Remember when kids rushed home to watch The Mickey Mouse Club? Remember watching the TV show, the Lone Ranger, who always caught the bad guys but never, ever killed a single bad guy?
Back then when our school system was the best in the whole wide world, we started each day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Our school band always played the National Anthem before sporting events, and prayer was allowed before each game. Students dressed neatly and were clean. The boys wore slacks properly and shirts, not wife beater T-shirts. The girls wore skirts and blouses or dresses, shorts were for gym class only. Jeans were for play time or after school. Schools were institutions of learning, not baby sitters for children of parents too busy to rear their own offspring. You know, there really was a "Last Great Generation" where honesty, moral character, faith, responsibility and hard work were the standards of being an American, and this is what our parents taught and instilled in us. The American dream was something we aspired to and worked hard for, knowing full well all dreams are just goals; not entitlement programs from Big Government. Some of us realized all our dreams, some of us got the important dreams right, and some of us failed. But we all had equal chances with a good education and hard work. Somewhere, somehow, things started to change. Maybe it was the idiocy of the Viet Nam War, public disobedience, hippies and beatniks, draft dodgers and Dr. Spock who gave the young kids a new mantra: "If it feels good, do it!" Children today are inundated with horrible gory gross violence on TV, on their computers, in their video games and even on cartoon shows. Our children are growing up immune to the horrors they see every day. Little wonder someone like Casey Anthony is set free by a jury that had obviously been CSI'd into numb inertia and moral indifference. Go figure! I have seen a lot in my 70 years and I wish I could say the changes have been good, but alas, many have not been good and the good old USA is in deep trouble. If we can't get a grip on what is happening to our country, our government and our young people, and get parents more involved in what their children are being taught, all is lost. Could America become a third world nation? You bet! Remember your history, all the great empires fell: the the Romans, the Greeks, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, Great Britain, and the list goes on. Take some free advice from a crotchety old squid, let's all get organized and take a stand together: Bring America BACK to its former Glory! This means taking a REFORM broom to Washington, DC, to sweep out all the greedy politicians who have sat idly by, filling their pockets while America's greatness has been allowed to dwindle away. Maybe if we all wield the voters' broom together we can even get NASA back up and running again! That's the least we can do to bring real hope and real dreams back into our kids' lives.
