How Things Have Changed

Back in 1954, when I was a private in the United States Army, I was stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. And we had an apartment in Columbia, the adjoining town.  Being a private, I did not get many benefits, but did occasionally get a weekend pass. 

One weekend my wife and I traveled the 500 miles from Columbia to Coalfire, Alabama, our home community.  The road was a two lane winding road that went through the center of all the cities and towns along the way and usually took us about 12 hours in the 1950 Plymouth with onion skin tires on it, to make the trip.

We left Columbia about 6 p.m. on Friday afternoon, and arrived at my home about 6 a.m. Saturday morning.  After a nice home visit Saturday and Sunday, we left heading back to Columbia around 2 p.m. and arrived back in Columbia around 2 a.m.  After a couple of hours sleep I had to get up and go to the base to report for duty at 7 a.m.

During the morning hours I received a call from my Dad, telling me that my favorite Uncle had died in his sleep and he told me that he had requested an emergency pass for me to attend the funeral.  It was about 4 p.m. when I got the message that the pass had been granted, and I immediately left the base for my apartment to pick-up my wife and head back to Coalfire.  We got packed and left Columbia about 6 p.m. and knew that we both were so sleepy that it was dangerous for us to be on the road, but knew we had to go anyway.

Somewhere around 15 miles out of Columbia, we came up on a hitchhiker.  He was a white male in his mid twenties.  I pulled over and ask him where he was going, and he said he lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and was going home.  I told him if he would drive I would give him a lift to his house.  It was a good deal for us in 1954 as my wife and I immediately went to sleep with him driving, and we slept all the way to Tuscaloosa.   He woke me up in front of his house, and told me thanks for the ride. 

No way, in this day and time would I think of doing something like that.  That is how things have changed since the fifties.  I often think back of how things were back then and how people trusted people and have wondered what happened to make things get so bad.  The only thing I can think of that would bring such a drastic change in morals is the supreme courts decision “separation of church and state”.  In my mind, that sentence which is NOT in the constitution, simply meant that there would not be a state or country religion forced on the people.  That’s pretty obvious when you see that the founders had the ten commandants placed in and on many of the government building.  I think that the teachers not being able to teach any Christian values to the children these days is what brought all this on.  That is a terrible change to make, just to make a few towel heads and other atheists feel comfortable.  That is my opinion, what’s yours?

POTUS

After watching a good bit of the Republican Southern Leadership Conference held in New Orleans this week-end, I came to some conclusions on my own as to who the next President of the United States should be.

I know that the straw poll picked Romney and Paul with Palin and Gingrich close behind, but I saw a different leader.  "Haley Barbour",  Governor of the State of Mississippi.  Governor Barbour having served as Chairman of the Republican Party for several years established himself as as a leader of all the people, and became familier with all of the problems facing "we the people" during his term. Not like Obama, who never ran anything, Governor Barbour as had many years of running a state government and has done it with excellent results. But the biggest plus for him is, HE HAS COMMON SENSE to go along with his educational sense.

Well, thats my opinion and I wonder what yours?  Leave a comment.

Four Nurses & Me

Several years ago, I did some typing for some of the students at Mississippi State University for Women. One such case, there were four nursing students that had me type their papers for them, and they said they needed them the next Friday afternoon. Which I told them I could manage.

On that Friday morning while brushing my partial, it broke in two pieces.  I immediately went to the Dentist to get them repaired, and he told me he could not have them ready before Monday.  

When the girls called to see about a time to come over to proof read and pick up the papers, I told them what had happened and that we would have to postpone them getting the papers until Monday afternoon. They then told me that they had to turn the papers in that afternoon.  So, I told them to come on over, but if they started laughing at my looks, we would discontinue the proof reading and they could take them as they were.

I decided to tie a handkerchief around my face to eliminate their seeing my empty mouth, and when they arrived we went right to work, two girls on each side of me at the computer.  About half way through proofing the article, the doorbell rang and one of the girls on the outside said she would get the door. Well, it was my pastor and when he came in, I had forgotten about having the handkerchief on my face.  He ask one question and then immediately left.  It was after he left that I realized that I had the white handkerchief on my face.

I caught up with him the next day, and explained why things were like they were.  We had a good laugh and he told me that this was going to be a chapter in his book when he wrote it.