Things never change....

[NCWayne]

We all talk about rising gas prices, work being sent overseas or across the border, and on and on and on. Funny thing is when we talk about things like this it"s like it"s the first time in history these kinds of things have happened. The world is an ever changing place and I know it has changed alot just over the course of my lifetime. Something that never seems to change though are the things that people, in general, worry and fuss about. Why do I say this you ask. Well awhile back I found alot of old newspapers with dates starting in 1954 and going through the early 60"s right after Kennedy took office. They had been used as insulation/padding under the carpet in my Aunt and Uncles house. It"s a shame that all I got to salvage was what didn"t burn when the local VFD torched the house for practice...but that"s not the point. My point is I"ve read alot of the articles in these old papers and people way back then had the same concerns we have today. I remember distinctly one article from like "58 talking about how all the good American jobs were headed overseas and everyone here would be out of work before it was over. There were blurbs here and there about the price of gas and groceries, which though cheap by todays prices, were still comparibly priced when you looked at the average income. There were articles about the minimunm wage needing to be raised so the lower class could survive. There were the articles concerning racial tensions, classifieds offering houses, services, etc to only the whites and then others offering the same things to the "colored" folks. Articles about the youth of the day and how they were nothing like the kids when the writer was growing up. Basically if it"s an issue today, from the things I read, it has been around, in some form or version, for at least the last 54 years. While the times have changed things somewhat, I"m sure the same issues that were had back then, and are had now, will still be around in another 54 years in some form or another. The world changes, we all fuss about how good it used to be and how bad it"s gonna be, and I know I"m as guilty of that as anyone on here when it comes to that. We can fuss all we want to about this and that, we can be happty or sad about the way things are, but what it all boils down to in the end is that life goes on and no matter what happens in the world each of our lives is only as good or bad as we choose to make it. But that"s just my opinion for what it"s worth....

 

[Hoss In ME]

NCWayne,Youre opinion is taken and wellspoken and accepted.Most things never really change.But I do seem to get a few more aches and pains every year. Latah,Hoss

 

[Jim B. in OH]

Wayne, I'm glad someone else sees it as I do, I'm not saying that I don't worry and stress though, I have 3 kids under 10, and 2 of them are girls. Jim

 

[paul]

Ecconomy, weather, crop production, land prices, life in general, always seems to go in cycles.

People forget that.

Trying to drastically shortcut those cycles with heavy govt involvement seems to lead to more bigger problems.

If only we could remember that from one cycle tot he next.

--->Paul

 

[Coffee Helps]

Old newspapers on microfilm are educational: folks in the 1800s had the crime problems, health problems, money problems, etc. just as folks do today. Some of those ads are pretty funny, too, trying to sell the snake oil, balms, tonics, elixirs- you name it. Everybody was a salesman, it seemed, and we still are. Yes, there were weather problems, too, like tornadoes, and reactions to these weather events were much like today's reactions. You've summed it up well.

 

[Walt Davies]

Yes they do change in 1956 I was called to office in school and asked what my mother id for a living. I told the Lady that she was an Aircraft mechanic. Boy di i get in trouble with that one until they called home and ask Mother then they just got quiet and said "You can go now"
Walt

OH and there was the time when I was in the 7th grade and I took a WW-II a bomb to school for show and tell.
YEA! try that today.

 

[Anonymous-0]

NCWayne,

I was born in 1944, so obviously, I remember the late 50's and early 60's well. Although the subject of concerns then might have been somewhat similar to the subject of the concerns that we have today, I believe that the degree and severity of threat of the issues is very different today from back then.

Drugs - Occasionally one of my friends would steal some hard cider or home made wine from home and bring it to school. Today, our society in general, and schools in particular, are flooded with life-wreaking drugs.

Violence - I engaged in quite a few fights when I was a kid. I won some and lost some. Today, two of the high schools in our county were virtually closed for two days this week because of the threat of gang violence resulting from a double murder a week ago after a "party" that opposing gang members attended.

Abortion - Never even heard of it back then. Life was respected and old as well as young were nurtured and honored.

Homosexuality - The "Q" word was spoken with disdain.

Industry - America was the standard for production of steel, automobiles, glass, pharmaceuticals, home appliances, etc.

Adn so on. Life wasn't perfect. The issues had similar names to ones of today, but I don't think that the surival of our nation, and our culture, has ever before been so threatened as it is today.

At least, that's my opinion.

Tom in TN

 

[2x4]

You're right on. Reading history on Andrew Jackson's presidency & its like the campaigns today! Times change, people don't.

 

[Tradititonal Farmer]

Apparently a lot of the population are like milk cows they want the the exact same routine day after day year after year but when they have to do something different its too much for them
to handle.

 

[jose bagge]

Life must have been a lot more laid back in Tenn than elsewhere during the 60s and 70s. In the DC area, as a young child, i remember the Cuban Missile crisis- families building bomb shelters in their backyards and fearing that we would be bombed at any moment. I remember the assasination of a president and his brother,the assasination of King, and the hysteria in the streets that it brought this government town. I remember race wars that had even my MOTHER driving into town with a gun on the dash. I remember UNION ISSUES that had lowlife scum throwing things at my fathers' car, and then shaking his hand the same day when he coached their kids baseball team to a win. I remember getting my a$$ beat down completely in a race war at TC Williams highschool the exact same year that is lauded for racial relations in "remember the titans"- what a crock that was.
I remember waiting in line for 3 hours for gas in the 70s. Drugs- please! LSD, pot in quantities unimaginable today- everywhere. Good freinds that announced they were gay- one went to the preisthood, another to San Francisco.

