I'm 39 years old. Not too old by most standards. However, when I was growing up things were so different. What has happened?
When I was growing up... if I had a fight with someone, we got out the fists and commenced to fighting. I was never one of the hair-pulling, slapping, girly fighters.. I had a brother and I had to learn to fight or he would always get the best of me. I wasn't having that. And though I was always one to take up for myself (and most around me, lol), I have probably only been in about 6 fist fights in my life.
Nowdays, people don't use their fists, they use guns or knives. What used to end in a shaking of hands, now ends in death and incarceration. What has happened?
When I was growing up, we had really kewl Saturday morning shows like He-man, The Hall of Justice League (Aqua-man was my fave) and Thundercats (HOOOOO). We had Fat Albert, who showed you could live in the ghetto areas and still find fun, constructive things to do.. and learn a life lesson or two along the way. We had Schoolhouse Rock (I'm just a bill, Conjunction Junction and my personal fave.. 3 is a magic number).. they were cool to watch and you could learn something along the way. I still sing the 3 song sometimes to help me with multiplication, lol.
I have kids, and the stuff on Saturday morning is mindless stupid stuff, for the most part. There's a lot of violence, a lot of weapons and no lessons to go along with it. I do like Dora the Explorer and Jacob Two-Two (cracks me up), but still... where's the fun, learning type shows? What has happened?
When I was in high school, we might smoke a little weed now and then... a pleasantly mellow little buzz. It wasn't addictive, it wasn't going to cause me to get into a car wreck. At most it might cause me to forget where I put my keys, lol.
Nowdays, there's crack and coke and heroin... and yeah, those things might have been around in my day, but they just weren't necessary somehow. People are dying over drugs. People are stealing and killing for drugs. What has happened?
When I was in growing up, we listened to Boston, Parliament Funkadelic, The Silvers, Donna Summer, Pat Benatar, Kansas, AC/DC, Prince, The Eagles. The music might have a sexual reference or two, but nothing too bad. There were songs about love, about respect, about falling in love.
Nowdays, it's pimp slapping your ho's and selling drugs and making money that we hear on the radio. Where's the love? Where's the respect? What has happened?
When I was growing up we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in class. No one complained about saying "Under God". We said prayers in school. God was one of the good guys... the BEST GUY!
Nowdays people are complaining about prayer in schools.. and the kids keep getting worse and worse. Kids are bringing guns to school to solve problems, kids are getting into gangs and killing each other and those around them just for kicks. What has happened?
The world today seems like a sad place indeed. Is there any end in sight? What are the answers?
Just in a pensive mood today and thought I would share.
Peace!
