What we've lost since the Golden Era

[DanielJones]

How many kids today walk to school? Or even live within walking distance of their school? I grew up living about a mile from my various schools, and there was never any question that I'd walk -- same as all the other neighborhood kids. We walked in groups, so there was never any risk of a lone child being picked off by an abductor -- my mother used to warn me "don't go off away from the rest of the kids or Gus Heald (the notorious local thug of the moment) will get ya!" -- but at the same time, it was expected and *required* that kids who lived within a mile of school would walk. The buses only ran to the outlying towns in our district -- if you lived in town, you walked, period.

Reminds me of something my Mother used to tell my sister. "Keep your legs crossed, don't chew gum and always walk home in a crowd."

Nowadays you might add, "and carry a can of pepper spray while you're at it."
In our neck of the woods you might not need to worry so much about abduction but you better keep an eye peeled and an ear open for the crazy drivers zipping around. Heck, I live about two miles from work, and have to drive past three schools. The speed limit is 25 mph. If it weren't for the regular patrols of Police, that would go right out the door in that area. I'm too afraid to ride a bike near there in the morning.
Folks are in way too much of a hurry. I just don't get it. I mean, i enjoy a little speed now and again going down the highway, but through residential & school areas. Some folks aren't going to be happy until they plow someone.

Also in our neck of the woods, it is wine country. Plenty of drunk drivers are around.

So, with all of that, I understand why my wife worries when our son even goes down the street to play with the neighbor kids.

I remember as a kid riding my bike about 30 miles round trip to one of our favorite fishing lakes. That was about three of us at the age of 11 & 12. We had the run of the town all day, as long as we were home for supper & before it got dark. carried change for the pay phone just in case the bike broke down and it couldn't be pushed home.

I think what we need is that slower pace of life. Instead of instant gratification like we are so used to, we should appreciate having something to look forward to. I ordered a Penman hat back in March. John told me a five month lead time. Fine by me. It gives me something to look forward to. A little anticipation. Some folks would have a kanipshen fit if they couldn't get it overnight. They have no idea of how long things took, and that it was acceptable to wait & be patient at one point in time. Everyone wants everything yesterday. Sad indeed.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Shangas]

I walked to school for 13 years, from the age of 5 until I was 18. Mind, I lived five minutes' walk (literally, I timed it) from school, so my parents never worried. My grandmother used to accompany me to school when I was younger, though, to help me cross roads.

 

[Feraud]

That said, parents can take kids out to play and watch them (and let them out unsupervised when they're mature enough) without managing everything they do.

That is absolutly true. One can be an overprotective or indifferent parent in any era.

 

[Puzzicato]

After reading over the last several posts I believe one of the things we have lost is our "innocence". I, too, grew up playing outside (mostly) unsupervised. The places I went and the things I did would probably make the CBS evening news today, but then - well it was just the way kids were.

I tried hard to raise my children in the same way. I let them play outside and hunt, ride their go carts, and a lot of other "dangerous" activities. They were reasonably careful, and a lot lucky I guess. I was always afraid that if something did happen I would be taken to task for being a "bad parent", but I was determined to allow them the chance to actually learn some actions have consequences. At any rate, they did grow up relatively unscathed and have developed into well balanced adults with families of their own.

FDR was right, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I believe the constant bombardment by "bad news" causes us all to be overly cautious. This is the "loss of innocence" I was talking about. Sometimes I think it's best if we just don't know how "bad" it is "out there".

In 1986 a little girl called Samantha Knight disappeared in Sydney while walking home from school. My mother has said a number of times that when that happened it was the first time she ever really understood that sometimes children don't come home safely.

I agree that being over cautious is a bad thing, but I really don't think ignorance is bliss.

 

[Big Man]

... but I really don't think ignorance is bliss.

And neither do I. What I was trying to say is I think we would be better off without the constant bombardment of "bad news".

Knowing about potential danger and being terrified that "something" may happen are two different things.

 

[Feraud]

And neither do I. What I was trying to say is I think we would be better off without the constant bombardment of "bad news".

Agreed. My wife and I joke about the constant deadly warnings from the evening news.
Children are at deadly risk from any household item and everyday activity! lol
Are toothbrushes killing your children??
Could a walk to school be deadly to your child??
and so on..

