Blog: Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is Dead

One could just as easily substitute the name Kim Jong II in the title of that song of rejoicing, sung by the Munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. Jong's death on Monday was greeted throughout the free world with a sigh of relief (however tentatively), unlike the response it got from those on the streets of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, who upon hearing the news of his dying, reportedly wailed in grief, kneeling on the ground or bowing repeatedly.

As his grief-stricken son and heir-apparent, Kim Jong Un, lamented: 'How could the heavens be so cruel?…Please come back general… We cannot believe you’re gone….”

He’ll be the next Kim Jong to rule the country, beginning with its founder. Kim Jong I, then by his father. That only goes to prove three “Jong’s” don’t make a right.

That his father was a loony-tune was borne out by his obsessions: spending $800,000 a year in importing Hennessy’s cognac; wearing stylish elevator shoes, that added four inches to his five-foot two height; breeding oversized rabbits to feed the starving people; consuming lobsters and roast donkey meat at every chance he got, watching over and over such U. S. movies as Rambo and Friday the 13th; and with his having a complete collection of Daffy Duck cartoons and memorabilia. (It figures that he could relate to his exploits.)

But by no means was he the only son who followed in the footsteps of  a tyrannical father in recent history. For before he was ousted in 1986, Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed “Baby Doc,” ruled Hati with an iron hand for 15 years after his father, Francois “Papa Doc Duvalier, died, and used his father’s security apparatus to continue ruling in a totalitarian manner. Upon his fleeing to Paris, France, where he lived a luxurious life style, it was alleged that he had embezzled at least $500 million from Hati during his rule. 

And Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, his father’s favorite son and heir apparent, who was feted by the West as a “moderniser” who would guide Libya along the path of democracy, chose family loyalty over reform when the rebellion began. And the urbane image he’d cultivated over the years as a friend of the West was dispelled upon his being captured in robes and a beard, proving that he turned out to be very much his father’s son.

But there are also many notable instances of where the “apple did fall far from the tree,” such as:

• King David and his son Absalom, who waged a war against his father and who ended up hanging in midair by his long hair caught in the thick branches of a large oak tree when riding a mule; and when Joab found him there, plunged three javelins into his heart. (Let that be a warning to the long-haired kids of today riding dirt bikes in the woods.)

• Ben Franklin and his illegitimate son William, who unlike his father was a steadfast Loyalist throughout the war of Independence. He served as the last Colonial Governor of New Jersey and which tore the two apart from thereon, despite his father’s efforts to reconcile their differences.

• General Douglas MacArthur and his only son Arthur, who truly did march to a different drummer than his father and grandpa, who were both legendary military leaders and recipients of the Medal of Honor. He went so far in order to show his disdain for the military environment in which he was raised, as to change his still unknown last name and live in relative obscurity in New York City where, according to a former aid to General MacArthur, became a concert pianist and writer. 

So far, knock on wood, me and five sons (albeit that I lost one, only in body not spirit in my mind, on his fourth tour in Iraq at the age of 54) have been able to maintain more than a semblance of a normal relationship, however that’s defined. Any strain that there was in my father-son relationships was due to my shortcomings as a father than to any faults of their own.

For as Robert Frost said, “You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love; you have to deserve your father’s.”

Quote of the week: “It’s easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.”  Pope John XXIII