014. Email: rginorio@cdapress.com