 

[Paisley]

I don't want to sound like an ass, because obviously both were tragic events, but did they receive any training? I've been around guns my entire life, and shot them almost as soon as I was able to walk (from bb guns to a 1950's "kid" (barrel and stock cut very short) .22). My father taught me the entire time and supervised me, until I became an adult.

My great-grandfather and his sister (who accidentally shot him) were around five years old. They were playing in an abandoned house and found pistols loaded with black powder charges.

My brother Marvin and his friend were 15. Our father has been an avid hunter most of his life, so I assume Marvin had some training (I was just a baby at the time). I don't know whether his friend had any firearms training or not. Ironically, our brother and sister Bob and Connie did many, many reckless things and lived through them. Our brother Steve returned from Vietnam without a scratch.

You said the key word: supervision. Our parents *specifically* told him not to go out hunting. However, one might argue that they should have considered that their children weren't in the habit of taking orders.

 

[Paisley]

In 1986 a little girl called Samantha Knight disappeared in Sydney while walking home from school. My mother has said a number of times that when that happened it was the first time she ever really understood that sometimes children don't come home safely.

I agree that being over cautious is a bad thing, but I really don't think ignorance is bliss.

Being in a "nice area" doesn't provide any protection at all. Where I grew up (near Columbine High School) there were a number of child killings over the years: 11-year-old Michelle Conley at the Pinehurst Country Club, a kid at Deer Creek Jr. High murdered by a classmate, young employees at a Subway shop (I don't think that's ever been solved). My little niece lived in this area when she was molested. This is in addition to the continual vandalism around there (at least, when I lived there).

Here by the tracks where I live now, I only know of one kid who was killed, and that was 14 years ago. I've never had a problem except for noisy neighbors, and they went away with the Section 8 housing.

I'd sooner walk the length of downtown Denver late at night (which I've done many times) than take a late-night stroll through the suburb where I grew up (I never dared).

 

[Shangas]

Reading about these last few posts has reminded me of something else that we've lost. This may not apply to smaller villages and towns and hamlets...but one thing I believe we've lost is the friendly neighbourhood policeman.

There was a time, not too long ago, when you used to have a policeman...on foot...walking around, pounding his beat, checking up on local families and businesses and making sure everything is alright and safe. Rightly or wrongly, I think it was this immediacy of police-presence and the reassurance that help and backup was a shout and a whistle-blast away, that allowed parents to feel safe about letting their children play in the streets until dusk without fear.

I think that if there was a return of the beat-cop, the increased police-presence and feeling of safety would reduce crime and danger in many neighbourhoods.

 

[Paisley]

We used to have cops on bikes around here in the summer--I'm not sure if we still do.

Being close to the police station, we can get a cop here in minutes. (I called one once when it sounded like a domestic fight was getting out of hand.)

We're also blessed with quite a few retirees and disabled people who spend a good deal of time looking out the window, seeing what's going on in the street.

There's a dog in almost every yard, and quite a few of them are pit bulls. (Denver has a pit bull ban; we don't.) Although, to tell the truth, most of those pit bulls are sweeter than the blossoms on the trees.

The suburb where I grew up reminds me of a line in the movie Death Becomes Her: "In 12 years in Los Angeles, have you ever seen a neighbor?"

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have policemen on bikes who patrol nightly, and they make a point of getting to know the downtown merchants so that there's a sense they're always there when needed. I feel very safe when I'm closing up the theatre at night, even if I'm the only person visible for blocks.

As far as child safety issues are concerned, my area must be an anomaly, based on what everyone's saying here. There's never been an abduction reported in our county, and the molestation cases -- many of which I covered during my days as a reporter -- always seem to involve parents, relatives, coaches, doctors, or other respected authority figures rather than random strangers on the street. The only child killings I can remember involved drunken parents/boyfriends of parents and happened in the home -- we've never had a case in my memory of a child being killed by a random stranger.

 

[Mr Vim]

We have the bicycle police as well, but they are strangely distance towards people here, which I find counterproductive.

