In certain circumstances, no hands but your very own mom's hands will do.
Special curative powers. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I am reminded that socks placed on the radiator can warm the feet when slipped on after a day playing in the snow. Too bad you can't find radiators anymore.

Not back in the nostalgic past, wiggys. We have to create a future that has such freedom. You start it; I start it.

Jan

Haha! So familiar. Those magic hours!

And the moms were there to apply the bandages. And the mercurochrome!

Except I remember one instance that didn't need bandages, but not just anyone's mom would do. We were playing in the backyard of my home and one kid got tackled to the ground. The right side of his face got smeared into some fresh dogshit and it was perilously close to his mouth. He was so horrified and hyperventilating, he bolted all the way home to his Mom 5 blocks away instead of just having my Mom clean him up sooner.

Nice dissertation!

Damn, I thought King George Bush II took the Bill of Rights away, after Clinton tried hard but repeatedly failed.
Since all the looter putzes after Reagan are still alive, how about a special party for all of them. Throw in Carter, too, since we don't dare hurt his feelings.

Hello, Mike,
My impression is that you do not seem to be able to see the forest because of the trees.
Be well. Happy New Year.

There are two major parties. They may agree on having a big, powerful government but each party wants to run that government and despises the other party.

Any party that tried to re-impose the draft would be committing political suicide. They would lose most of the young voters as well as the over-55's that remember Vietnam as if it were yesterday. Add to that the widespread disillusionment over our role in the never-ending war in the Middle East.

Way low on my list of imminent threats to freedom.

Please point out when this going forward to more freedoms is to start since all I see is more being taken a way. I completely agree that some of what existed 50 years ago had to be changed but the results of what is now in effect is an assault on all of our freedoms even those who initially benefited by the changes. so when does all of the return to freedom start?

No, I don't consider that freedom, but what you describe is a rear-guard action by government in retreat. It's certainly an improvement over grass being illegal nationwide.

Excuse for stopping what? I just pointed out that some things are better and some are worse than they were 60 or 70 years ago. The military draft is gone. So are 91% marginal tax rates. So are most of the anti-abortion laws. So are many of the anti-drug laws. So is legally enforced school segregation. So is J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Freedom is always under attack, but given a choice, I would much rather live in today's society than the one I grew up in.

A good point, CBJ. Wonder if we would have been as utterly stupid as the current voters are? The truth is more visble now, but the media's alternate reality is pervasive.
Some secrets did make it to the public in the past and still had little effect, specifically FDR's advance knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I recall my grandfather (who rarely talked about politics) telling me about that in the early 60's iirc.

how do you explain people who live in states that surround Colorado being stopped when they leave the state to go home to say Utah being stopped by highway patrol because they may have come here to buy grass even though they maybe 50 or 60 years old. I do not consider that freedom, do you.

You know? I don't use this word but I feel it's appropriate after reading that...amen!

And I'll say it another way...to you And the author...Thank you.

Socially we are a lot freer today than in the 1950's, when racism, homophobia and gender stereotypes were culturally dominant and often legally enforced.

I find it hard to believe that you were conscious of whether or not we had freedom. As far as I am concerned we had in retrospect freedom and never gave it much thought otherwise. However, I do agree the change started with our generation of teachers who just didn't teach the next generation to think and that was continued with each succeeding generation until the country ends up with what you see today, young people in general who just don't think. I still maintain the point of the article has been missed.

When we were much younger we didn't have the opportunity to recognize the con game that the fedgov gangsters were imposing. The lapdog press hid FDR's health issues, JFK's and RFK's sexual escapades and who knows what other shenanigans. At least today we have much better access to information, and distrust of government in general is much higher than it was 50 years ago.

If Mike had heart surgery in 1956, he certainly is of our generation or older. I'm 72 and pretty much agree with everything Mike said. Our generation was not so much free as it was naive, which partly explains why we have lost so many of our freedoms over the years.

A handyman was present when I killed a rattler in front of Steph’s front door. (I had to step in front of him to do so.) I used a shovel; Steph finished the critter off with garden clippers. As we wandered around the property, looking for a gopher hole to deposit the head in (snakes can bite after death) to keep it away from the dogs and feral cats, we discussed the cooking of the rest of the snake. I was working on a new (coyote proof) chicken run, so Steph said that she would cook it.

The handyman thought we were just spoofing, until Steph brought a coil of spice-rubbed and lightly barbequed snake down to the Barn. He gamely ate a piece; Steph and I finished off the rest.

The problem is finding a nice FAT rattler...most of the successful big snakes do not come around the property, but stay out in the wilderness. I don’t hunt them – they are fine as long as they don’t bother me or my dogs – but if they come on the property or endanger any of us, they are food.

Jan

You are correct again, MikeMarotta. In historical costuming, until about the Victorian era, there was no differentiation between 'children's clothes' and 'adults' clothes'; likewise there was no such thing as a 'children's game' - there were just 'games', and everyone played them.

We have invented the idea of a 'protected childhood' for children in much the same way that wealthy Victorians invented the 'perpetual childhood' for the woman. (Even in relatively modern times, farm and shopowner families would put their children to work in the family business as soon as they were able to do so.)

So, the distinction of 'kids as kids' is both modern and contextual.

Jan

I agree with you, MikeMarotta. The article describes a wistful universe that never was, and can only be imagined in retrospect. For example you could say that in 1950's Midwest, "There were no race problems." (Because no 'niggers' were allowed there.) You could say, "People were happy to get married and raise their families." (Because women did not have any other options.)

I get really tired of the rose-glass nostalgia for the 1950's. I do not agree with the terrible CPS-driven group ownership of children nor with the gestalt education process that is in effect, but most of the rest of the 1950's was pretty bad.

We need to go Forward into Freedom, not backwards.

Jan