AND AFTER OBAMACARE
by OPOVV, ©2013
(Nov. 16, 2013) — Imagine you’re traveling in a spaceship. You land and here you are, on earth, in a time before paper towels, where spills were wiped up with a rag, where a shirt went through complete metamorphoses: birth as a dress shirt, suitable for school, church and work; middle-aged, worn a little, downgraded to mowing the lawn, changing the oil and painting; and then it enters the death throes, torn up into individual rags, some to plug drafty leaks, others to wipe up spills; and then there’s the after-life, heaven for a once-shirt: the washing machine until it becomes even unrecognizable as a rag, when it’s finally consigned to the landfill, a place where we all end up.
Meanwhile, you mingle and, as it happens, you arrive the day after Thanksgiving, the day that the Christmas decorations are displayed in department store windows, each one a masterpiece of marketing, but not only of merchandise, but also of wishing everyone Good Cheers and Tidings. In each hamlet and town, from cities on the Atlantic to the San Francisco Bay, nativity scenes are to be seen, but it’s the churches that outdo everyone. All who signed up in the congregation get to act as a Wise Man, Mother Mary or Joseph, and it’s the young couples with a baby who are to spend an hour or so on Christmas Eve, weather permitting, who have been chosen to represent the parents of Our Lord, for parents they truly are. Every child has the potential of being the next Mozart, Einstein or a wonderful Good Soul, following in the footsteps of Our Lord, living The Golden Rule.
Yes, indeed, there were nuclear weapons at the ready, but our enemy was as rational as we, and that, and that fact alone let us enjoy the season and wish strangers a Merry Christmas, and mean it.
I remember a house being built in our neighborhood, and the contractor cut only the trees where the house, garage and driveway were to be. The tree between the front door and the sidewalk stayed, and the innovative walk between the two was split by the tree, which was pretty neat and became the focal point of the whole block.
When the lights went out while you were shopping, the clerks would ring up your items while the manager stood behind her holding the flashlight. Only cash, thank you.
Congress was a joke, it always was a joke, and the Senators and Representatives just blew hot air, but they knew that we knew, and we knew that they knew so it was entertaining to all. Nobody went around breaking down doors and shooting the family dog.
One strike and you’re out, and sometimes the “out” was the death penalty. Then Richard Wright wrote “Native Son” and nobody ever questioned why the kids didn’t have library cards anymore, as if to say it’s their right to go through life stupid. The Beginning of the End, the time when excuses were substituted as reason, the Day the Earth Stood Still, only to regress, where those with the most freedoms are now regulated to the Back of the Bus, collecting handouts from the government. No chance of advancement and improvement when you have your hand out for you sustenance, is there?
We made ourselves slaves to our technology and the end result is fewer freedoms, and that’s what you learned as you walked around and saw people smiling and wishing each other Peace in the New Year. Yet we can undo what we’ve reaped through our ignorance of chasing the Brass Ring: remember, prohibition was once the law of the land until it was repealed. So too can Obamcare be erased from our lives.
Merry Christmas.
OPOVV