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Experienced Member |
Before cell phones ... before the internet ... before franchises of every mediocre "foodie trend" came to occupy every corner of America ... before strip malls ... before cars with emissions equipment ... before Halloween became a dangerous interlude for kids ... before Christmas became a perjorative ... before the chestnut elms died across the nation ... when "trans-fat" was something used to fabricate sex parts for hermaphrodites ... when cloning was something in a futuristic thriller movie ... when there was no such thing as "genetic corn" ... when cows were allowed to munch on hay all day ... when you looked forward to the smell of yeast rolls in the school cafeteria ... when just "the look" from dad was sufficient to stifle a crying kid in a restaurant ... when $12,000 a year was a "good job" ... when a stern "talkin' to" by the local deputy was sufficient punishment for throwing rocks at trailer trucks ... when the "good" tennis shoes cost $6, still considered a fortune by Mom, but ya' got 'em anyway ... when you first share a beer with the old man, you mention maybe the marines, and he says "why not look at the Coast Guard" ... when you could bet a friend they couldn't snatch a dollar bill off the dash, while you run thru the gears of a Firebird ... when pitbulls were just "a good dog to have around" ... when Martinis didn't have chocolate in them ... Johnny Quest, Spaceghost, Batman, Then Came Bronson, Route 66, Ironsides ... seeing the chick painted up in "Goldfinger", and believing you really "saw something" ... just 150 people in your high school graduation ... a dirt road and a minibike ... driving the tractor through the barbwire fence, living to tell about it, but still having to tell the old man ... dodgeball, tetherball, 4-square, baseball (real baseball), (55) 40-yd sprints for "snapping towels" in the locker room ... three licks for cussin' ... scared as hell, but taking the oath anyway.
Where did it go? Should we blame Ray Kroc (McDonalds), Al Gore (internet), the producers of "Three's Company" and "Charlie's Angels" for "jiggle TV"? Who? I'm not saying it's bad. There is ample goodness in this country, displayed daily by acts of kindness, of heroism, of selflessness, of love for the fellow man and a genuine concern for the fate of the human species. But society is kind of like a barrel of light Libyan crude ... if it sits long enough, the preferable lighter end fractions evaporate ... leaving the dregs, the "bottom end fractions", the sludge. Are we leaving the sludge to our kids? When is the last time you saw a kid whittle with a brand new knife? |
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Highly Experienced Member |
Soc, I think that we have to blame the Illuminati… the Freemasons… big oil… Halliburton… Enron… Google… and all other organizations that are wrapped up in conspiracies. This is all part of the New World Order that the first President Bush spoke about. Sorry, but us peons are screwed!
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Member |
When was the last time a kid could have a knife.
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Highly Experienced Member |
They used to give them away went you went (all day) to the movies....waiting all week for the next installment of the current cliffhanger. |
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Experienced Member |
Yah, it could be the fault of them damn Shriners ... I've always been suspect of them.
Even tho I am assaulted nightly by the wife's fixation on George Noory, I don't buy into the Grand Conspiracy. Oh, I believe there's a lot of plotting and planning; but I still think the ship of state can't be swayed off course too much by a few individuals. I tend to believe that Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al had ideological leanings which may have precipitated the war in Iraq, but I think the reaping of riches by Halliburton was a byproduct, not an end to the means. More and more, I am feeling a low hum of desperation to return to the land. 27 acres of the family farm are still there, but the place lies fallow since Dad has aged. I'm feeling a need to abandon this crazy corporate money chase, and begin producing my own decent foodstores, for myself and others. I'm feeling the need to bunker down, clear the lanes of fire, string the concertina wire, grind and can pure whole hog sausage, build the greenhouse and prepare for the Ice Age or Global Warming, the loss of the ozone layer or severe solar radiation, whichever comes first. I'm wanting to reconstitute the family enclave, to consolidate the land holdings around me owned by relatives, to prepare checkpoints through our "controlled area", to train a local militia, stockpile respirators and set up a fit test kit, build a bolted storage tank and start filling my own "strategic oil reserves" with diesel fuel, install a reverse osmosis filter with an ultraviolet sterilizer and buy lots of plastic and duct tape. I wonder how people coped in the fifties ... when the spectre of nuclear war was a lot higher. I didn't see any signs of "bunkering" mentality then. I suppose that the public had a lot more faith and trust in the government to restore order in any sort of disaster. We certainly don't carry that faith now ... |
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Highly Experienced Member |
I've worked in homes where the owners sometime in the 50's or 60's built underground bunkers...Here in San Diego a basement is the exception to the rule...I'm talking about bunkers with special filtered air vents. I remember the talk here in town was that San Diego... with it's large naval presence... was a likely target. I also remember air raid sirens the last friday at noon every month (we had a siren just one block down the street) ...And drills in school at least once a month where we would all hunker down under the desks. |
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Member |
I remember the lectures on what to do in case of a nuke attack, circa 1966/67. We would watch vintage reel to reel films showing folks hiding under the desks, covering your eyes, etc. Back then I didn't understand the nuke concept too well and many kids couldn't pronounce it well. Come to think of it, Prez Bush might have been in my class too.
