Kids today

Is it just me or do others see an apparent failure on the part of families and schools to prepare today’s youth to survive in the world?

More and more I seem to encounter young people who lack what would have been basic skills when I was growing up. They can’t write a check or balance a check book. Thanks to ATM machines and debit cards they may not know what a check is. They can’t properly address a letter, mend a tear in their clothing, or cook a meal without a microwave oven. In short it seems that while they may be book smart they have failed to learn basic survival skills.

My mother taught me to sew, my dad showed me how to cook, and in high school I learned to balance a check book and fill out a tax form. Growing up I learned such lost skills as phone etiquette and respecting other people and their property. Basic things that allowed me to live in and survive as I made my way in the world.

Not only have we let these young people down, but we have let ourselves down also. Remember these are the people who will be running our world in the future.

Anniversary

If you are looking for words of wisdom, you will not find them here. I am wondering down the road lost in the fog. Each day I find myself busy dealing with the little surprises life throws at me; the hopes, the dreams, the frustrations, and tribulations that I stumble through on a daily bases. The roof needs repair and we need to borrow to pay for it, dreams of where we would go if we had the time and cash, how to deal with this pain in my back, and the list goes on and on. It would be enough to make one through up their hands and shoot “I give up”, and I would if I had to face it all alone.

Thank God that thirty eight years ago I joined my life to that of a beautiful and intelligent women who has been there by my side ever since. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health she has been there sharing the good and the bad and I don’t know how I would have made it without her.

I’m not much of a poet but here goes.

“We stand apart, yet walk together through the dark and stormy weather, yet in my empty hand is yours and I love you. I thank the lord each and every day for bringing you my way, and once more I say I love you.”

I just want the world to know that on the eleventh of June nineteen seventy two we were married and I would not change a minute of the time we have spent together.

Happy Retirement Ronald McDonald

I saw in the news that a group is protesting McDonald's Corporation. It seems they want Ronald McDonald to retire because he represents unhealthy foods and eating habits that are causing obesity in children. Like the Pied Piper he has lead the children of this country into a world of junk food and health problems.

The last time I looked the children eating at McDonald's were paying for their food with money they got from some responsible adult and the younger ones were transported there by that same adult. In other words the blame lies not with Ronald alone, but with also with the child’s family. Blaming the character of Ronald McDonald for the problem of childhood obesity and its related health problems is just shifting the responsibility away from the parents and the lifestyle they have chosen for their family.

One could ask what is next. Should we blame the Easter Bunny because of all the candy kids get in their Easter baskets? How about the Keebler Elf, the Trix Rabbit, or any of the other advertising icons that represent sweet, fattening, and unhealthy food and snacks.

It is easy to blame someone or something else; it is much harder to shoulder the responsibility that is rightfully yours.