The five of us kids grew up in rural Pennsylvania. The nearest town was nearly 10 miles away. When we were not working on the farm, we explored the woods making huts and catching the small brook trout that lived in the streams that passed through the valley. Our nearest neighbor lived a half mile away. My parents never worried about where we were as long as we were back for dinner.
Every school morning we walked nearly a mile to the bus stop and then rode the bus for about 45 minutes to school. In each of the 1-6 Grades, there were two classes of 35 students each. We had a 2-15 minute recess and an hour for lunch every day. Two of our teachers supervised over 400 children. Our playground was about 80 acres of open space we quickly made into soccer and ball fields. Just down the street was a community park with swings, slides and other kid propelled rides.
After school on some days, we went to scouts or little league baseball depending on the season. We then walked through town to Grandma’s house to spend the night or to wait for Mom or Dad to pick us up. We were 6-12 years old during all of those years.
As children, our parents taught us to trust the adults in our lives. Mr. Newhart, the bus driver, our teachers, the people in town, the single police man, our scout leaders and coaches. Most of the men in the community also were volunteer firemen. There were “tons” of people looking out for our family and all the other kids in the community. I think we children were protected because all of the people in the community cared about the children in the community.
What a difference 50 years makes. Does anyone let their children walk over a few blocks to school without an adult? No one I know. Can you trust your child to stay after school with a teacher? Look at the scout leaders and coaches who have been implicated in child abuses or actual sex with a child. Religious leaders are not even exempt from abuses. We can still count on the police and firemen though can’t we?
The activities in Madison, Wisconsin these past weeks should put the fear of God into every parent in the country. How can a respectable parent allow any of those teachers we saw on TV teach our children? We were taught that public property belonged to everyone. No one had to pick up paper in our park. No one littered. No one spray painted buildings or broke building windows on purpose. Nearly everyone in the community was a role models for us. (Well, there was one father who spent a few nights at the VFW drinking more than soda pop.)
Our elected officials were respected and addressed as Honorable. We would have been appalled if our teachers and neighbors threatened the safety of our elected officials. Even more so, our police and firemen would never have allowed such behavior in our community. Now the police and firemen who are supposed to protect us are allowing and in some cases joining those who are making threats.
So, who can we trust with our children anymore? Who can we trust to set an ethical and moral example for our children? There were “tons” of people looking out for our family and all the other kids in the community. Mrs. Hartman, scout leader, 4-H leader, Sunday School Teacher and neighbor passed on years ago with no one to replace her. Can a parent raise children to be respectable citizens when those who should be role models are no longer respectable?
The Tea Party Movement wants to take back America. This has been defined by lefties as going back to the June and Ward Cleaver life of early television. Others think this is a racist movement. The truth is that no one wants to return to the 50s. Responsible people want a responsible government and responsible people working in the government. Parents for the most part do as much as they can to raise responsible kids who will be responsible citizens. Others influence their children for more hours in a day than working parents. It isn’t asking too much that those we elect or hire to run our governments do more than “just do their job”. Taking back America means that everyone takes responsibility for their own actions and set examples for our children that molds them into ethical and moral citizens.
Randy recently retired from the Army with the rank of Colonel. His military specialty was environmental science and civil affairs. Randy has completed his doctorate of management and has become involved in local politics.
I don’t know whether to address you as Colonel or Doctor, but it was a good post. Thanks.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that very few folks seem to care about doing their job right any more – in or out of government.
@John Cooper: Randy is just fine. Thanks for the praise!
Randy, like you, I was horrified at the behavior of teachers exercising their “Freedom of Speech”. Their sanctimonious attitudes towards children and their welfare have now been exposed as a thin veneer that is only a ruse to obscure greed and an inherent savagery. I am thankful that my grand children are in Canada, I would dread trusting then with the self involved thugs I saw in the Wisconsin newsreels; hopefully, the teaching profession has not devolved into quasi-communist revolutionary rhetoric and tactics in Alberta.
This is a profession that has destroyed its professionalism and needs to be overhauled: there is no way we should be leaving children with teachers who are transformed in to union thugs and goons when their unions and paychecks are threatened. No, these are not the teachers we once respected and loved.
I dunno. I grew up in the ’50s and it was a wonderful period of our history. Men had returned from WWII and Moms were at home. Children were surrounded by loving families and supportive educators. THere was lots to commend the ’50s.
