If it seems rather familiar, it is. This is the second time I have posted this thread, said thread, along with others, having mysteriously disappeared. Never Say Die!


While commenting on a photo of my sister's grandson sitting in his car seat, plugged into the audio of the car's dvd player, and intently watching cartoons, I ended up basically writing an essay on life now as opposed to life then. Does this take anyone back to their youth and, if so, do you feel as I that today's youth are somehow being cheated by a byproduct of progress? I also wish to note that I am not condemning the fact that little Hayden is watching cartoons in a car. If anything, near as I can tell, I guess this could possibly be a camouflaged lament over a way of life that is irretrievably gone.






Name: Judi's grandson Hayden.jpg Views: 41 Size: 17.7 KB


This reminds me of the Sunday drives our folks would take us on and what families have been missing out on for decades. People nowadays just give you a blank stare if you ask them to describe what a Sunday drive is. Although hazily, I remember when we would take such trips. : This was a wonderful experience whereby a family jumps into the family car after church (yes, a great majority of Americans used to attend church - not only that, but all the stores were closed on Sundays!) and heads out, the destination being of little or no consequence, looking and commenting on, and generally enjoying the scenery as it slides or flashes by (depending on how heavy the father's right foot is),while interacting (yes, I said INTERACTING) with each other. Laughing, telling stories and making up little stupid jokes, playing travelling games about everything that was around us (counting horses, cattle, or whatever, playing an alphabet game - finding something in the surroundings for each letter, Mom and Dad talking about things going on at work and home while we in turn gave an accounting for everything that went on in our respective school classes and talking about everything going on with the neighbor kids (building forts, bike racing, exploration in the surrounding fields, etc.). Judy, I remember one Sunday drive in which we ended up at a little country restaurant in Paskenta (yeah, you haven't heard of PASKENTA in years, have you?) where Dad treated us all to hamburgers, french fries, and coke and then we piled into the car and back home we went! Now, at my age, why would I remember something that happened on an otherwise non-descript Sunday sometime in the late 50's? Our family sitting at that restaurant table, enjoying the company of each other and those delicious hamburgers, fries, and the ice-cold Coke is a mental photograph that no one will ever be able to destroy or take from me. In a roundabout fashion, human progress seems to be perversely similar to the properties of water, which maintains a constancy as H-2-O even as it's state of existence changes from ice to water to steam: With the addition of a certain amount of technology, a corresponding amount of humanity is deducted from mankind's bank account. One such amount of humanity removed from the equation was, not the Sunday drive itself, but rather that which was derived from the results of that drive - the strengthening and growth of the family bond. Please don't misunderstand what I am saying. I am not accusing you, or anyone else for that matter, of wrongdoing. I am just wondering whether society-at-large feels that what amounts to the tradeoff of the traditional family unit for unabated technological progress is one they can, with a clear conscience, stand behind and, if so, then how long will it be before the word "society" also loses first its meaning and then its place in the dictionary of life?