Until the recent turn of the century there was a seemingly universal respect for the “old” ways. We were civil to each other regardless of political or religious affiliation and we always said please and especially “Thank You!” When Linda and I were married in June of 1976, she drew up the card below and we sent handwritten thank you notes to everyone who attended our wedding.
The basics of a civilized society have changed. Hand written thank you notes are gone. We never received even an acknowledgement of gifts from two of the last three weddings we attended. It is not that big of a deal in and of itself, but with the waning of all the bits of non-electronic communication comes a coldness in society that makes me nostalgic for the good old days when we spoke instead of texting and wrote sincere notes instead of perfunctory emails.
I believe we are seeing the results of this lack of intimate connections all around us. We are a scared population that voted a hate-filled narcissist to the highest office in the land; a man who spends more time issuing threats to his enemies that he does planning how to make life better for everyone in our country, especially those from other political affiliations, U.S. citizens. Without any understanding of economics we blame others for everything and let ourselves believe purging people that don’t look like us from our country will somehow make us safer and bring down naturally inflated prices. It will allow our government to raise the national debt to falsely lower prices and leave our children and grandchildren the crushing debt we created. We are pathetically ignorant with regard to economics and easily manipulated by fear having turned over the reins of power to the rich oligarchs that now populate positions of ultimate power. The new American Dream is to join the wealthy elite by hitting the lottery. About 295 million to one odds…but Hope!
As Winona said: “They call it progress, but I don’t know!” I miss silly thank you notes and politicians referring to their opponents as “my learned colleague.” You will too someday. Hope it won’t be too little, too late.