Fur to Flannel

When exactly did it happen? Where along the last 4 generations did we go from Hooverville to sub-prime lending? When did our American right transform from the pursuit of happiness to a 60” plasma screen? Somewhere along the line we went from Al Bourlin to Tim Taylor, from substance to flash. I don’t know exactly where it was, and in reality it doesn’t matter when it happened. The only thing that matters now is that it did, and we need to get back to what made us great. It’s time to turn our fur in for some flannel. It’s time to return to the roots that made this country strong. But how?
I realize that very few people in my generation even realize what our roots are and I am not exempt from that categorization. It is difficult for us to grasp the consequences of laziness or to appreciate the danger of evil. Our laziness does not give us hunger like it would have done to my grandfather. Our ignorance to evil does not threaten our safety like it would have in previous generations. Our prosperity has made us fat in many ways. The plow has been replaced by the key board. The strong backs of the early 20th century have been replaced by carpal tunnel of the 21st. It’s not completely a bad thing. Quite frankly, most labor has been replaced by technology and that has increased our ability to produce goods and services. However, we start to suffer as a nation when we lose the value of hard work and I believe, to a large degree we have.
When our Country returned from WWII we had grown in many ways. On one end of the spectrum the war made us rich. On the other end of the spectrum we saw the worst of humanity. We experienced the darkest fog of Europe and we grew from that. We saw unspeakable things and realized that life was too short not to fully enjoy what America had to offer. So we came home and we bought cars, houses, microwaves and T.V.’s. But at that time, those things were not a right in the mind of the American that purchased them. They were a product of the hard work they had performed. Each Rosie Riveter and every Sailor recently returned from the Philippines understood the value of those possessions in every sense of that word. My generation doesn’t get it and it is hurting us. We have seen the fruits without seeing the labor and therefore have come to the conclusion that every piece of ground is deserving of ample fruit regardless of the gardeners effort. There is only one way for us to change that way of thinking and it is to be faced with a time in which even our best efforts fall short. It will be uncomfortable, it will hurt, it will even break a few of us but in a strange way what we need is a depression. What we need is the refiner’s fire. It is the only way we will understand how sacred our blessings are. The history books touch our hearts but only until the bell rings. The stories of difficult times in previous generations make us role our eyes and think that the ones telling them don’t understand, when in reality, it is us who are mistaken.
The irony of the whole situation is the blame can reasonably be placed upon the Baby Boomers. They have given us the misunderstanding by not being able to portray these realities to us but will also give us the medicine by ushering in these difficult financial times I suggest we need.
So I say bring on the depression. When the difficult times come be thankful for them because not only are they are what thrust our country into its prime, but the absence of them are leading to our deterioration.