Country Connections
By James Perry

Well, my old friend came back to see me today. He’s about two- and three-quarter inch long and might weigh an ounce and he’s green. Haven’t seen him since back in the spring. He was heading north to his summer grounds to raise another family of little hummingbirds. He stopped by to get some nectar from our flowers and now he is heading back south to over winter in Latin America.

So glad to see my little green friend on his spring and early autumn trips.

Almost all children from the age of five and up are making their early autumn journey back to school. Most of the grandparents and great grandparents and uncles and aunts who raise today’s children are looking for a little relaxation.

Since around January 20th of this year there seems to have been a good change in America. It appears to me that the changes that have taken place is a return to the norms that my generation grew up with. I hope this course correction in American standards continues as it will take years to get our society back to where it was in my generation’s youth. We had no rap music. No vulgar language in music or media. We had class and style and respect for one another. Road rage was never heard of. The word had not been coined yet. School shootings never happened. No one including adolescent children were seen in public half nude. Children did not throw tantrums in restaurants or food stores or churches.

People attended church regularly dressed in their best clothes for church whether overalls or suits. The father worked either on his farm or public employment jobs and set the rules for the family. The mothers ran the households, set the decorum and raised the children. It was safe for the children to play outside on the farms or ranches, small towns or large cities without their parents worrying. No one would molest a child. Boys on farms and ranches had daily chores to do. High school age boys in town worked at service stations, and drug stores or had paper routes. Girls worked at dime stores, grocery stores, or at drug stores as soda jerks.
On the farms and ranches teen age boys’ entertainment consisted of hunting and fishing and swimming, high school sports, church socials, and school fund raisers such as cake and pie suppers and trying to make and save money to either buy an old car or motorcycle.

The boys had strong men as great grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers and uncles that provided young boys with direction and how to conduct ourselves as we moved on to manhood. They gave us guidance through their conduct on how to be honest, loyal, truthful, dependable, to respect the girls and women, not to pick on younger and weaker boys and not to start fights but if we had to fight to win. We did not have material possessions that teenagers today have but we were taught to appreciate what we had and to take care of it. We were taught not to waste anything we had or nature gave us. We were taught the different trees, flowers, different plants, how to take care of farm animals, how to watch nature, read the skies and know when bad weather might be approaching. We were taught not to kill animals to hang on the wall as trophies but to use them as food. We were taught to laugh at ourselves and not make fun of others who had impediments. These were the things imparted to us by our great grandparents, grandparents, and fathers.

In the last five parts of this article on the changing of America you have seen how things have declined since the sixties. Now we are going to see how things have increased the downward spiral in America since 2019.

8-10-2019 – Jeffrey Epstein found dead in cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.

1-31-2020 – President Trump declared public health emergency due to Covid.

2-25-2020 – CDC warned USA to prepare for Covid outbreak.

3-15-2020 – President Trump declared a national emergency because of Covid.

3-19-2020 – US Department of State advised citizens against travel abroad due to Covid.

4-11-2020 – All schools closed in USA. Churches closed. Large gatherings prohibited due to Covid.

5-25-2020 - Protest and destruction across America due to George Floyd’s death when being arrested after trying to pass a counterfeit twenty dollar at a fast-food restaurant.

7-01-2020 - China has manufactured and sold over 600 billion Covid mask in first 6 months of Covid.

1-20-2021 - Biden sworn in as 46th President of USA. He immediately issued a mandate to allow millions to cross southern border into the United States. Over his four-year presidency up to twenty-one million illegally came across the USA border. Three hundred thousand children are not accounted for with many put into sex trafficking and illegal sweat shops. So far ten thousand have been accounted for. The LGBQT community became more vocal. Gay parades popped up in liberal towns. The trans movement increased with some liberal public schools pushing early teens to have sex changes. Parents were being arrested at school board meetings because they protested their daughter being raped by a male trans in the girl’s bathroom.

2-29-2025 – One of our two major political parties has an avowed communist running for mayor of New York City and a Somali American Socialist running for mayor of Minneapolis with more support than they would have had ten years ago. You can see from this how much America has sunk from the fifty’s era.

Just maybe with our now strong leadership and strong men and women in his cabinet we can see the pendulum swing the other way and our grandchildren can look forward to a life similar to what the children in the fifties grew up with strong moral people and a renewed pride in our country.

For some good listening type into your computer ‘Always in My Heart” by Bob Eberly with Jimmy Dorsey and “Maria Elena” by Los Indios Tabajaras. See you next month.