Mikhail Gorbachev: Happy Birthday (2007)

Mikhail Gorbachev: Happy Birthday (2007)

There are not a whole lot of heroes nowadays worth their salt; it seems the young folks want movie stars and sport players, whom maybe good at what they do, but do very little to contribute to a better world, or so I feel anyhow. Of the many men that have played a role in peace keeping, and making a difference in the world, few can match Mikhail Gorbachev. Perhaps the most worthy Russian President ever, he was the last Soviet Union president, since it perished in January of 1992. But it was he who brought the Iron Curtain down, broke the back of the Cold War. We can claim Ronald Reagan had something to do with that, but very little, he just asked the man across the Berlin wall, to tare it down. And willingly, he did but America tried for 40-years unsuccessfully.
Mikhail Gorbachev was man of the year in 1988 (‘Time,’ magazine), and well deserved at that. And he took note in the uprising for democracy in the Lithuanian part of Russia, where my Grandfather came from; and the universities their voice.
Yes, I came from Russian stock, and am proud to say Russia had a great man in my time, thank God.
He came to Minnesota once, St. Paul (where I live part time, between there and Lima, Peru), I wanted to meet him, and sorry I couldn’t. He went to Summit Ave, an area in St. Paul, and I was waiting for him down by the Capitol, and wished I was on Summit Avenue to greet him, he was shaking everyone’s hand, and so forth and so on. Then he came with his long black vehicle, to the Capitol area. His wife was on the left side of the car I remember, and I on that side of the street, thus, she rolled the window down, and I waved, but so did a 1000-other folks, and I got a glimpse, profile of her, and not her husband (but that was even a privilege, for a good woman, molds an already good man). Oh well, what can you say, I tried.
But in all fairness, it was worth my efforts, for the once Soviet President, born in 1931, who brought down the old Communist Party; so happy birthday, Mikhail; it will be March 3 soon, if I’m correct with my data, and you deserve a nice birthday card: this one.