It's a great thing, getting these reminders on Facebook about birthdays and such. It has become a habit of mine to look over there on the right and check that each morning. A good number of those are for people I knew in high school or at least during that time frame. Having moved away from my childhood home and settling elsewhere after I retired from the Navy, I had lost touch with many. Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with a good number of them. It's funny because when I was there, I didn't know many of them well enough to know when their birthdays where. It just wasn't something I paid much attention too I suppose. Back in those days big birthday parties were not common, only a few kids I knew had anything much beyond their mom making a cake, inviting a few close friends over and maybe playing pin the tail on the donkey.
Now I'm seeing the birthdays of not only those folks, but their children as well. Sometimes that comes as a bit of a surprise, the age of those children I mean. I know I have kids in their forties, but my classmates do too? Comes as a bit of a surprise when I discover their ages, my classmates I mean, they're old people. How did that happen to them when I'm not that old. Some even have great grandchildren! But I see the reminders and the numbers don't lie. Well sometimes the date is questionable with some of those profile pages. Some folks like to get creative with all of that for a number of reasons. Age isn't the only thing that's questionable either. The picture we choose to use on our profile is another one of those things. Yes, that's me. It's from 1983 but it's me. It's the strangest thing how our pictures never really look like us, at least not the way we see ourselves, know what I mean? The person in the mirror or in the photograph just doesn't match what we see in our minds.
Hard to believe that it is now 2024. Almost a quarter of the way through another century. That's how I think about it when I realize I was born in the middle of the last century. When I was a young man, I didn't realize that my grandparents had been born in another century. It just wasn't something that I paid much attention too. Oh, I heard those old people talking about chopping wood, bringing the water in and using outhouses. I heard about how little they got paid and how much better everything was in the old days. But it never dawned on me that they were alive at the same time as some historical figures we studied in grade school. Great Grandfather Floyd was born in 1878. Queen Victoria was living during his time, so was Claude Monet, Thomas Edison, Oscar Wilde and Vincent Van Gogh. They really didn't have radio, television, electric lights and indoor plumbing!
My oldest grandchild will be twenty-three on the 23rd of this month. I didn't need to be reminded of that, although I did have the year wrong and my wife corrected me. It seems like that is something women are much better at, remembering birthdays I mean, along with any transgression you may have committed since the moment you met her until the day you die. I expect one day he will tell his children of the time things had cords on them, the internet wasn't 110G and you had to pay for the internet. And when minimum wage was only fifteen an hour and houses were under a million dollars. He will tell his children how doctors used to assign genders to children at birth! He had to work a forty-hour week, in a building away from home! Not only that, but you also had to pay back student loans! Life was tough in the beginning of the century!
I consider myself fortunate to have been born mid-century. The 1950's was probably the best time to live in America. Not that there weren't problems, issues to be resolved, but it was a kinder world any way you look at it. A single income family was a common thing, mom usually staying home to take care of the house and the children. Most things were pretty much black and white. Granted not so great if you were black but improving anyway. But what I mean is right and wrong were well defined. Everyone knew what a marriage was, what gender they were, and that the world didn't revolve around them. No one felt that the world owed them anything. The early 1900's were pretty tough but by mid-century things had calmed down a bit. A depression, two world wars and the Korean conflict, as it was called then, had that effect.
Now it seems that history is repeating itself as the beginning of this century isn't the easiest time to live in America. The America created in the last century is fast disappearing. Much of the same issues that were dealt with are once again surfacing. It's my thinking we are transitioning to a world more concerned with feelings than facts. Having solved many of the problems we faced in the past concerning our basic needs, we are concentrating more on what we want.
Well, what we want others to believe, to support, and to empower that is. Opportunity isn't enough, we want guarantees. Equality is the watchword! That's stressed because not everyone is getting equal results. And that is a reality that just isn't being accepted! That's why the push for socialism. Few will openly admit that, but their policies reflect it. Socialism has never worked and will never work. The reason for that is simply because it does not conform with human behavior. People need to work for the things that they want! It's a fundamental part of our make-up. Remove incentives and society will fail every time. Why work for what I get for free? The issue being someone has to work to provide those things. It isn't going to be those that are running the show! And that, that is the problem with a socialist government. You are either equally powerful or equally poor. There is no in-between.
I can only smile and shake my head when I hear these terms like "economic justice." Just what is that supposed to mean. This is what the American Bar Association has to say; The basic principle and justification for economic justice set forth in Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is that “everyone, as a member of society, . . . is entitled to realization. . . of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.” Note that the key word in that description is "entitled." Not equal opportunity, equal results. It's an attractive proposal no doubt about it. Everyone gets to do their own thing, everyone gets the same thing, and everyone is supported by all! Socialism 101.
Sorry for wandering down another lane but I just write where my thoughts go. Got a bit off topic but that's what discussion often does. These blogs are a discussion with me. Seldom do I get into an argument, and I feel better afterwards. Birthdays are like mile markers. You can tell how far you have been but not how much farther you have to go.
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