By Otis Griffin
My fellow country Southern Americans! Don’t that have a beautiful celestial ring to it? Just think about it. Oh you don’t have time as you are too busy. Well my, my! No one has time any more for friends or neighbors. You’re lucky to get a wave and maybe that is to get out of the way as I’m in a hurry. No time to eat as we run through a fast food joint and complain “hurry up” on top of that. When someone screams at a microwave, “run faster’ now that’s bad. Probably the worst part is no one has time for their young’uns and it shows up in all the crime, young mamas, drop outs and folks not being responsible for what endeavor one presents to society. When is the last time a parent helped their gully jumper with some homework? Maybe it is easier to give them some money and a new car then tell ’em to enjoy themselves. Of course basically all we hear about in the media is the bad stuff and not enough good deeds. However many times folks used to say, “I’ll see you, but now it is, I’ll sue you”. Sumpin’ ain’t right about this picture… Friends go back in time and daydream when doors were opened for ladies and elders were respected with yes and no sir! Caps were tipped. Swing on Monkey bars and coal was shoveled in the basement of the school to furnish radiator heat midst the clanging. No air conditioners in school, so just raise the windows and at church grab a funeral parlor fan. Holes in the school desk held black ink bottles for dipping writing pens. My redneck friends enjoyed the simple way of life with serials on Saturday afternoon at the picture show followed by Roy Rogers chasing and catching cattle rustling crooks. Remember mumble peg and eating dirt? Shooting marbles with steelies. Penny candy and nickel Nehis. Gazing at the test pattern on television waiting for the Indian head to move as Howdy Doody is coming. Did you ever wash clothes on a scrub board or graduate to a washing machine with a monstrous wringer? How many toted books in a satchel and left your galoshers in the dark eerie cloak room? My wonderful intelligent Senior citizens had the opportunity to mount a puddle jumper and cruise in a Studebaker (Detroit Blockbuster), a Nash or maybe a Packard. Earn two-bits pushing a reel mower followed by hot muggy hay hauling. But you could cool off skinny dipping in the same creek later you would fish in and if a cow wasn’t upstream just drink the water from a cupped hand. Coal oil repaired cuts and paregoric cured hurts. Never heard of health insurance… As the bills added up you paid as you could. Great! If a neighbor was down, the community pitched in with no expectancy and bailed out the family. It was easy to draw water for livestock, washing clothes, and quenching your own thirst from the same big dug hole. Can you recollect the entire community drank from the same dipper after the bugs had been skimmed and slung out the back screen door? Metal trays could be found in an ice box on the back porch. Neighbor does it come back to shucking corn, gathering eggs, hanging out washing using clotheslines and wooden pens? We drank bottled water but it came from a glass gallon jug wrapped in a to’ sack dug deep cooling in the ground at the end of the row. Beloved the students rotated reading from the Bible each morning and led the class in a prayer with our heads reverently bowed. Proudly in unison we faced the Stars and Stripes and recited the Pledge to the greatest nation in the world. I don’t have all the answers as probably no one does. However, I do know when prayer was th’owed out of the classrooms, guns slithered in like a thief in the night. One suggestion might be helpful. We have rocket scientists, had a man on the moon, we have duct tape, sea grass string and WD-40……….simple….just fix it. Slow Down, Take Time To Smell The Roses ’Fore They Put ’Em On Top Of You…GLORY!
— What do you think? Send Letters to the Editor to [email protected].
