If you haven't noticed in the age of social media and other light news lately, the world is messed up! It also seems to me that during the course of my lifetime, things have gone from the good-old-days to the terrible-days-we're-in. That's just my observation, mind you, but I'm fairly confident that there are more than just a few out there that feel the same strains that are pulling on society.
What brought this up---you ask? Well, I'd like to say nothing in particular but as it turns out--- it's every thing in particular. Neighbors against neighbors. Workers against management. Governing bodies against constituents. Political party against political party. Military against military That is, of course, the tip of the iceberg, the blunt end of the sword, the short end of the stick. The Howdy and the Dowdy of it all. Which, saving the best for last is or was the Howdy and the Dowdy. Just yesterday, I said to my self, "I wish I had my digital recorder with me. These drive times could be used in creating a comedy routine."
The things that I see while making my rounds is the point of this. I begin to see things that the average person would not even know was going on or what a parked car could mean in a parking lot. I don't even mean to imply that it is all nefarious. But, in today's world, being cautions and not walk up on something is a much more keen safety awareness than ending up being shot. Having a bit of street smarts is far better than having none.
Years ago, when I came back to Dallas, I'd walk up to the drugstore to pick up a refill rather than drive less than a mile each way. I enjoyed being out in the fresh air and just taking in the sights and sounds of a big city that I love. As I came back to my mom's place, I'd see these tennis shoes hanging from the telephone wires. I'd never seen that before. When mom would come home, I'd mention to her about the funniest thing that I saw today. It was my mom who told me what tennis shoes over a telephone cable meant. It blew me away, actually. I remember saying to her, "you got to be kidding me?" Not totally about the shoes over the wires as much as my mom knowing what it meant more than I did. But she had been an officer of the court and appointed to serve as a probation officer. It was then that I started paying more attention to things than ever before. Rather late in life, I might add.
The first taste of my awakening was when I came back from Brasil and at Miami's airport when we cleared customs, I saw just how ignorant American's were to the rest of the world. Remember thinking then, also, that "this is not good". As it has turned out, we have gone asleep at the wheel, just like the TexDot guy said to me a couple of years ago when we were talking about the high tech equipment going in on LBJ635. He had said,"The people of Dallas don't even know it's to late, already." Since then, I have observed more examples of what he was talking about and to me, it is frightening. There are people next door (figuratively) that still think that if civil war broke out or some type of martial law invasion would happen, they would still have time to go to the bank or think life is still normal for them. In other words, they are not aware that conditions could be like the Mel Gibson movie,
Mad Max. Not in America!
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| Meet David. Senior Citizen. Retired from Army at 63 |
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| David kayaks every week for a few hours. Including unloading and loading his kayak onto his trailer and stowing equipment. |
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| David is 85 currently. He is a Legion of Merit holder. |
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