Please Just Don't Pee on my Pants

The trials, tribulations and successes of a teacher on her own journey towads independence.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Live in America - Too Fast

What has happened to the block parties that I grew up with? Where did the weekend parties that happened in someone's garage go with the kids running perhaps a bit wild in the street? When I grew up I could tell you what family lived in every house on our block. I could tell you what houses were "safe" houses and which ones were a bit "weird" even though we all got together from time to time. Now as an adult - I don't even know who my neightbors are and I live in an apartment building. For help I have to call someone who lives 30 minutes away and she has to bring her 4 kids with her. God bless her for being in my life and mine in hers, but is that what we really want in America... to live next to strangers? To really have one person to call in case of an emergency. Used to be my parents could leave us at just about any house on the block at any time if something happened to someone. Now taking 3 kids with me to the ER has become common place. How sad is that for a country to have lost the love for each other. No more dancing in garages, no more banging of pots and pans on new years eve, no more bonfires at the beach with skin tight from a day of swimming and jackets and sweats on because the beach has cooled down and now we have a fire. Where have te celebrations of our lives gone? Our are worlds really that much better? Have they become that full that people don't take the time to send a card or letter just because they can... show care to people who need care just because it will make them feel good. Spending time down at the local pub just to talk wiht the older generations before all of those stories are gone. That is where the history of our country, the history of our being is... in the stories of the forgotten people. I ask you - when was the last time you really listened to a story with your heart instead of your ears... when was the last time you really processed a story of someone 80 years old and let that story change the path of the life you were living?

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