Dance with the One that Brung Ya

My father was a true Southerner, a gentleman, and a wonderful banker for nearly four decades. People liked to be around him because he was funny and because I think they knew he cared about them. His best friends were always those he served with in the Eighty-First Division—The Fightin’ Wildcats—in the Pacific during World War II.

Born in Tuscaloosa, AL, he loved Southern expressions, and used them to get points across. This one was one of his favorites:

Dance With the One That Brung Ya

And it meant much more than an instruction to his teenaged daughters as we left the house for a party. That saying encapsulated one of my father’s most important values: Loyalty. To him, loyalty meant respect for those to whom he owed a great deal; his family, his friends, his country, and his God.

My father, who grew up as a Southern Baptist, was a convert to Catholicism. Outside of Mass, he wasn’t a man who regularly read the Scriptures. He was a man who lived them.

Dance With the One That Brung Ya

If we follow today’s news, we see our world filled with disloyal people who have forgotten their debt to others, and even use others to pave their own way to power or pleasure.

What we rarely see are those people who continue to respect their families, their friends, their country, and their God. Despite today’s news reports, I believe these are the people in the majority and only in need of a louder voice.

To whom do we owe loyalty?