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Member |
I blame Bush!!! Everyone else does for everything else. I blame bush!!
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Highly Experienced Member |
Remember, all Shiners and Freemasons but not all Freemasons are Shiners...  |
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Member |
HUH??
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Basic Training |
I remember spending my summer days outside all day long, drinking from the garden hose and not coming home till the street lights came on.
I had a knife when I was 7 and now my two oldest boys (8 & 11) have them too. No lost fingers yet...I remember riding in the front seat without a seat belt. I remember Pop Rocks, Gilligans Island and fearing the Sleestacks on Land of the Lost. |
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Experienced Member |
Oh, man and I bet you ate Wonder Bread, too. Now poprocks are considered dangerous, and drinking from the garden hose can pass some weird plastic toxins to us. How did we ever survive?
I guess Mama could really bellow ... she could call us in for dinner, and I'd hear it all the way "across the holler ...". We rode bikes ... everywhere! |
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Member |
I really think our "de-Americanization" process started with a man, a former Marine no less, willing to shoot his own President dead in Dallas, Tx., closely followed by a never ending, ever escalating, unwinable war separating and polarizing its society, weakening its will. It's been steadily worse ever since...
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Member |
Yup I ate Wonder Bread, we had an ice box, the ice man would come every other day. We took a bath once a week.
Other wise we 'washed'. Eventually we got a refrigerator. Those were the days.We went to school without uniforms, the teachers were boss, if we sassed a teacher the parents would be notified and they would put 'the board of education' on our seat of knowlege. Oh, those were the days and I don't miss them at all. |
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Highly Experienced Member |
Stormy, we still have (and use) TWO ice boxes. One is at hunting camp and is used to chill beverages for the hunters and the other is on the farm and is used to cool beverages for the farm hands and the ballplayers (when the team is in town). Both remain solid as a rock!
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Member |
"Tony the Iceman" delivered ice in my neighborhood. There was nothing better that a piece of ice off the back of his truck on a hot summer day. If he saw us hanging around he would always say "You toucha my ice, I breaka you face". He always left a couple of small pieces off to the side for us.
Milk delivered in the morning with the cream on top. A real honest to God butcher shop. Family Doctor making house calls. For all you kids that went to Catholic School, the Baltimore Catechism. Sister Helen Joseph who could swing a yard stick like Babe Ruth could swing a bat. Leather football helmets. |
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Experienced Member |
In case of an A-Bomb attack we would climb under our desk. Balony sandwiches and a nickel for a small glass bottle of milk.
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Member |
You forgot to mention the days when a black person was sold to pick cotton. The days where women and black people couldn't vote. The days when black people were sprayed with fire hoses for trying to take a leak in the same toilet as a white person. Some may yearn for the past, others are very glad we are in the present. |
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Basic Training |
We also had a milkman back when Vienna,VA. was a small town. We sometimes were able to jump on the back of the truck and ride for awhile. Talk about being called in for dinner, my father was on subs. in the Navy and had gotten an old sub diving alarm at an auction. He then proceeded to attach it to our house, and when they wanted us home, they RANG the dang thing!! Talk about embarrasing. Then even wrote a newspaper article about us, double humiliation. Heard "Les, your house is sinking" way too many times.
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Member |
I am grateful for the here and now, and look forward to the future. If not for the medical improvements of today, my wife's breast cancer would have consumed her. Back then the dentist's machinery wasn't the best.
Ok, the pre-80's Coke was much better, imho. Everything was pretty much built better (american made, not chinese). But still, even with the problems of today, you need to live for the now, and look to the future. |
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