A real conversation …

It all started here:

Bob: I was watching a television show the other day about the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago (no longer existing) and what it was like in its heyday, which was the 1920s thru the 40s

Bob: Would have been interesting to have experienced it first hand

Sam: would have been something, eh?

Sam: there isn’t that kind of thing any more

Bob: Not in the same way

Sam: no

Bob: Television changed the way we entertain ourselves

Sam: amongst other things

Bob: yeah, but I think that is one of the biggest factors

Sam: for sure

Sam: but I meant more than entertain ourselves

Bob: ah

Sam: it destroyed the concept of “family”

Bob: It just seems that we were more “social” people back before television

Sam: and allowed us to be brainwashed by the marketers

Sam: made us an “I want that” society

Sam: yes, we were definitely more social people

Bob: I read stories about before television about people sitting out on their porches in the evening and visiting and think that would be a nice way to live

Sam: and neighbors meant something

Sam: now all they mean is something to complain about

Bob: well, they always meant that

Sam: lol

Sam: but yeah, sitting on the porch would be a nice way to have it

Bob: Now, you don’t even know who your neighbors are

Bob: hell, I don’t even speak the same language as my neighbors

Sam: hell, now you don’t even know who your kids are!

Bob: true

Sam: most parents haven’t a clue

Bob: Used to be that mothers would get together and talk about stuff, including raising kids, and there was a shared knowledge. Now everyone tries to raise kids from a book or just the same way they think they were raised

Bob: Then again, what do I really know? Maybe I’m just glamorizing the whole thing and making presuppositions.

Bob: Boy, sometimes I really would just like to be a kid again for a while

Sam: me, too

… and that’s the way it is today.

Doncha wish sometimes that we could just pull all these really wonderful things from the past into our ridiculous lives today?

Doncha wish parents could be parents again instead of battling the credit crunch and working 18 hours a day just to meet their foolish spending bills?

Doncha wish YOUR kids could have their moms and dads at home more?

Doncha wish you had a front porch?