I know that a title like that may make folks wonder about my mental state, but I ask your indulgence.
When I was growing up my maternal grandfather lived with us. He was born in 1900 and would often start a conversation with "When I was a young man", then tell us about delivering ice in a horse drawn carriage or dealing with rations during the depression and WWII. He died in 1990 and when I look back on his life I am amazed at how much technology changed in just 90 years. That much change is expected in that long a period of time, but I think there has been more cultural change in my relatively short life than there was technological change in my grandfather's.

So how old am I? See if you can guess.

I remember when the majority of houses had moms in them after school.

I remember when those moms would watch out for all the kids in the neighborhood and report anything you did to your mom faster than you could run home.

I remember when kids came home from school, dropped their books, headed outside and told your mom you'd be home for dinner. This was without a cell phone and not having to worry about being abducted.

I remember when we had Christmas concerts at public school (not Winter concerts), we sang "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", "The Dreidel Song", "Jingle Bells" and "The Hallelujah Chorus" and no one complained.

I remember having 3 Christmas trees in the front foyer of the public school fully decorated with an angel on the top of each.

I remember when gay meant happy.

I remember when divorce was rare, and even rarer was unwed mothers.

I remember when we talked about God in school and no one had a fit about it, let alone filed a law suit.

I remember when kids had the same last name as both their parents and you didn't need a program to keep track of how many step relatives your friends had.

I remember when marriage didn't have to be defined. We all knew what it meant and most couples ended up married before they had children.

I remember when we didn't kill our own children. If you got pregnant, you had the baby and either kept it or gave it up for adoption.

I remember when you didn't have to show ID to get decongestants.

I remember when we tried socialism during the Carter administration and had the long gas lines and a misery index.

I remember when the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few and no one had a problem with that.

I remember when victims were people who were injured through no fault of their own, not people who didn't like the consequences of their own actions and wanted others to pay for their mistakes.

I remember when people were responsible for themselves and their families.

I remember when competion was a good thing.

I remember when being a patriot meant that you loved your country, supported the military and proudly displayed the American flag, not that you paid extra taxes, desicrated the flag and hated the military.

I remember when campaigns for president didn't start the day after the last election and go on forever and ever.

I remember when we learned about US History, dead white guys were the good guys. We got the whole story and could pass civics tests.

I remember when society at large was on the same side as the parents and parents could trust that when they turned on the TV, their kids weren't going to see shows that would be innappropriate. They knew that the school teachers were teaching things that were basically in line with what they believed.

I remember when you didn't have to explain oral sex to 9 year olds because the president was lying about it.

I remember when we were all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain innallianable rights, not the elites and everyone else.

I remember when we were Americans without hypens.

Most of all, I remember when words had meaning and there was right and wrong. People didn't interpret things whatever way they chose. We all knew what the meaning of the word "is" was. We knew what it meant to be an American. We knew what the Preamble to the Constitution said (though most of us had to sing it). We were the United States of America, not the blue, red and purple states.

So how old am I??? 70? 65? 50? No, I am 43.

I was listening to my favorite morning show on the radio the other day and heard the newsman say that the UN was stepping up negotiations in this latest episode of Israeli aggression. I know that this newsman works very hard to do a good job, so I have to believe he was quoting the UN terminology.
Am I the only one who actually knows what aggression means? I was always under the impression that an aggression was the attacking of an innocent group by another group. If that is the accurate definition of aggression, then the UN thinks that Israel started firing rockets at the poor citizens in Gaza who were just there minding their own business. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2005 Israel completely evacuated all of their citizens from Gaza in exchange for Hamas and the Palestinians leaving them alone. What Israel got for their effort was a steady stream of rockets being fired at their innocent citizens by Hamas.
After holding back returning fire, Israel finally fired back. As far as I am concerned, the only thing I want to know is: What took them so long?? It is about time that Israel stopped being the wimpy pansy to the playground bully and flattened the little twit.
I know that the situation in the Middle East is more serious than a playground bully, but the concept is the same. Israel has not attacked first since it was reformed in 1946, yet they have been consistantly attacked. What other country on the planet would allow it's neighbors to continually attack it without retaliating? None that I can think of, yet that is what Israel is expected to do.
If the UN wants to negotiate real peace in the region, they are going to have to clamp down on the arab nations and the terrorist groups and defend Israel.
The chances of that happening??? A snowball in a very hot place.