Posted on 10/26/2007 8:54:59 AM PDT by Kimmers
n a recent interview I was doing, the subject came up about the social metamorphosis our nation has been through in the last half-century or so. The loss of closeness among old friends, the non-stop lives most of us live and the lack of family unity.
Thinking and talking about such things started me remembering some of the things I feel have given my life stability. Simple things that leave indelible impressions on a young mind and gives you a long lasting sense of well being.
For instance, it used to be that on a summer evening if you walked up and down the streets of America about twilight you'd find families sitting in rocking chairs and swings, taking in the evening air, talking, laughing and just being a family.
The evening meal, which we called supper, was always a special time when you all sat down at the table with a kind of, The hunter is home from the hill sort of feeling, a sense of belonging to someone and something, sharing your life with people you knew would lay down their lives to protect you and make sure you had a chance in life.
In my family and the society I grew up in hunting was a right of passage and the boys got their own guns at around twelve years old after receiving meticulous training on gun safety.
Almost every boy toted a pocket knife at all times, even taking it to school but you'd never dream of taking it out of your pocket in anger no matter how many playground fist fights you may have gotten into. It was a tool, for opening feed sacks and trimming fishing lines and such.
We treated our elders with respect, had prayer in school, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, carried in firewood, helped tend livestock and gardens and were eligible for corporal punishment at the hands of a teacher or if you stepped too far over the line, the principal.
With the exception of a few gas stations the businesses were all closed on Sunday but on Saturday the streets of small rural towns were jam packed with people doing their weekly grocery shopping, the ladies gathered in knots on the street, the men congregated in the barber shop and the kids in the theater taking in the weekly black and white western movie.
Rural people for the most part slept with their doors unlocked and families took turns having the preacher and his wife over for Sunday dinner.
A handshake was a contract. Everybody worked for a living and a man who wouldn't support his family was not considered to be worth much at all.
High school football games were important events and graduation was a special time with the last few weeks of school a kind of bittersweet season of accomplishment and loss, time to cut the apron strings.
When I look back I feel a sense of loss when life was simpler and there was such a feeling of community and family, of helping out and really caring.
They say you can never go home again because home just isn't there anymore.
Pray for our troops
What do you think?
God Bless America
Today most crowds consist of family member of the team and the band.
what you are describing is the lifestyle that still exists in some of the Eastern European countries that I have visited.
My Dad is a WWII vet and both my Mom and Dad are old time Houston Texas people. To this day, they still get together at least twice a month with their old high school friends -- the ones still living -- for lunch.
This is how I grew up as well. For some reason, Liberals seem to despise those of us who had these experiences and cherish them.
That lifestyle still exists in America, in a few pockets. I'm lucky to have found one, but it's being pushed out more and more every day.
Good post. 40 years ago, we never locked our house or car.
I grew up with some of the same things. Because of lawlessness of the land, it’s not safe anymore.
And some say there is no culture war. What was that favorite elitist word for those of us who still love that quiet life? Oh, yes, knuckledraggers....
“Today most crowds consist of family member of the team and the band.”
Don’t know where you live but here in Texas we fill the high school stadiums Friday nights.
I also rode my bike, without helmet, on the back roads of rural MN, stopping along the way to play in a creek and climb the hillsides, on other peoples property no less.
great post !
I’ve always felt badly that my children weren’t able to enjoy (or even know) the America that I grew up in.
I miss it too !
I remember seeing a big sign at a democrat rally during the ‘04 election. It said:
“F*@K MIDDLE AMERICA.”
Somewhere along the line we traded Lucas and Mark McCain for Homer and Bart Simpson.
And G-d bless you, Charlie.
Ya gotta like Charlie Daniels. A great American, a great musician, one of my all-time favorites. No PC Bravo Sierra from that man, and I mean man in the old American sense.
“The South’s Gonna Do It Again”, indeed, the South is doing it now, with a preponderance of our US military coming from that area of the USA.
Hauling hay, floating the river, catching Junebugs, hunting with a single-shot .410, Easter egg hunts, watermelon and home-made ice cream, Wednesday night Fellowship dinners, playing 5-point pitch, building a cabin, going bowling after church...
and I use to walk down the road with an unloaded .410 to a field about a mile away to hunt rabbits at 11 yrs old and no one ever bothered me. The fried rabbit was good too in Jan., Feb.
Here’s what the Left thinks about our brave volunteer military:
http://www.gocomics.com/rallcom/2007/10/22/
Prepare to be mad as hell.
Those days are almost gone, but not forgotten.
Wow. See #16.
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