[TexasTaysor]

I've thought these very things. I know my kids think I'm crazy when I talk about how things have changed and how much better things used to be in so many way. Progress has been great, but it's meant we've lost so much.

[Axenolith]

An enormous amount of this is due directly to the "trust no one over 30" generation and the general disrespect and tendency towards warehousing we have for our elderly.

The average old "Guru Dude" will spend hours with a young person willing to listen, and that exactly is how all of those skills get passed on.

Pretty much every ounce of practical knowledge I posses is from hanging around with my grandfathers and my dad. They taught all of the stuff like lawnmower repair, how to cut trees and trim branches without crushing yourself or chopping off a foot, what to eat and not eat in the woods, how to skin and butcher things, how to sharpen knives, ad infinitum.

It isn't a chore when you're raised around it because to a 10 year old those types are GODS. Now days the idols are MTV and punk asses with pants around their ankles hammering home the idea that fast change, ambiguous morals and cheap money are all that matters in life.

When and if there is a reckoning over this sea change in America, those that learned and can take care of their own will also have to deal with large numbers of the loosers who demand to be taken care of because for some obscure reason, we'll supposedly owe it to them...