While I agree that we should all be conscious of the fact that what we post online can & does have long & far-reaching effects & consequences, not only upon the person(s) your commenting on but, as you stated, upon yourself as well.
With that said, let me illustrate one of the points that I was attempting to make in my post by sharing my own personal story about my Grandfather (he passed away in 1984). My Grandfather came from an extremely poor family, the brother of 11 other siblings. At the age of 13 he quit school and worked full-time in the lumber industry as a lumber-jack. He was one tuff dude and always wore, until the day that he died, "wife-beater" tee-shirts. (I think that's what they're called . . .) He also "produced" moonshine to help make ends meet and by the age of 16 he was a full blown alcoholic. By the age of 25, married with two little girls, one of which was my mother, he was sentenced & sent to prison for armed robbery/10 years - ten years really meant 10 years at that time. By the time that he got out my mother and her sister were practically grown. My grandfather's 10-year imprisonment didn't make him into a saint, he continued living life on the edge until 1970, at which time he became a born-again christian - from that day on he never touched another drop of alcohol. One thing was/is certain, my Grandfather could not/cannot be summed in one word - he was a rebel, an outlaw, an alcoholic, a charmer - woman loved him, an avid hunter/fishermen - ate everything he killed/caught and made the best mince-meat & elderberry pies and, from what I've been told, the best moonshine in the region, he was a gifted musician, an extremely talented carpenter, a perfectionist, he was a story-teller and you never doubted him - as far back as I can remember he had a huge hand-carved wooden club that hung on the wall in his den/office -the story he told was that he used that club to hit my Grandmother over the head, dragged her into his cave and made her marry him. As crazy as it seems now, he made that story sound believable to adults and children alike, lol. Even more crazy - or should I say, a complete contradiction to the story is the fact that he treated all women like they were more precious than all the silver and gold in the world. As ruff & tuff as he was, he loved children - in a healthy/wholesome kind of way - he spent endless hours teaching - he taught me, as well as my siblings & others how to work with wood, how to use all of the tools in his workshop, how to play the guitar, the fiddle and the piano - I wasn't kidding, he really was a gifted musician - how to cook, bake, can and freeze food, hunt, fish . . .the list is endless. Of course if you didn't know the man and were to merely read his record, you probably wouldn't have much, if anything good to say about him and some didn't throughout my life BUT regardless of what he was, what he did or what some thought and/or said about him - nothing, not criminal records nor opinions expressed by others changed what he was to me - It wasn't just because he was my blood - my family, it was because of my own personal overwhelming evidence/experience that far out-weighed any and all of the negative that anyone said.
HaLeigh & Jr. (and any other children that Ron fathered) will remember "what Ronald is/was to them" - Ronald doesn't need to impress me (or you . . .) - he only needs to impress his children. Not anything . . . Nothing can or will ever take that away.
These are my opinons only and do not reflect upon anyone else . . . JMO