I had a GREAT youth despite all this- probably no better nor worse than what my children or grans will live, just different with different challenges. But not the Mayberry that Tom had in Tn.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Hey Tom, I was born in 1944 too. I think that was a GREAT time to be born. There were 5 of us kids in the family, I'm the youngest. My first couple school years were in a 2 room country school. Try raising a family this size on a small farm nowadays- that's what we did, and we did okay, at least average, and I never heard of a foreclosure. Dad said after the war years you could raise a crop of soybeans and pay for land it grew on in ONE year! I think things are WAY different now because there's so much debt. But, like back then, I'm glad we're all in this together.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I was also born in '44. When we needed money we worked for it. We did all the tasks nobody else wanted like working on celery farms, berry farms, peach orchards, general farm labor, lawn care, fence painting, newspaper routes, and grocery store baggers and stockers. We were able to buy and use SCUBA gear without a license. We registered for the draft to protect our country and felt proud to do it. We bought and fixed our ouwn bikes and cars and even were able to buy our own power boats without special licenses. We have so much regulation now that it stifles any pioneering spirit. We really don't trust our leadership in any of the government offices anymore because we have seen how government officials misuse their power and become very deceptive to protect their own personal positions.

 

[Fergienewbee]

I agree with the drug thing. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. Drugs were heroin and confined to New York. The mid-60s brought the war protest and changed our view--at least mine--of govermnent. Does anyone still think the government is always right?

We hunted almost anywhere. Hardly ever saw a "No Tresspassing" sign. Same with fishing. We took off for the pheasant and deer opener. Now seeing a pheasant almost makes front page news.

I've been blessed with good kids. One from a previous marriage has become involved in "Make-a-Wish" programs. My son graduated with a 4.22 by taking advanced placement classes and my daughter's GPA will be even higher as she's taking more AP classes.

I have concerns about the survivabilty of this country. Everyone seems to want government to take care of them and bail them out. Why should all of us have to pay for the stupidity and impatience of the few who got in over their head? I worry about terrorists or mentally unstable students shooting up my son's or daughter's school. We've tipped so far, I have to check my pocket knife before I can board a plane or go to court. What happened to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" Why do they want to take my guns because they can't control the criminals?

I live in the country. I can leave my door unlocked at night, something I never dared do in town.

The world is changing and I fear the snowball affect will speed up our demise. We all gripe about high fuel, but if you drive 55-60 people pass you going 75 or 80. No one seems to be trying to conserve, at least not enough of us. And if we do, the tax revenue will fall, and they'll raise taxes to make up the shortfall. Either way we're screwed.

Larry in Michigan

 

[Anonymous-0]

Change is good.

Sometimes.

Other times it"s not so good. In the end, like the old saying goes, change is inevitable. The thing is, we don"t have to embrace CHANGE FOR THE WORSE. We can (and should) resist that whenever possible. Even the strongest resistance doesn"t mean we"ll be able to do much about it.

Society in general has been backsliding for ages, probably about the time Thor walked out of his cave for the first time. Starting around the Korean war era, the backsliding started gaining momentum. Then the 60"s came and went. They taught us that society can free-fall into an abiss and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

Apparently we started to accept that free-fall as unavoidable.

I was born in 1947. My kid are grown, my grandkids are growing up fast. In the grand scheme of things, there isn"t a lot of time, nor much of anything I can do now to change the world I live in, OTHER THAN let the generations after me know what they"re headed for and what they"re leaving behind.

Some of us HAVE to scream and holler about the path our society is following. That"s all we can do to get the attention of those who are young enough, strong enough, and have a REMOTE chance of fixing what we"ve broke.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Some changes from when I grew up.
1. We were a one-language nation. Immigrants were mostly legals. Immigrants tried to fit in, learn English, contribute to society. Now some places you cant even communicate without Spanish, immigrants are mostly not legal (criminals), speak only Spanish, burden the medical systems. Dallas public schools are aadvertising to recruit 500 teachers with good pay ans sign-on bonuses of thousands of dallars, BUT they must be fluent in Spanish. Who would have thought in America that you would be required to speak a foreign language to get public sector job.
2. We had an enormous manufacturing base. There were small, medium, and large brick factories all over the cities of America. Take a drive around your nearest city, the older main streets and the one along the railroads. You will see factory after factory, red brick, windows out, walls crumbling, parking lots overgrown.
3. Go in your local Wally World store and look around. If they remover ALL the foreign items from the store, and left only the made in USA items, what would you see? The shelves would be almost empty and your voice would echo through the empty spaces.
4. That is why I rate oil/fuel/energy prices about 20th in our list of problems.
Tom

 

[Goose]

Socrates once wrote a rant about how disrespectful and obnoxious teenagers of his day were.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[GeneMO]

The Roman empire changed over time. So did the "thousand year reich" Just a couple of quick examples I could think of.

You can change yourself outa business.

Gene

 

[greygoat]

I admire the opinions expressed here, and agree
with them
What can we do to take our country back?
I don't think that the women candidate can change
anything, nor can the black nnalert. I admire
the military record of the other candidate, and
believe that we need a soldier as a leader instead
of a draft dodger, but think that he's too old.
Could we just "shut the doors" to forign products
and insist on USA products? But we need some
forign raw materials, don't we? And then others
would just hate us more. And the American "fat
cats" would scream! Think about this: We have the
worlds highest price of sugar, because of import
subsity to protect C&H sugar, which produces only
a small percent of our sugar. and, an investment
fund is trying to get controlling interest of
CSX railroad, so they can fire a president using
profits to upgrade track and infrastructure,and
devert income into dividends, thus running the
railroad into the ground.
IT is the big business's and investment bankers
amung us that are the enemys of our lifestyle!