Otherwise, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments.
When I was in school, male teachers wore a shirt and tie and female teachers wore dresses. Now they wear jeans with holes at the knees and tank tops and undershirts. Great role models. Yeah right!
Back in the day, there was a healthy “fear of God” in the souls of most Americans. People lived life as if they were under the watchful eye of the ‘Almighty’ and acted, for the most part, accordingly. Since then, we’ve had a liberal takeover, which in turn, removed God from everything. They don’t like the Pledge of Allegiance. They don’t like the 10 commandments in the courthouses. They don’t like prayer in schools. They have essentially removed God from the daily lives of the average American.
I’m not a religious person. I went to Catholic school as a youth, so I’ve seen that and didn’t agree with it. I have more problems with religions than you can shake a stick at, but still try to live my life in a manner that’s along the lines of Christianity, for the most part.
With the removal of God, there’s the removal of personal responsibility. The liberal mindset has removed the personal responsibility from the lives of average Americans. They want to have sex without being ‘punished with a baby’ ( – Barack Obama). They want everyone else to pay for ‘entitlements’ but don’t want to themselves. They want others to pay for their inefficiencies in life as if they themselves weren’t in control of their futures. “The MAN is holding me down, man!!!”
This country will never be the same and it is such a shame that my young daughter will never know what it was like to grow up in a time that this country was great and a true honor to be a part of. I’ll never take my eye off her like my parents did when I hopped on my bicycle.
What has happened?? Political Correctness!!!! Since LBJ let the cat out of the bag! Fits your time frame PERFECTLY! And yes, this nation has SUFFERED GREATLY because of it. None of what has been done to RUIN us, has been done on “Constitutional Grounds”, but on Democrat/Socialist/Progressive activist grounds, and we’re ALL as a nation, the WORSE for it. Why are your kids NOT safe?? Because we don’t PUNISH CRIME anymore, we try to “understand and feel their pain”… then we let them out to PREY AGAIN! Before?? A steel cage, and we never saw them again! And, back THEN, there was FEAR of the law! Kill, and you got “the Chair”! Now, you get pampered, well fed, health care right up to execution day! Did you know, it’s ILLEGAL to execute an UNHEALTHY death row prisoner?? Why PSYCHO wrote THAT?? Then we have to calm and “sedate” the person being executed, so he “feels no discomfort”!!! I think back to the story, on THIS website, of those two kids raped, abused,tortured, mutilated, and THEN killed by those 5 subhuman savages, and think, THEY don’t have to SUFFER??? We should WORRY that THEY might feel “DISCOMFORT”??? And this kind of INSANITY, is why we are crashing and Burning today…. that, and a Majority vote for the fools who are doing this….. we’re in BIG trouble.
I started school, 1st grade, in 1944 and finished college in 1960, so I lived through those idyllic times, up until the beginning of their demise in the 1960s and ’70s. Hankster has much of it right but it began long before LBJ. The Communists, yes, that is what they are and we shouldn’t let political correctness make us afraid to say so, started infiltrating this country in the late 1800s and has steadily and stealthily transformed it.
Communism is about destruction. If they can take over with force they do and that is usually followed by much destruction and slaughter. If they can’t, as has been the case with America, they quietly infiltrate and set about destroying the social order, the things that hold a society together. With us that was our freedom, morality, Christian values and a general cohesion of the population. We also had the best education system in the world. We were held together by a Constitution that is truly such a work of human endeavor as to be almost sacred. They set about to slowly but steadily to destroy them all.
For the sake of brevity, I will leave it there but unless we realize who the true enemy is and how the operate we cannot combat them. That is especially true of a doctrine that honors and recommends lying, cheating, sedition and total deception as to their aims. A free, moral society is an easy target for such forces.
For a quick crash course research Communist Goals, The Frankfurt School, and Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
Chronologically, you are right. As far as I’m concerned, the FATHER of this was Woodrow Wilson, a Commie/Dictator and you name it all rolled up into one! He got the Federal Reserve started…. The ruination of our Monetary system… The we had FDR…. what a peach he was! The NEW DEAL, was the opening to todays “Screw job”…. I Consider LBJ to be the guy, who “punted it” into overdrive!! IMHO…. you’s may vary! LOL!
