OLD GEORGE AND MABLE LAMENT TODAY’S AMERICA
George: “You know Mable, we’ve been married almost 60 years and I look around and nothing seems the same any more. Oh sure, we’re surrounded by the little things that we’ve collected over the years that make our house a home and connect us to the memories of our life, but the world outside has become foreign to me. I don’t recognize any of it. This is not the America we grew up in. What happened to America?”
Mable: “Now George, don’t get yourself all upset about things you can’t change. You have high blood pressure and you’re taking medicine for your heart. The last time you got all worked up, you started getting chest pains and we had to call the doctor.”
George: “I don’t care Mable! Something’s dreadfully wrong and I don’t know how to fix it and that makes me frustrated and angry. We went through a World War and I understood that. There was clarity in that War. We lived through the 50’s and 60’s and we were relatively happy. Our only fear at that time was the threat of nuclear war. We trusted people, we didn’t lock our doors at night and we left the keys in the ignition. Then in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s America started going off the rail with rising socialism and radical environmentalism ….. and corruption. It has gotten several magnitudes worse in the first 19 years of the 21st Century.”
“Today, there’s no clarity at all, just conflict and confusion, along with questions we can’t answer and problems we can’t solve. Legal and illegal immigration is out of control to the detriment of our culture and the rule of law. Most legal and illegal immigrants just want to benefit from our riches, with no thought of assimilating into our culture or speaking our language. Cities, counties and states are tearing the nation apart with sanctuary jurisdictions for illegal aliens.”
“Obama care disrupted American health care and made it so complicated and costly, that it is now politically unfixable. Instead, the current crop of Democrat presidential candidates want to double down on Obama Care and make it worse by passing Medicare For All. That’s nuts, if not insane! Democrats also want to give free health care to illegal aliens and take away our cars, cows and airplanes.”
“Mass shooting into crowds has almost become a weekly occurrence. Crime in our inner cities is rampant. Little girls and boys and teenagers are targets for sexual predators and you have to watch them 24 hours a day just to keep them safe.”
“Our public schools and colleges are institutions of brainwashing and indoctrination for socialist and radical environmental special interests, instead of centers of learning.”
“Climate change has become the new world plan to extract as much money as government can from the masses and take away their freedoms, but it seems only in America, as if America was somehow evil. The third world polluting nations, like China and India, get off scot-free.”
“Technology has turned adults and even very young children into Iphone obsessive zombies with their heads down in a permanent bow, punching letters of the alphabet with their thumbs on a horizontal screen, like tribal aborigines pounding drums. I could go on but I’m already warn out.”
Mable: “Yes, I know George but at our age, what can we do about it? We live OK, but we don’t have a lot of money to go off chasing causes, or trying to get people to act in a different way, or making the government live up to its duties and responsibilities. You and I are old and we don’t have the energy or the resources to fight any more. What can we do?
George: “Well we can’t just sit by and let America be destroyed right under our feet by politicians that have morphed into traitors. There’s too much at stake. The lives of our children and grandchildren will be turned up side down or reduced to slavery if something isn’t done to restore the America we remembered when we were growing up. We owe our offspring no less.”
Mable: “But George, I just want to live out the rest of my life with you in peace, without conflict and fighting. If you get involved in this struggle, you’ll bring disharmony into our home. And by the way you’re just one man. How can you change the terrible things that are going on around us? You didn’t cause them so why must you be the one to fix them?”
George: “Mable, remember your history. One man wrote the Declaration of Independence and one man led an army to defeat the British in the Revolutionary War. One man invented the light bulb and another gave us electricity. Over 2,000 years ago one man spawned Christianity by his acts of honor and virtue and it changed the world forever. One man has been changing the world since civilization began. Am I that one man? I don’t know. Maybe! But I’m compelled to do something, even if it’s just a token of what needs to be done and even if I’m old and feeble. If there were enough ‘tokens’ like me, we might actually make a difference. If I stand up, maybe I can get others to stand up with me.”
Mable: “Ok George, but where are you going to start? Who are you going to get to help you? What will you fix first, that is if you could?”
George: “I’m not sure yet, but the first thing that has to be fixed is the system, because if the system isn’t working, nothing can be fixed and the system isn’t working. It is hopelessly corrupt. The political and ideological divisions between the two sides have grown so far apart that I fear only violence can bridge the gap. Their differences make them impotent to effect any real change. The acrimony between the political players is so volatile neither side will compromise for fear of giving up some of their power to the other side. But worse than that, one side has moved so far away from America’s founding principles as to render them almost treasonous if not virtual traitors. There can be no compromising with them.”