I remember that when I was younger, the police were always a comforting presence. But now? Who can say, they are certainly not friendly here.

 

[Smithy]

Reading about these last few posts has reminded me of something else that we've lost. This may not apply to smaller villages and towns and hamlets...but one thing I believe we've lost is the friendly neighbourhood policeman.

There was a time, not too long ago, when you used to have a policeman...on foot...walking around, pounding his beat, checking up on local families and businesses and making sure everything is alright and safe. Rightly or wrongly, I think it was this immediacy of police-presence and the reassurance that help and backup was a shout and a whistle-blast away, that allowed parents to feel safe about letting their children play in the streets until dusk without fear.

I think that if there was a return of the beat-cop, the increased police-presence and feeling of safety would reduce crime and danger in many neighbourhoods.

Those are excellent observations Shangas.

In the CBD, there seem to be a few more doing the beat now than a year or two back but out in the suburbs you just don't see it.

When I grew up in the 70s and 80s in NZ, you would still see the local bobby doing his rounds and having a chinwag with the locals. Although those days are long gone, in high crime suburbs back home they have apparently put more cops on foot patrols to keep an eye on things.

At the end of the day it's a funding thing, is there enough funding for enough coppers to be on the beat? But that's getting into the political so we'll leave it there

 

[Shangas]

I have noticed a *few* cops in the Melbourne CBD, but I don't know if I'd call them beat-cops. To me, the term 'beat-cop' is defined by the original tasks of the job, which was to have a specific area of patrol for a specific period of time (say, two blocks in the City, for two hours between midday & 2pm, after which another fellow took over).

 

[Puzzicato]

Agreed. My wife and I joke about the constant deadly warnings from the evening news.
Children are at deadly risk from any household item and everyday activity! lol
Are toothbrushes killing your children??
Could a walk to school be deadly to your child??
and so on..

I agree with you that the fear-mongering is unhelpful. But it is up to the individual to critically appraise those warnings and make decisions on how to live and raise their families. Have people lost the ability to filter that sort of information through common sense? Was it ever widespread?

 

[Feraud]

Most people do not critically appraise the everyday things in their lives.
I am not sure common sense was ever so common.

 

[Paisley]

...the molestation cases -- many of which I covered during my days as a reporter -- always seem to involve parents, relatives, coaches, doctors, or other respected authority figures rather than random strangers on the street. The only child killings I can remember involved drunken parents/boyfriends of parents and happened in the home -- we've never had a case in my memory of a child being killed by a random stranger.

I've heard that's typically the case when a minor is the victim of a crime, and I'm sure it's true. There are far more opportunities to be harmed by someone they're frequently around. In another era, there were many more kids roaming neighborhoods and probably many more adults at home who would see if anything was wrong. So the odds of any one kid being picked off was lower for those two reasons.

In the case of my niece, I don't know the exact circumstances, but probably, she was out in the front yard by herself, there are no front porches in that neighborhood, nobody to sit on them if there were, and most of the windows around there face the back yards. Add garage door openers and automatic sprinklers, and nobody ever has to set foot in their front yard.

 

[Fletch]

I think it's safe to say that we have lost the variety we used to have in our choices of Big Bands.

That's true. You have swing, post-swing (Jones-Mingus-Schneider-what have you), plus a smattering of pre-swing outfits, most decidedly vo-de-o-do-ish. You'd do better in northern Europe, I think, than the US or Canada - someplace you can't hear the meter ticking every time 15 musicians get together.

Jazz and the Blues aren't the kings they once were, and there are only a few new crooners around anymore.

The Great American Songbook is hanging on by a string. Their is a fight to save it though .

The jazz audience has long since contracted to the most densely urban zones, I'm afraid. I guess it just doesn't appeal to people who don't have to deal with traffic jams and overpriced housing, which is a damn shame considering it used to be America's music. Now it's our hand-me-down to Europe and Japan - also densely populated places. Hmm, maybe there's a sociology at work here.

Song standards, too, are becoming something of a New York specialty, something you have to be in love with the mystique of Broadway to appreciate. Once upon a time everyone from Tallahassee to Spokane could whistle those tunes. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and nobody outside Milwaukee gave a damn about Harleys - it's like that.

