Ahhh...The good old days!
I have a simple project for anyone who thinks that this is the ass end of all time, and that what proceeded..those halcyon days of yore were made of better stuff than what we have in these, our own times.
STEP 1: Find someone over the age of 80
STEP 2: Share a few hours comparing lives.
STEP 3: Repeat several times with elder of different race, gender and social status (yes, social status really matters here, since it wasn't until around the time of the Second World War that people actually started to associate with people of other classes more freely).
Here's a sampling of some of the quotes that have stuck in my head:
"When I was a kid we used to see bodies floating in the river all the time, It wasn't that shocking.....Mom told us that they were just bad people anyway, or they wouldn't have wound up that way"
"Look at that, He's got a white girl. I had a buddy who got sweet on a white girl....He just up and disappeared"
"When I was a cop, we didn't get involved with any domestic stuff like child or spouse abuse, it wasn't any of our business and no one wanted to aknowledge it went on. When a woman or child ran away from home, we usually picked them up and brought them back."
"I never really realized how hurtful it was to call those people by that word (the N. word). It's just what you called them, even the preacher did"
"My little sister got the shits from eating green apples, she got dehydrated and died"
"There wasn't any 6 o'clock news, if a kid dissapeared you usually never heard about it unless you knew the parents, and how would they track them down anyway? Only friends and family knew what they looked like unless they had a picture. Even then, if they left town you'd more than often never see them again."
"I don't think anyone your age can even imagine what it was like in WWII, we didn't have body armor, no siree. Everybody was affected, you couldn't even buy tires during the war, and usually there wasn't any sugar, coffee or meat either, it was either rationed or just not available"
"There was a pool hall in the town where I grew up, every Saturday they used to lay a couple of bodies outside on the walk when they cleaned up from Friday night. The families would pick 'em up and bury them, everybody saw it. Nobody ever talked about it though, and the cops never went there, that's just what happened to people that went to places like that."
"When I was about 10 the neighbors up the road adopted an orphan boy my age. I thought he had a great life, didn't go to school, just worked and slept in the barn. Then he showed me where he'd lost 3 toes and told me how they just caurtorized the wound with a hot knife, and he still had to milk the cows the next morning. No, they were all white people, him too. Even went to church on Sunday"
"We thought that the poor people weren't worth a damn, black or white. They were always barefoot, skinny and dirty. We knew that if they and their parents had lived moral and Godly lives that they wouldn't be that way, and we didn't dare go near them, out of self respect and fear of catching some kind of disease."
"I can't understand your generation, what's with all the tattoos and piercings? When I was your age only filthy people had tattoos, I hope that isn't true now, it seems almost everybody has one that's your age. We wouldn't even talk to someone with a tattoo, and they'd probably throw anybody out of town if they pierced their dang nose."
"If somebody lived with a man or woman, and wasn't married they were going to hell, and that was that."
Yup, those were the good old days, at least as far as I can tell from the people that were actually there. Oh well.
Peace, (Hey, if you're over 70, just because I said "Peace", doesn't mean that I'm an unpatriotic ungreatful hippie bastard, who doesn't work and is trying to undermine the great Nation you helped create/preserve... 'K?)
STEP 1: Find someone over the age of 80
STEP 2: Share a few hours comparing lives.
STEP 3: Repeat several times with elder of different race, gender and social status (yes, social status really matters here, since it wasn't until around the time of the Second World War that people actually started to associate with people of other classes more freely).
Here's a sampling of some of the quotes that have stuck in my head:
"When I was a kid we used to see bodies floating in the river all the time, It wasn't that shocking.....Mom told us that they were just bad people anyway, or they wouldn't have wound up that way"
"Look at that, He's got a white girl. I had a buddy who got sweet on a white girl....He just up and disappeared"
"When I was a cop, we didn't get involved with any domestic stuff like child or spouse abuse, it wasn't any of our business and no one wanted to aknowledge it went on. When a woman or child ran away from home, we usually picked them up and brought them back."
"I never really realized how hurtful it was to call those people by that word (the N. word). It's just what you called them, even the preacher did"
"My little sister got the shits from eating green apples, she got dehydrated and died"
"There wasn't any 6 o'clock news, if a kid dissapeared you usually never heard about it unless you knew the parents, and how would they track them down anyway? Only friends and family knew what they looked like unless they had a picture. Even then, if they left town you'd more than often never see them again."
"I don't think anyone your age can even imagine what it was like in WWII, we didn't have body armor, no siree. Everybody was affected, you couldn't even buy tires during the war, and usually there wasn't any sugar, coffee or meat either, it was either rationed or just not available"
"There was a pool hall in the town where I grew up, every Saturday they used to lay a couple of bodies outside on the walk when they cleaned up from Friday night. The families would pick 'em up and bury them, everybody saw it. Nobody ever talked about it though, and the cops never went there, that's just what happened to people that went to places like that."
"When I was about 10 the neighbors up the road adopted an orphan boy my age. I thought he had a great life, didn't go to school, just worked and slept in the barn. Then he showed me where he'd lost 3 toes and told me how they just caurtorized the wound with a hot knife, and he still had to milk the cows the next morning. No, they were all white people, him too. Even went to church on Sunday"
"We thought that the poor people weren't worth a damn, black or white. They were always barefoot, skinny and dirty. We knew that if they and their parents had lived moral and Godly lives that they wouldn't be that way, and we didn't dare go near them, out of self respect and fear of catching some kind of disease."
"I can't understand your generation, what's with all the tattoos and piercings? When I was your age only filthy people had tattoos, I hope that isn't true now, it seems almost everybody has one that's your age. We wouldn't even talk to someone with a tattoo, and they'd probably throw anybody out of town if they pierced their dang nose."
"If somebody lived with a man or woman, and wasn't married they were going to hell, and that was that."
Yup, those were the good old days, at least as far as I can tell from the people that were actually there. Oh well.
Peace, (Hey, if you're over 70, just because I said "Peace", doesn't mean that I'm an unpatriotic ungreatful hippie bastard, who doesn't work and is trying to undermine the great Nation you helped create/preserve... 'K?)
posted by Solderjunkie | 9:13 PM
2 Comments:
I think you're focusing a microscope on a telescope problem here. Sure the world was unrefined and there has been evil, sin and the like since day one... but I think we're seeing that bad stuff is more accessable today than it was back then. Kids didn't used to just walk up into highschools with shotguns and grenades. There is a marked difference in the world from then to now. World War II and nose-piercing be damned.
I believe that Zaron has a point here, the bad stuff is more accessable now than then.....In the media. Before, when there was no internet, no national news and no real interest by the average man in the evils that might happen rarely in some far away place, or be simply taboo to discuss by "Clean living Christian folk" more happened, it just didn't get attention or reporting. We now live in a time when the abduction of a single child is instantly known on automated highway signs statewide, and in the media nationwide via. Amber Alerts.
There are also simply more people, factor this in and think about the rate per million.
Of course it may have something to do with the fact that suspected nefarious persons have rights to trials and are given the benefit of the doubt if unknown, instead of simply dangling from trees or floating in the river - I bet that kept robbery and the like down to a minimum even if it didn't get reported.
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