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When you get older and recall how life used to be, it’s really easy to make a comparison in today and many yesterdays ago, usually favoring those that live only in the memory. It is quite possible, of course, that those days were not quite as rosy as we remember them. There were days of growing up after the Great Depression, of the unknown fears from Germany and Japan during World War II. But we felt secure. My mother and I stayed on alone on a farm five miles from the nearest city while my father was off on defense work 200 miles away. We weren’t afraid of anything. No one locked their doors at night. No one was afraid to walk down the street at night or ride a plane. Terrorism was something in the movies at the Saturday matinee with Boris Karlof and Bela Lugosi. This came home recently when my friend Bart Crattie went to Mount Vernon for the dedication of the $60-million underground museum for George Washington. Because he and Bobbie Cagle hadn’t made reservations, they weren’t allowed in for the dedication and they decided to sight see in Washington. They went to see the Washington Monument. Again, they were turned away by the guard because of no reservation. Everywhere they went there were barricades and long lines slowly moving through metal detectors. It was a city under siege from fear. It was a different city when I was a high school student in the late Forties and went to visit my cousins on a summer vacation. It was no problem to go to the Lincoln Memorial and stand alone before the magnificent likeness of the somber president. I could stand unrushed and look at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution behind a single glass cover that I could touch. I could walk among the priceless artifacts at the Smithsonian Museum without an armed guard watching me. There was no fear on the city streets. A green country kid could walk alone or wait for a bus or street car. In fact, I was so green that I believed the sign at the bus stop. It said, No Parking or Standing. So, I didn’t want to stand still and wait for the bus. I kept waling back and forth until the bus got there. My cousin could safely park their car on the street night just below their second story apartment window. They may or may not have locked the car doors. The foreign looking people on the street were probably third or fourth generation of legal citizens. They had left their home country and cultures behind to become Americans. People could walk across the borders at Canada or Mexico without sneaking in or climbing a fence. But there was no flood of illegal immigration. It was a different world, one we’ll never see again. Our children’s children will not know the peace and tranquility we had. They will never enjoy the freedom of privacy we had, with no Big Brother snooping over our every move. There may never again be freedom to fly in a plane without partially disrobing first and being poked and prodded before boarding. This new world offers a lot of advances, in everything from medicine to entertainment. You can travel to Europe now in less time than it would take to visit that relative in the next state. All these things are there for the modern world. But they have come with a heavy price, not the least of which has been peace of mind. So, maybe it’s cozy once in a while to sneak off to the Dinosaur’s Den and let out a loud sigh of nostalgia.
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