If you are reading my blog with any regularity then you know that I pretty much reject entertaining the notion of returning to our younger days. My rationale is that not only is it actually impossible but in the final analysis we would know way too much to really have any fun. I had written negatively about returning to our youth in response to the often overly heard remark, “If I only knew then what I know now.” My honest assessment is that nothing takes the joy out of youth like knowing too much or being around someone who knows too much. Either way we are at the mercy of their input. So, let’s use the lessons gleaned through age and experience to keeping today’s world safe. Hopefully, if we do that then the next generation can enjoy living and become creative enough to clean up some of the messes we’ve left them. But let me get to the reason for this entry into my blog.
While we cannot return to our youth we can reminisce about the true innocence of our youth. We have to admit that we didn’t have the world picture that we have now. We didn’t worry about terrorism invading our borders or having a “For Sale” sign on our American soil. Life didn’t have all the complex problems that adulthood brings. As you think about our youth you should be able to recognize that we were growing up toward something and that there was a possibility that seemed to bloom within us. Even amid the most troubling times of our youth we possessed a sense that potential waited for us to make something of our lives. We believed that things would change. We would change. Situations would change. When we became 13…16…18. When we turned 21 or 30. Once we got out of the house. When we got our first job or graduated. We lived and worked for something. There were people who inspired us and there were ideals that called us to think beyond the immaturity of those around us. The future was bright and at the right time it was going to be ours. And if I remember correctly, we had heroes.
In that magical time and place called “our youth” there were those who we placed in the confining restraints called “role model.” Even if we didn’t know it, these became our heroes.
John Wayne comes to mind my mind first as he always played the rough-on-the-edges fair minded good guy. As kids we’d slow the rate of our speech as we’d say, “Well, Pilgrim…”
Jimmie Stewart also comes to mind with his clean cut image from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It was later in life that I learned that he retired from the Air Force Reserves as a one star General.
Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and other greats, whose athletic talent and self discipline, made baseball worth watching. We imitated them and spoke of them with youthful reverence.
But there were others who caught our attention. Their names didn’t always appear on the marquee nor were they recognize by the masses. They were a teacher or a neighbor who lived each day by who they were independently of what was going on in the world around them. They didn’t need recognition or the limelight. Their lives were modest but consistent. At the right time they encouraged us to catch the vision of possibilities and yearn for reaching our potential. We know now that it only takes each person doing what they know is ethical and fair to make an impact in someone younger.
Some would say that there are no heroes and role models for this current generation. I beg to differ with that notion. Heroes and role models are all around us today and these will be what a future generation remembers as the greatest.
Of course, today we are too well educated and culturally enlightened to think that one should live in direct responsibility to his/her neighbor. And besides, we are too individualistic to want to limit ourselves for the sake of others. We have become too broad minded to think about those antiquated concepts of right and wrong or the sense of absolutes of heaven or hell. The whole notion of hell is considered by some to be an outdated concept for scaring children and impressionable minds. Still, I can’t help but wonder what would happen to this current world if people started living like they still believed it both?
One of these days The Reaper is going to hand in his final report to Someone higher. I hope we begin to live differently as a society and a culture because right now it appears things are going to hell in a hand basket!
THE GRIMM REAPER REPORT ©25OCT08http://the-grimm-reaper-report.blogspot.com/
(clicking on the envelope at the end of each article will allow you to leave a comment)
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