When I Was A Kid


When I was a kid we idols, some real, some not, my own were
Einstein and Peter Pan, and in many ways, I am still trying
to live up to their examples by using my mind and by trying
to save the world.

What served us for role models back then were admittedly an
exemplary bunch for those who watched the Nelsons, Cleavers
and the precursors to The Brady Bunch, while the exemplary,
if we can call them that, for the rest of the audience, was
more like the fare provided by The Honeymooners and Lucy.

Other than the likes of The Honeymooners, The Life of Riley
and the likes of Red Skelton's "Freddy The Freeloader" most
of what we saw on early television was above us, just as an
assortment of movies were, where everyone wore fine clothes
and drove late model cars.

The Fifties were an era of unparalled growth in the US, and
the media pushed this plenty, with just a little pepper for
some spice here and there.

It was easy to get lost in the world of "Ozzie and Harriet"
or "Leave It To Beaver" or "Lassie" or any of the shows far
and wide that showed us how to be the best we could be as a
great consumer in a great consumer society.

It never made any difference that we didn't have a car well
enough appointed to be in any television show, refrigerator
was just a fictional thing when I grew up we had an icebox,
complete with ice we had delivered to keep it cold, and the
coal truck poured coal into our basement, etc., etc., etc.

All this changed, of course, as electricity got cheaper and
we got an electric furnace, an electric refrigerator, etc.,
but we were the last to have a party line.  Look it up, and
don't confuse it with modern Republican dogma.

The one thing about all those people we saw on television's
vast landscape was that they were happy.

Not always, but by the end of the show, it all worked out.

Today at the end of the show the characters need Valium and
perhaps something even stronger.

There is no hope in most of our media today, whether it may
be fiction, non-fiction, docu-drama, info-tainment, or some
other aspect of nearly anything but sports, but even sports
has become so nationalized that at the end of the season it
is the truth that everyone is a loser except one champion.

We used to live in villages where everyone had a role, from
the biggest, tallest, heaviest, fastest, smartest, best one
at this, that, or the other thing, but now we live villager
in and villager out in a national or even global village.

And, of course, I am part of it. . .or you would not likely
be reading any of this. . .unless you are one of my friends
who don't always read what I send them anyway.

I grew up in a world where anyone could do anything.

Anyone could fix their own car when it broke down.

Not everyone, but anyone. . . .

Anyone could replace the tubes in their TV or radio.

Anyone could build a bicycle.

Anyone but the most citfied could ride a horse, shoot guns,
find their way home when they got lost, cook their dinners,
and all the stuff that came along with it.

It wasn't that we were self-sufficient, in fact we stuck to
each other all the more closely because we knew that we had
to depend on each other when the going got tough.

Today you look up your help in the Yellow Pages, and heaven
protect you if your furnace blows up on Christmas Eve, as I
had to deal with last Christmas. . .which dehydrated me too
much from sweating over it all night that kidney stones had
popped up as a result. . .but with the help of my friends I
survived the whole thing until the weather warmed up and it
is now time to replace the furnace at a leisurely pace, and
to make more friends in the process.

People who pay for all the help they ever need never really
know what it is like to have friends you can depend on from
that kind of perspective, and as we become more and more an
ever more consumer oriented society, we lost that friendly,
and pioneering spirit of doing things yourself, and if not,
with your friends. . .and instead you get the Yellow Pages.

I got my furnace guy by having him recommended by a friend,
as I got tired of the Yellow Pages guys that kept coming to
my house and having no idea what my home life was like.

He and I are hoping to be friends for the rest of our life.

/

This is my first real week with my feet on the ground after
a month on the road to give several presentations on eBooks
after getting my best friend married off, and I also made a
pilgrimage to see my mother and brother. . .and it all said
and done, couldn't have gone better.

I even made friends with the guys who worked on my car.

This is the way it is supposed to be, in my book at least.

I don't like the distance between people nowadays, even tho
some people might describe me as a hermit because I am such
a workaholic. . .but I am only a workaholic because I would
like very much to make the world a better place.

I hate to say it, but most of the people I know are quite a
workaholic bunch, too, but without the same motivation.

Speaking of the distance I dont' like, my town, 100,000 and
not really growing, has grown physically since I moved here
but the population really hasn't changed much, other than a
few annexations, but over 50 years the population is up 7%,
and I'm sure the physical area us up much more.

