When I was a boy

When I was a boy...

We didn’t lock our car doors or house doors.

Gas was 25¢ a gallon.

Boys swore, but girls didn’t.

We had Christmas plays and Christmas carols in public school.

A single, blue-color worker could support a family on a middle class standard of living.

Doctors made house calls.

We had no health insurance. Medical care was fee-for-service, and affordable.

There were no “Palestinians,” just Arabs.

The milkman brought bottled milk to our doorstep.

Movie stars looked like grown men and women, not high school students.

There were no menus. When you called a business or gov’t agency, a real person came on the line.

You could walk around the neighborhood with impunity. There were no sexual predators lying in ambush.

There were no cellphones.

There were no speech codes.

In public K-12, we had no security guards, security cameras, metal detectors, student ID, or schoolyard snipers.

Democrats were Cold Warriors.

Republicans were country-club businessmen.

A man’s home was his castle.

BTW, this is not so very long ago. And I grew up in a blue state.

Do I think life has gotten better or worse since I was a boy? Both.

We have fewer freedoms. More crime. And more surveillance.

Nowadays it would be unthinkable to leave your house door or car door unlocked.

Today, campus life is a concentration camp of political correctness.

Many things were more affordable when I was a boy.

And life was less impersonal. I already said that doctors made house calls back then. Nowadays you have to go through a menu to go through a receptionist to go through a nurse to reach a doctor.

For example, back in the Sixties, I think it was, my parents subscribed to The Washington Post. But, for some reason, they weren’t receiving it on a regular basis. So my mother called Katherine Graham. She was out of the office at the time, so the secretary took a message. Graham called back, and took it upon herself to clear up the problem.

Imagine trying to do something like that today? Nowadays, menus within menus serve as barricades to buffer the folks in charge from direct contact with the customer.

And there was no attempt, back then, to force Christianity from the public square.

So, in some ways, life was better when I was a kid.

Are there other ways in which life is better? Yes and no. Take technology. As a rule, technology is neutral. It can be used for good or ill.

I like technology. Depending on how people use it, it can make life better or worse.

To take a bad example, I’m appalled by cellphone junkies. I don’t object to cellphones. But so many people are utterly addicted to cellphones. I wonder if it’s a substitute for chain-smoking.

What is it about some people that they can’t stand a moment of silence? Can’t listen to the wind or the waves? Can’t listen to birdsong. Can’t even listen to a friend talking to them face to face.

By the same token, I’m puzzled by people who allow themselves to be on call every minute of the day or night. Making themselves available to every friend or stranger who wants a piece of them. Who have no time to themselves. To eat lunch in peace. Or go for a quiet walk in the park.

What happens to cellphone junkies when they accidentally lose their phone? Do they suffer from withdrawal symptoms? Delirium tremens?

Just as technology cuts both ways, environmentalism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I’m glad that national parks haven’t been paved over to make way for the latest shopping mall or theme park.

On the other hand, when I was a boy, there was more farmland where we lived than is now the case. We used to buy some of our food direct from a local farm.

But the farm went out of business. Why? Predators (e.g. eagles, coyotes) would attack the livestock. But due to gun-control laws and endangered species acts, the framer couldn’t shoot the predators.

Of course, the olden days weren’t all for the good. There were some forms of arbitrary discrimination. It’s good to see that go.

I’d recommend that young people read G. Gordon Liddy’s When I was a Kid, This Was A Free Country.

Liddy’s a bit of a wingnut, but if you make allowance for his excesses, it’s an eye-opening book for a younger generation which lacks a frame of reference.