by Stefan Stanford, All News Pipeline:

My father was born into a tenant-farming family in western Oklahoma just a few years before even that meager existence was swept away by the arrival of the Great Dust Bowl of the 1920s. By hard work and intelligence, he worked his way through college and law school. But then, just as he began to establish himself in a career, he was drafted into the Army, in which he would serve from 1942 to the fall of 1946. When he returned, he found that his former position had been taken by a younger man.

Eventually, my father got his job back and worked his way to the top of his profession, but at such cost that he died at an early age. Even when he became affluent, half of his earnings were seized in taxes. His life was an unending catastrophe.