Main street,my home town circa 1959.I wasn’t born yet,but my parents and grandparents were there for it.Post war America,boom time,everyone had a job,everyone had a purpose and the sky was the limit.Crime was non-existent,the drug craze and the sexual revolution hadn’t happened.Most people still attended church weekly,most young men and women still married and started a family.A new car could be had for $2000or less,a new house for $15,000 and opportunity was around every corner there for the taking.Conversations around town would have revolved around last weeks Baseball game,or what crops were coming in.There were downsides,the Cold War was ramping up and Segregation was still more common than not.By and large however times were good,but oh the difference a few decades would make.
Our law enforcement still had respect for the people and the people respect for them.Our political leaders still placed duty above leisure and our standing in the world was on a stable footing.
Today most small businesses are out of business.many have no sense of purpose and no sense of direction.Most young men and women don’t get married and don’t start families.Being able to afford a new house or even a new car means half a lifetime of debt.Conversation around town revolves around who has or is about to have a sex change and which bathroom they should use.Kids have no ambition beyond the latest video game and little prospects if they care to.
Our military is gradually being destroyed,not by an enemy,but by a political class that is just as comfortable selling the country out as they are at attending the latest social function at the country club.Our government violates our rights with impunity all the while preaching security like a low rent carnival huckster.Our politicians lie and violate the law and laugh all the way to the bank doing it.Our standing in the world is diminished to a ghost of what it was and the nation that did things not because they were easy,but because they were hard no long has the drive to get up off the couch.
The walls of our cities lay scattered and ruined our borders unmanned and unkept.The tapestry that was our nation is in tatters and the fools boast of it as if it were fine Silk.
Lord,forgive us for what we have thrown away.
“Lord,forgive us for what we have thrown away.”
Yes indeed, Darin. You nailed it.
But we in the West didn’t just throw it away, it was also stolen from us in full view, and we were too damn apathetic and cowardly to do anything about it.
Now, I no longer care if it all collapses, in fact I hope it does. It isn’t worth preserving in its present form.
I don’t care either,if fact it maybe the only thing that saves us.
@Darin:
“There will be better days than these in the 7th Cavalry – just you wait and see, Gary Owens…”
Only when the rebuilding begins,a lot of stuff has to burn first.
Congratulations on an important piece, Darin. I remember those days, too.
Born in 1945 at the atomic end of WWII in South Carolina. I shot with my BB gun Japs, Germans and damn Yankees. America was the exception to the rest of the world and her downsides were few. Many many were offered the best of America. I have no apologies for my country. I love America the beautiful.