Patrick J Day

Engage Patrick J Day

Just a couple of weeks ago Mallard and his friends were sitting in Blue Moon Café drinking coffee and eating cinnamon rolls and pancakes. They would drink coffee, watch the news, and complain. And then a decision to stop complaining from the side lines and get back in the game plunges them into deadly events beyond their ability to control.

"Guys like us...what are we doing? What are we doing? We have spent our whole lives learning and experiencing things, we have skills and knowledge, a lifetime of hard-earned knowledge and skills. And what do we do? We cannot wait to retire so we can go play. We retire and commit the rest of our precious little time to what? To what Billy, to our stupid bucket lists? To eating, drinking, travel, and playing...taking it easy. Trying to find something fun to do while we wait to die. Just at the point in life where our skills and experience are peaked, we quit the game...just because we can. And when we are not pursing our current distraction, we sit in cafes and complain and argue. We watch the news all day and then get angry and complain. The world is burning down around us, and we have hung a 'do not disturb' sign on our lives."

I am done with it. Our generation...we boomers...we owe this country. We owe this world. We have a duty to engage and set some things right. We all played a part in screwing it up and we can't just retire and drop out to Florida and sit on a beach somewhere soaking up the sun and waiting to die."

"Nazis," Billy said flatly.

"I guess our dads didn't quite finish the job," Mallard said looking at his friend. "Strange, isn't it, I mean the idea that here we are, the children of WWII vets, and now we have to step up and fight Nazis again. Only this time the Nazis are our fellow Americans, unbelievable."