Good Old Days
by Clayton Shepherd
Issue 134 - June 24, 2009

I wanted to share my perspective with you. As a 24 year old raised here in the US, I was born into the "digital age" the "technological era" if you will, but I find myself more and more longing for a taste of what my grandparents referred to as "the good old days."

I did not find my beginnings teething on the altar at church, nor attending church every Sunday shaking hands with the preacher, but found myself instilled with the values and morals that have become an integral part of my faith and daily walk in life by my family. We were not a wealthy household.

I watched my dad work hard to support us all his life, by the sweat of his brow he made sure we had all that we needed in life, and even provided us some of what we wanted. His life didn't begin that way. I absent-mindedly listened to the stories he told me of his childhood when I myself was a boy, eating lima beans for dinner almost every night, washing his blue jeans in the bathtub every night so he could have clean clothes to wear to school the next day. He wanted to provide our family with a life that enabled us to have some luxury as well as the necessities. Just as Benjamin Franklin was paraphrased as saying at one of the Tea Party Rallies, the best motivation for someone to get out of poverty is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty.

My father is an example of this in action. He was uncomfortable in the poverty of his youth, and it drove him to succeed in his adult life. Nobody gave it to him freely, he had to work hard and earn his living. His work ethic and integrity mean a great deal to him, as it should to us all. Although I didn't have to deal with the issue of poverty growing up, there was another issue that became very real to me though my trials and travails. That issue was personal responsibility.

Just as a child riding a bike starts out on training wheels in the beginning until there is enough confidence built up to ride without them. On a long enough timeline, given the child is not endowed with a God given impeccable sense of balance, that child will fall and the child's parents will urge and encourage them to get back on and try again. That first fall is important in life as it teaches us the respect for the manner in which we are traveling. The same is true with our own journey into our adult lives.

As I stepped out into the world I was completely unprepared for the tests that awaited me. I also made some very poor decisions, and my parents did their very best to protect me from the consequences of some of my actions. In the end, those poor decisions ended up being greater than any teacher could have ever been in teaching me personal responsibility and accountability. Although my parents would have loved to give me a "bailout," pardon the pun, it was important that I face my consequences and allow the lessons learned to propel me towards success in my adult life.

They were sincerely intentioned as I have found since becoming a father myself. No parent ever wants to see their child in pain, and would go to great lengths to protect them from the troubles to come, but some lessons can only be learned from experience. It is much like telling a child not to touch the oven. "It is hot," you tell them. "That will hurt you," you further admonish, but until the child feels that sensation for himself for the first time, it is a word without feeling associated with it. I am by no means a moral plumb-line in this world. Nor do I claim to have the solutions to our problems we now face, but there is one thing I can say with certainty, we are headed for a meltdown of great proportions if we do not get ourselves back to the foundation upon which this country was laid.

I remember as a child hearing my grandma shocked at hearing some of the music on the radio. I didn't have a very firm grasp as to why it should seem so shocking to her, it was common to me. It was socially acceptable at the time and I saw nothing wrong with it. In my short 24 years on this earth, I have seen the moral fabric of our country slowly but surely eroding under the banner of "acceptance and tolerance." I am sure that unwanted pregnancies, homosexuality, and progressive idealism are by no means a new issue that has just surfaced to be faced today under the aforementioned banner. They have long been issues that people have at the very least been aware of. What I fail to understand is how refusing to agree with liberal thought processes now makes you a bigot. Are we only to be tolerant and acceptant of liberal ideas and therefore intolerant of our foundations and values?

I have watched the youth of our country becoming more and more disrespectful to their elders, work ethic is all but a mythical fantasy creature, and feeling more and more entitled to what they have not earned. Listening to interviews on both television and radio, of citizens of our great country saying they feel they deserve a bailout even though they placed themselves into bad situations by spending irresponsibly, or attempting to live beyond their means incurring great debt, it almost frightens me to think of what might be coming next. They are willing to give up their rights as long as they don't have to experience the fall, the fall that will teach them the difference between success and failure. Benjamin Franklin was also quoted as saying, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Our country cannot continue to thrive, nor will it survive as long as people are willing to give up their rights in order to gain a "bailout" which can only be a temporary solution. And then comes more legislation against the credit card companies which who people signed agreements, binding contracts outlining the consequences of failure to pay. It is a slippery slope that we will regret traveling down. It is only a temporary solution.

If you want to be productive, why not legislate classes to be taught on how to use credit in school. I didn't go to college to get a degree after I graduated from high school, and from the examples I have seen leaving our higher learning institutions and the professors who determine their fate in that pursuit, I am thankful. I am by no means saying that pursuing a higher education is done in vain, but when you are asked to agree with your professor and his endless diatribes against the very principles that blood, sweat, and tears were shed to found this country in order to receive a passing mark, I say that the institution is flawed. As I stated before, I don't have all the answers. I don't even know a few of them. I can only speak from my very limited scope of experience and say that we can only make it if we stand up and decide for once to have a voice based upon our deep rooted, heartfelt values or find ourselves 40 years from now calling these the "good old days."

I cannot bear to imagine where we would be then if something is not done differently. I remember September 11, 2001 very vividly. I was a senior in high school, virtually oblivious to the political sentiments of the world, and ignorant to the hatred many hold towards those very values our nation was built upon. I turned a blind eye to it, believing if I ignored them, they would in turn do the same. Now I find myself more aware of an imminent threat to our safety. And I know that ignoring the problem will not make it go away, nor will it slow the progress of that agenda. A house divided will fall. Our country is living beyond its means; our government is acting irresponsibly with no sense of accountability. Who will be there to bail us out?

Forgive me if this was incoherent rambling with no sense of structure, but I had to air my thoughts and feelings out somewhere that it might actually be heard, understood, and possibly even reciprocated, as I have found myself unable to receive the kind of response I have sought from the elected officials who are supposed to be representing me. I ask your guidance on how to become more involved from here. Thank you for your time, and God bless you all.

Sincerely, Clayton Shepherd