As for crooners - the idols themselves have fallen. Once the audience only gets Sinatra, you can't stray far away from him and still get known.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Once upon a time everyone from Tallahassee to Spokane could whistle those tunes (song standards).

That's because the old standards could be whistled or sung by anyone who could can carry a tune reasonably well. Most songs today seem to be totally unsingable unless you're a professional singer.

 

[Fletch]

OK...finally...I answer Lizzie.

Sorry it's been so long. I honestly was thrown by a lot of what you posted here. I knew you were toughminded, but...damn.

Apologies that very little of the below has to do with What We've Lost Since the Golden Era.

By "Deal With It" I mean "accept the reality of it." Whether we like it or not, none of us are the Center Of The Universe, God's Own Perfect Little Gift To Humanity, Entitled To Everything The World Has To Offer. We're just one of four or five billion bits of compressed dust on the planet, whatever the number is now, and none of us are more *entitled* to happiness than any other, by right of birth or position or anything else. The sooner people realize that, the better off they'll be -- because they won't take every little setback that comes along as an affront to their entitled place in the world. Deal with it.

I once argued, on another forum, the following proposition - which I don't entirely accept, just as a devil's advocate position:
Our problem is not that we need to learn to be happy with less stuff, money, status, etc., but that we need to learn to be less happy.

No one agreed, not completely anyway. Almost all sought some level of satisfaction, contentment, or meaning in the journey. Here's one POV I found particularly fresh:
"I am happy much more than I am content; restless discontent leads to striving and struggle, and in that striving, I can find happiness."

I think if you can find a way to engage your negative energy toward a positive goal, you may be on the way to being a happy striver. Not an option for everybody - for one thing, you've probably got to tolerate a lot more negativity. Learn to say thank-you-sir-may-I-please-have-another to life, as it were. Some writers try to help you with this - it's close to the religious idea of grace - but it's very easily to fall into masochism. (See below.)

The reality is when we're born the only thing we're *entitled* to is air. Everything else you gotta work for, and sometimes you're not going to get it.

Good god, you're even more of an existentialist than I am! :eusa_doh: But there has got to be more to it all than what John Jay wrote: "We must go home to be happy and our home is not of this world. Here we have nothing to do but our duty."

Now duty is a fine old word, and a work ethic is a fine and healthy thing. It's just that such imperatives tend to take over life and drive out even the smallest kindnesses and pleasures. And the words of our first Chief Justice don't pose much of a barrier to that. One wonders what his learned opinion was on the so-called simple pleasures. Things like old dance records, and watching a cat, and walking around after dinner looking in the windows and listening to the trees murmur. Because if we don't stop slapping ourselves upside the head sometime, we go crazy.

Many people in today's world are crazy, and almost always it's from working hard and not knowing why. When that great big existential shove comes at us, we need to be able to make some positive response, have some answer to that big "why?" Come right down to it, we need a little peace and happy every day. Like food on the table.

A lot of the "kindess" and "gentleness" of modern culture is nothing but patronizing feelgoodism, the sort of thing where you say "Oh I'm so sorry you're having trouble" to someone you barely know, and go on merrily about your business.

Here you're onto something...if you can get past just telling that someone to Deal With It. Because that says more about you the speaker than the other person. The opposite of patronizing feelgoodism ought to be caring frankness, not just passing the big existential shove along.

The thing with putting people back in their places is that it's easy. It's just as much a cop-out as slathering them in soft soap - it just gives us more of that Hmph! feeling. Well, that's not our better nature doing that Hmph!ing. It feels good, sure, but it's a nasty kind of good that doesn't last long, gets to be addictive, and is of no real use to anyone.

If people are really such self-satisfied ninnies anymore, just telling them to DWI is about as useful as telling a pig to dance. They're going to need a clue. Maybe not even a big clue. It could be something as small as reminding them that they're human beings, with common dignity, equipped with heads usable as more than just hat hangers. Some hint that you're better than that...don't let yourself down...have the sense god gave dirt, if you really want to be prickly about it.

Well, it's tough to navel-gaze when you've got your nose to the grindstone.

Just leave yourself enough nose to stop and smell the roses now and then, ok?