Randy, thank you for that special post, it’s like a breath of fresh air, for many who will read it,
we hear the angry revolts because they are right to be so, and I feel this is a bad dream
for AMERICA, and SHE will AWAKEN to realise that SHE MUST react the right way and stop the forces of destruction, the good people are still too few to see it, and the other continiue their detachement for their AMERICA, but they will be stupefied to find that those destructives forces arrived at their door,
sooner than they will have prepared, where others who has warned everyone since the first time they percieve those dangers are prepared and wont be fooled by the rhetorics and propagande from so many of those that are playing their agenda of destruction in this COUNTRY of TOLERANTS GIANTS
Mizz Beez: It warmed up yesterday and the honey bees showed up right on time to pollinate my peach blossoms. How do they know?
Randy, you took us back in time, your childhood was so similar to mine, great post!
I think Wisconsin was a jolt to many, kind of woke some of us up. I followed much of it through the Ann Althouse blog, she lives in Madison, had great stuff and good commentary,also.
She recently posted a video of teachers dragging what looked to be children around 10 years old to the Capital bldg for protest chants, this was after the mad minions had all left. They had the kids lined up in the balcony while teachers stood below taking turns with the bull horn to start the chants. Pathetic!
Then, hubby mentioned the other night that his brother had to drive farther into Wisconsin to pick up his snow mobile, on his return….tables full of recall petitions were set up at intersections in Stevens Point and another town, forgot what it was, people were approaching cars with a clip board for signatures. Kind of intimidating, he was thankful to have Illinois plates. The in-laws have had their property in Wisconsin for over 40 years he said what his friends are telling him, their goal is to clean out Madison, he doesn’t think they will be able to recall the Governor, they are determined to see it through, that’s why they voted him in.
Madison and the unions highlight how far our society has turned…for the worse, how entrenched and brain washed large groups of people have become and how they drew people from all over like moths to a flame. These weren’t clear thinking people, they were robots, zombies, nuts. Good Wisconsin people should be vigilent as to who is teaching their children, Walker is on the right track by getting rid of tenure, that’s still going to take some time to clean out the stable.
John Cooper, so happy, for that, they are very incredible little CREATURES,
I just love them, and respect their importance in the food chain, and their honey is
so good, realy they are GOD’s CREATION as a gift for MANKIND
bye
Just found this in Lucianne’s line up, what was going on with the Wisconsin Republicans prior to their vote:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/262317/wisconsin-assemblys-bold-leap-christian-schneider
Missy:
Thanks for bringing the post from Lucianne over here. I live in WI and hadn’t heard this story. Our Republican legislators all (except for Schultz) deserve kudos, not threats, for doing thhheir job to help solve this budget crisis. It’s the “flee”bagging Democrat Senators who deserve to be recalled.
It should be understood, however, that none of the newly elected legislators are under threat of recall. They must be in office for at least one year before they are eligible to be recalled.
MISSY, wow for AMERICA, It got me emotional to read your comment , from LUCIANNE,
wow for her too, as usual MISSY you always pick the right comment,
hope this patriotism be spread all the way like a clear currant of cleansing water for AMERICA THE BEAUTIFULL, LAND OF THE BRAVES,WHO SACRIFICE ALL THEY HAD DEAR FOR THIS TO HAPPEN TO ALL OF 4 CORNERS OF HER LAND AND SEA.
“”They must be in office for at least one year before they are eligible to be recalled. “”
But the UNION is lining up people NOW via phone banks to “sign” a petition soon as it’s legal…… sad misguided slime……
Hankster, what if the REPUBLICANdo the same but to COUNTER this UNION ACTION,
they just ask the people to send their sign request directly to the ELECTED GOVERNMENT,
TO ABORT ANY ACTION DONE BY THE UNIONS MEMBER OR THE UNION ORGANISATION. BECAUSE IT WAS DONE ILLEGALY
John Cooper, I just want to note that the bees came on the last slice of the MOON
before she is full tomorrow, as she is likely full now, that is a good reminder for the next years to watch probably the same moon time to watch their arrival, bye
Mizz Bees: The fuzzy bumble bees showed up today as well. I’ll remember the moon next year. Thanks.
we have a troll here playing with the dislike button, show yourself and why,
if you are brave or coward
Mizz Beez:
You can tell whom the trolls fear by whom they hate.
John Cooper, I went to check other posts and sure enough it[ the thing]
was going around merrily