Mable: “So what do you want to do George, start an organization, or join an existing one?”
George: “Hell, I don’t know Mable. I’m at a point in my life when I forget names and faces and then I can’t remember if I pulled my zipper up ….. or I pulled it down. I walk into a room and I can’t remember why I went there. I’m having trouble remembering simple words and I replace them with my mouth wide open, uttering gibberish. I can’t open those childproof medicine caps anymore and our new car is so complicated I’m almost afraid to drive it. There are all these apps on my cell phone and I don’t even know what an app is or what it does. I find myself telling the same stories over and over again to the same people. I don’t like traffic, waiting for anything, large crowds, or stupid politicians and most of them are stupid, or corrupt, or both. And I have little tolerance for trivia and non-sense. How am I supposed to start an organization, or even join one?”
Mable: “Maybe you could talk our son or grandson into helping you.”
George: “No, they’re both too busy with their business, work, sports and raising a family. I can’t believe how busy they are. We were never that busy when we were growing up and when we were raising our kids. Anyhow, their generation and the generations before them have bought into a socialist world because the damn schools don’t teach our kids about freedom, the Founding Fathers, the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or why they matter. They teach them about the virtues of socialism and multi-culturalism and the mandates of radical environmentalism. They brainwash them with climate change. What’s worse, the parents are clueless. The last two or three generations don’t know what freedom is and have accepted the life we live today as normal, along with all the complications, conflicts, confusion and high tech. Why should they fight if they don’t see any reason to fight?”
Mable: “So what’s the answer George? If no one will help you, you’re just wasting your time and getting all worked up about something you can’t change. The anger, tension and frustration could shorten what’s left of your life. Then you’ll leave me all alone. What will I do, if you’re not here? I love you but how can I love you if you’re not here to love?”
George: “I don’t know Mable. I’m torn between wanting to do something that makes a difference and just bagging the whole idea. I feel like what Billy Crystal joked: ‘By the time I’m wise enough to watch my step, I’m too old to go anywhere.’”
Mable: “Well George, why don’t you just take a nap and forget this idea of changing the world for a while. You’ll feel better when you wake up. With a clear head maybe another idea will come to you, you know, like cleaning the garage.”
Later that night George and Mable climbed into bed. George was almost asleep when Mable said, “You know, when we were courting, you liked to hold my hand.”
Wearily, George reaches across the covers and holds her hand for a few seconds and then rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.
A few moments later Mable says, “After that, you used to kiss me softly.”
Somewhat irritated, George turns back towards Mable and gives her a peck on the cheek. Once again, he tries to go back to sleep.
Not long after, just as George starts to enter REM sleep, Mable whispers, “Then after that, you used to bite me lightly on the neck.”
Suddenly, George throws back the covers and gets out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Mable asks.”
Over his shoulder George shouts, “Where do you think? I’m going to get my teeth!”
Author’s Note: Every one of us has a perspective limited to the amount of time we have lived and the experiences and knowledge we have accumulated at any given moment. We discuss that in our “Little Black Box” Theory article. Young people from 18 to 30 have a limited perspective of life and realities, simply because their time on this planet is limited by their age. Most people grow wiser as those years increase and as more experience and knowledge is absorbed. Thus it follows that seniors, those over 65 and on up into their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, have a much broader perspective of life and realities. Their extensive experiences allow them to observe trends and directions of their culture. What they see from those trends, they don’t like. Unfortunately, the vagaries and infirmities that come with age preclude them from acting on what they know, as our above story about George and Mable relate. The fact is, the seniors in our midst contain the vast majority of the wisdom and experience of the current generation. Their counsel should be sought by those of younger years and they should be honored, respected and revered.
October 5, 2019
© 2019 Ron Ewart – All Rights Reserved
~ The Author ~
Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and speaker on freedom and property issues and author of his weekly column, “In Defense of Rural America“, is the President of the The National Association of Rural Landowners (NARLO), a non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State and dedicated to restoring, maintaining and defending property rights for urban and rural landowners. Mr. Ewart can be reached for comment at [email protected].
Mr. Ewart has been a continuing contributor to the Kettle Moraine family of publications since May of 2007.