Then and Now

June 29th, 2008 at 11:33am Don R. Gugliuzza

I was in a position to observe a group of people from my parent’s generation. They were a mixture of men and women  in their middle 80’s to early 90’s. And as I watched them I envied them, not because they are older than me but because they had much of which they could be proud. They were couples that had worked together to provide, to the best of their abilities, for the necessities of their lives.

There was patriotism although few ever thought about it. They just observed the laws of the land, respected their, often times undeserving, political leaders. They voted in higher percentages than we’re now used to. And when they were called upon to defend their country, they did so. They defeated to well-seasoned armies at the same time because we had the “can do” attitude. Whatever needed to be done, got done. No whining. No hand-wringing. They just rolled up their sleeves and did what they needed to do.

They worked hard and well. There was a bond between the men who worked in factories or whatever they did for their livelihood. There was a mutual respect between them and their employers. They expected to work for their employer for all of their working lives and the employer expected them to. Loyalty! The women stayed home to provide a loving and nurturing environment for the husband and children while he provided the father figure and funds for the family.  They were happy to have a clean shelter, more often than not  rented, where there was togetherness and safety. They had friends for neighbors and neighbors who became friends. They cared for each other and raised their children to embrace the morals and ethics that were bestowed upon them by their parents. They were happy for what they had and didn’t compete with the “Jones” to get more and more of the things they really didn’t have… because they had everything that was important.

No, it wasn’t a perfect society. There was crime and people who took advantage of others. There were diseases that we don’t have now, more often than not, fatal. There were social ills that we have spent all of my generation and part of this generation trying to cure and haven’t yet succeeded.

Now things are a lot different. We’re collectors of material things that we don’t need, but want because someone else has them or doesn’t have them and we want to be “better” than them.  A kind phrase for that is self-serving egotism. We want to make more money for doing less. We want others to do what we won’t lower ourselves to do. How many times to you see someone sweeping the public sidewalk or the gutter in front of their home, whether they own it or rent it? We’re a nation of consumers. What can I get? How can I get it? I want it therefore I shall have it. And in acquiring all of the “toys’ we have abandoned our responsibility to our children. Mom and dad both work and leave the children to babysitters or the school system.  What you hear today is, “We both have to work to get by.”  In many cases that’s true. But in most cases they both work to have two cars, not one. The vehicles have to be new, big, prestiguish and, more often than not, big gas guzzlers.

We suffer the incompetent, self serving politician because we don’t want to get involved in the political process. We’re too busy acquiring things to be bothered with judging those who are supposed to be serving us. All we can think of is “us” and don’t pay attention to what is going on in our government…. unless it happens to do something detrimental to us personally.

Now we sit and wonder what happened to our country. We have politicians breaking the law and caring more for the law breakers than they do their country. What happened to our country is “US.” We have abandoned the principles that made this country great. We left it untended because of our attitude of “Me first, last and always.” It’s a great country full of hardworking, friendly and caring people. But because we haven’t cared enough about our country, it is not capable of fulfilling its promise of equal opportunity for all of it’s citizens. Shame on us and our generation. We have broken the promise that we should have made to our country. We have abandoned it. And now, it has an illness that won’t let it do what it’s supposed to do for it’s citizens. But it’s an illness that can be cured. All it takes is for us to care for it again. To tend to it. It’s a wonderful country that can again be great. Roll up your sleeves and do something for your country and not for just  yourselves. Make sure  your children inherit a country that is better than what we inherited. It can be done because Americans can do anything they need to do…. all they have to do is to want to do it.

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