Why?

THREE TIMES AS MANY PEOPLE ARE LIVING ALONE!

That's right. . . .

The town is growing because the family structure has died a
horrible death in the 50 years since I was a kid, and less,
less, less people live together, more, more, more alone.

When I first moved here, I could soon name all the persons,
all of them, who lived around me, just as I could in Tacoma
where I lived before.  Everyone knew me, I knew everyone.

Today I'll bet the vast majority of all the people who live
within a mile of here know Oprah better than all but a very
very small number, 1, 2 or 3, of their neighbors.

When I was a kid all the kids used to get together and pick
fruits and berries when they got ripe and take them over to
Jo Jo's Mom's and she would make pies, she got half, and we
got half, it was a great trade off.

No one ever worried about her baking skills, she was famous
in the neighborhood, and her kids were eating the same pies
as we did, the most natural safeguard, though I doubt if it
ever struck anyone's mind to consider that sort of thing.

Then came urbanization and the stories about people getting
raped right on the sidewalks of New York City and neighbors
never even calling the police to help.

I get the same thing from my neighbor now, no real neighbor
in this case, the house I used to live in next door has the
distinguisted position of having been taken over by lawyers
who won't even open the door at night, saying:

"I don't know you."

Even when they have seen me hundreds of times.

The media started portraying a disfunctional world, back in
the 1980's or so, and it became obvious that this was not a
simple trend with the "J.R. For President" t-shirts were an
instant best seller, and you knew Reagan would win.

Reagan, whose idea of fair play was to water down a "school
lunch" program that was designed for "universal education,"
by declaring that "Ketchup Is A Vegetable," and the race to
separate The Haves from The Have Nots by givernmental edict
was on the front burner.

Reagan and J.R. walked hand in hand through America and the
country has never been the same since, though Reagan was an
easy puppet replacement for the shamed Richard M. Nixon who
will always live in shame of cheating to win an election he
couldn't have lost if he tried. . .he wanted a "mandate."

Today's replacements for Nixon claim a mandate when they do
not even get more votes than an oppenent.

Yes, it's all a conspiracy, starting with the anti-heros of
Reagan and J.R., and continuing on with Bush I and Bush II,
all in the mouldy mold of Nixon. . .it didn't matter at all
that he got caught. . . .

The media bring us anti-heroes in programming and the news,
there is no hope, that is what they want us to believe, and
they want us to believe that because people with no hope in
their minds and hearts are easy to lead into oblivion, just
as those who experienced The Holocaust in World War Two.

Oh!  That's right, The Holocaust never happened.

Then why have I personally witnessed the tattoos?

"Those who do not study history are condemed to repeat it."

The school system is now designed to keep us from studying,
history or anything else, other than The Vocational Arts to
make us suitable fodder for Corporate Amerika.

"The business of America. . .is business."

"What's good for business. . .is good for America."

And the rich keep getting richer, as the poor get poorer.

A $2 minimum wage increase, already eaten by inflation, for
millions and billions of estate tax exemptions?

What kind of offer is that?

Luckily it was turned down, even in an election year. . . !

The rate of people earning over $100,000 is grown six times
as fast as the general rate of the population.  CBS News.

Their houses are bigger and bigger but hold fewer people.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, that is true of everyone
around here. . .three times as many people living alone.

No wonder there are billion dollar a year businesses that a
population that can't call itself a society any longer must
use to contact other people to go out with on a date!

Our social fabric has decayed so much that we use church or
school or sports or these billion dollar enterprises for an
excuse to find that missing human contact.

Just how obvious does it have to become?

The average family size continues to fall.

More and more people live alone for longer periods of lives.

Even when we are out and about, we insulate ourselves from a
whole world when we roll up our windows and turn on the a/c.
This is not just in cars, 80-90% of American households have
a/c and thus stay inside with the doors and windows closed.

Even on the most beautiful days of the year I can hear those
air-conditioners humming all around my neighborhood, and the
windows in the cars are nearly all rolled up, insulating not
just against the fine weather, but against everyone else.

The cherry on top?

When I drive down boulevards next to Waikiki Beach, most car
windows I see are still up, literally 95% of them, I have an
army of witnesses.

If people won't let in one of the most beautiful beachs on a
whole planet, in a place where the weather is spectacular on
a regular basis, then we are certainly in for problems.