Here

is the thing. 

I can be whatever I need to be. 

Wanna get all hoity-toyity and do white table clothes, five star luxury suites and black-tie affairs and what not? 

Kewl, let's roll. 

Next time around, you wanna hang at a friends old run down trailer? 

Cool, I can do that too.

I'm still the same guy.

That's why it's called...

integrity...

you are who you are regardless of who you are with or where you are.

You always treat everyone with the same amount of respect.

Period.

The only difference is when people disrespect you or the people that you are close to that don't or won't stand up for themselves.

Those people (the ones being disrespectful) deserve to be shot down.

Not only do they deserve to be shot down, they deserve to be shot down with what I like to call the "take a sledge hammer to an ant approach" such that they know in no uncertain terms, to never do it again.

Example.

There was only one pediatric Dentist in Owensboro when Nich needed to start going to the dentist.

So we had to go to Henderson to a younger guy who had only opened his practice for a few years.

The time came and Nicholas had to had some teeth extracted.

Guy said he thought he could do it in his office with a local anesthetic.

OK, kewl, lets do it.

Day comes and I am in the room with him and his helper and Nich.

"Now dad, if you think this is becoming to much for him and you want us to stop, you just let us know okay? And we will schedule it at the hospital and put him under."

Okay, righton, good to know.

They get started.

They get two done but are struggling with the third.

Nich is getting increasingly uncomfortable.

"Excuse me" I said.

Loud enough for both him and his helper to hear.

Nothing, they keep going.

Nich is getting even more uncomfortable.

(He was tiny, not even in school yet)

"Excuse me." I said, this time a lil louder.

Still nothing.

A few minutes later and I can't bear to see my son suffer any more.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, I promise you I did, loud enough they probably heard me across the street, "EXCUSE ME!".

They both stop.

Nich is laying there sobbing.

Helper immediately leaves the room.

Dentist pushes his stool back and comes flying up off of it and proceeds to lecture me with an earful of "You shouldn't have interrupted! I was almost done!" 

I mean in an aggressive, in your face, fuck you attitude for about five minutes.

I just stand there and stared him in the eyes the whole time.

I mean right in the eyes, not ever so much as flinching.

I let him talk himself out till he didn't have anything else to say.

Then I looked at him square in the eyes and I said in as calm of a voice as I could muster...

"You done? 

Seems to me like you had your turn, so now I get mine. 

Don't you ever pull some non-sense like that ever again. 

You're lucky I am being as calm as I am. 

I assure you if I was the man I was five years ago I wouldn't be so calm. 

You sat right here and said "If I feel uncomfortable with things to let you know. 

I did, not once, not twice but three times. 

THREE TIMES! 

I feel like you gave me no choice but to respond but in the manner I did. 

If you didn't want to be interrupted when doing your work you shouldn't have given me the lil speech you did before you started."

I wish you could have seen the look on his face.

He just couldn't believe that somebody would have the nerve to ever talk back to him.

(I mean , who the fuck does he think is paying his salary?)

I was so mad I was literally shaking.

We left.

I really don't think he really ever knew just how lucky he was that day.

We scheduled and had the last extraction at the hospital.

Shortly thereafter a new pediatric dentist opened in Owensboro.

Needless to say, we never went back to Henderson to that dentist practice.

My point is, I just flat out do not give a fuck who you are or who you think you are, if you treat us with respect? 

You get respect back, if you don't treat us with respect? 

Shame on you.

I tell Nich on a regular basis, (it's been a while actually, mostly because it's not that much of an issue any more), don't ever let anybody look down on you or treat you like you're some kind of second class person because of some body's self-perceived socioeconomic status or what their last name is, or if they are a Dr. or a Lawyer or Congressman, whatever, you hold your head up high, aint nobody any better of a person than you, call them out on their bullshit, let them know you aren't afraid of them and their stupid shit.

I think I told someone a long time ago:

"Why the fuck should I care about what some hicks in a rural western KY county think about me?"

We're better than, all of us, and we're about to show some people Lucy, Nich, you, and me.

Honey, I assure you I don't go around lookin for it but you need to know, I will stand up and defend myself, my family, my beliefs, my faith etc and I will not back down.

Ever.

I'll gladly loose a fight just to show somebody I wasn't scared to take them on.

I learned a long time ago, if you bully a bully, they usually back down.

And you are absolutely right, there just aren't that many quality people around where we live, there just isn't.

Time for all that to change sweetheart.

Love you.

Peace.

(You can ask mom about the dentist, she was in the lobby, it took me hours to settle down that day, my dad would have probably been arrested if it was him involved instead of me.)