I'm not certain what prompted me to think about my childhood the other day, but as I began remembering my youth I grew angry. Since this blog is about how we have gotten to this point in our history where, as a nation, we may well be facing decline, I wondered if my experience coincides with others.
As a child I grew up in a neighborhood of children everywhere. You would wake to the sounds of children, hear them all day, and go to bed hearing them playing outside. Neighbors knew the children and watched them. I can remember people sitting on their porches, even into autumn and though they probably weren't watching our every move, their presence was felt. This close net world began to crumble as I got into high school. By my graduation changes were beginning to take place that left my neighborhood a shell, a ghetto, a true wasteland.
It has been said that you can't go home. Perhaps so, but it would be nice to be able to walk the old neighborhood without fearing for your life. I have often wondered how many people share this experience of not having a neighborhood to return to for touching base with your beginnings, your roots. I think it has had a profound effect on how people perceive themselves and life. I know it has made me long for some permanence in life. I guess I was angry about this the other day and longed to just stand and scream at the universe for the destruction of my neighborhood and a way of life so many of us remember.

When we were young Marvin Gaye asked "what's goin' on'?, and of course being young, we knew what was "goin' on'. But we're older now and some of us need to take stock. How odd! When this picture was taken, WWII still raged and my father was preparing to go to Europe. OUR America was just beginning, the changes were about to begin and this America picured would be gone by the time of our teens. What HAS happened to this country in which we have spent our life? Is there something wrong or are we-like our parents were- outside of the mainstream now, watchers of the big parade instead of participants. Maybe there isn't anything "wrong" maybe that is the wrong question. But what has become of this country is certainly worthy of discussion and everyone's input is respected and accepted.

I hoped that I could start a blog where members of the boomer generation could make contributions on this subject, and to share their recollections of being young in an America that seems so different as to sometimes sound like another land altogether.

Some of you have time to think now, put your thoughts down. let's (as we said in the 60's) rap.