My mediocre life began many decades ago. In fact, it was so long ago, there were only 48 states in America when I was well into school.
Way back then, we lived a simple life with few rules and fewer legal obstacles through which to navigate life. I’m not implying things were better, just simpler. And I like simpler.
Take the automotive industry, for example. Before Alaska and Hawaii were included in the United States, automobiles sold here were largely made here in America. They were large, heavy vehicles that got us where we needed to go with semi-comfort, while surrounded with steel.
Pickup trucks were fairly rare because they were used by farmers and construction folks who needed to regularly tote stuff. The average person who saw a need to haul things on a regular basis bought and used something called station wagons.
Station wagons were, in essence, pickup trucks with covers over the open beds. In other words, they were vehicles that larger families bought for those trips to the beach or camping. They were purpose specific vehicles.
Owning guns is another area of interest that morphed into something now unrecognizable. As a kid, born following World War II, I often found myself hearing gripping stories from neighborhood veterans regaling their tough times and adventures during The War. Occasionally, they would bring out a towel which held a war trophy of a handgun or bayonet. As kids, we respected both the veterans and weapons, while being awestruck these show-and-tell items were able to be shared with us.
I occasionally found myself reading Popular Mechanics magazine for which my Dad had a subscription.
He received this publication because they contained articles and plans for building such things as creating a picnic table, roofing garden sheds, maintaining grass yards, along with a smattering about auto maintenance.
Not unlike many other magazines of that era, the back advertising section was chock full of mail order places to buy guns. It seems as though there were plenty of firearms that were surplussed from The War. They were easily had by sending in cash, a check, or money order to the vendor, no questions asked.
We also experienced a time when in its infancy, television was thought to be teetering between good and evil. They were known as black and white (B&W) because the broadcast signals were sent that way. Screens were small, akin to watching a toaster oven. Nevertheless, television was novel.
Most of the made-for-TV shows were westerns, while movies were war-related or science fiction. And kid fare was freely available to entertain and educate young brains of mush such as mine.
And school was a necessity, each day beginning with the Pledge of Allegiance, plus a morning prayer, while dressed in a pressed shirt and tie and dress slacks. There were rules, and they were expected to be followed.
No provocative clothing, dyed hair, or t-shirts were permitted. We were expected to fit in without excluding others because of differences beyond their control.
Yet here we are sixty-years, or so, later, and we now find ourselves in an unrecognizable world that was once familiar and comfortable.
Take, for example, those aforementioned vehicles once made of stout American steel. Throughout the decades, greed, tariffs, union actions, climate hysteria, and inflation have summarily changed the texture of the domestic automobile to reflect new vehicles made here, flimsier and more cost effective.
Rather than mounting giant windmills on vehicle roofs for propulsion, the steel has been replaced by aluminum, carbon fiber, plastics, and, I’m wagering, papier mȃché. While all these technological wonders made the vehicles lighter, they also became less durable and safe. Is the advancement worth lives?
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| Finally, a practical wind powered car |
Moving on to the pickup truck side of the motor vehicle discussion, we find ourselves with replacements for oversized station wagons in favor of sport utility vehicles (SUV), that actually bur more irreplaceable fossil fuels than wagons once did. Not the stellar punch in the gut for which environmentalists were hoping.
Leading us to the aforementioned gun situation. It seems as though many, many Americans have gravitated away from the sports of recreational hunting, home defense, and target shooting, to appeasing new and newer generations suffering from hoplophobia by demonizing guns and gun owners.
Hoplophobia is the irrational fear of firearms which may be brought on by previous experiences or media influence, creating blind fear for those inanimate objects. To calm any fears of guns, politicians have chosen to remove Constitutional rights to pander for votes. Such actions make no one safer.
Schools, oddly enough, have taken a giant leap to the left rather than confront hipsters, as well as urban youth, when addressing the subject of proper and modest clothing. Because each school is different, rules are applied on an “as needed” basis, often turning a blind eye to provocative girl’s clothes, plus offensive messaging t-shirts. Uniforms have settled those sticky issues for decades.
Although no one issue mentioned above is critical enough to bring a nation or society to its knees, the utmost lesson herein is that if rules don’t apply to everyone, or are modified to exempt an anointed few, they are useless and actually apply to no one.
Creating loopholes to avoid conflict, or to defer a potential issue while sidestepping inconvenient rules and regulations, just begs for a test for the societal water depth. And if not uniformly addressed, any and all issues become more, not less, dangerous to a cohesive nation.
To all politicians attempting to improve life for me: Stop protecting me, please. You’re doing a horrible job.
