A WORLD OF CHANGE

Way back in the day, things seemed to be very different on a daily basis. Your life was less complicated, expectations were cut and dried, and you knew the limits of conversation. Today all the conventionalism is thrown out the window, and maybe for the better, sometimes.

I recall anyone traveling on a plane or to work wore clothes that made you look successful. Men with their fedoras, ties and jackets and women with hats sometimes gloves and dresses. You wore shoes and you only wore canvas footwear for play. In that day’s canvas footwear was called sneakers.

There seemed to be more socialization among children right up until the late 70’s, where kids played a whole day together. I remember #1 Son would be out all day with his friends right up until high school, where he then was out all night! There was no distinction of rich and poor, the poor played together and the rich played together and that was life: we all had dreams and hopes but that made life interesting.

Dad was a laborer, he never had an office job and when he went to work, like most laborers; you couldn’t tell. He wore a fedora, and overcoat with wing-tipped shoes. Very few adults wore t-shirts; it was always buttoned shirts with collars. I would wear what they called polo shirts and dungarees, not jeans. My friends dressed like I did, like was simple.

When Mom sent us off to school or church, we wore ties and our shoes had to be polished. Every night she would take our shoes and polish them then set them off on a black cast iron stove to dry and stay neat until we put them on in the morning.

The toy chest was a dream. No one really had a toy chest unless you were a pampered spoiled child. Our toys were basically a baseball mitt, maybe a bat, a set of skates and for boys a toy gun and toy soldiers while girls owned a doll, skates and jump rope. If you lived in the city, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx particularly, you owned a Spaldeen, a rubber ball that was used until it cut or dried out or was lost. (See: http://spaldeendreams.blogspot.com/)

Mom would leave us with a message every morning before we left for school:

“If I find out that the teacher had to discipline you, when you get home, you will get the rest!” This was a given, we carried the message with us to school, and it applied to our everyday life to this day.

No one took the time to think about words that might offend me because of my ethnicity, religious affiliation or age, not like what has happened in the NYC school system with 50 banned words in NYC standardized tests. Here are the words:

NYC SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR

Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)

Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs

Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)

Bodily functions

Cancer (and other diseases)

Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)

Celebrities

Children dealing with serious issues

Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)

Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)

Crime

Death and disease

Divorce

Evolution

Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes

Gambling involving money

Halloween

Homelessness

Homes with swimming pools

Hunting

Junk food

In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge

Loss of employment

Nuclear weapons

Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)

Parapsychology

Politics

Pornography

Poverty

Rap Music

Religion

Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)

Rock-and-Roll music

Running away

Sex

Slavery

Terrorism

Television and video games (excessive use)

Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)

Vermin (rats and roaches)

Violence

War and bloodshed

Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)

Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

What is going on here? Are we hiring morons to run school systems?

There are explanations for some of this B. S., but I’m sorry, I used these words all my life, I doubt they impacted me in a negative way, and I am concerned that we have now thrown the key of sanity away permanently and will never find it. If this is the thinking today, we will perish as a nation, and we will be embracing it when it happens!

There comes a point when enough is enough, this is downright stupid. This is the danger of “political correctness” This is offensive to any rational thinking educator who knows well that education doesn’t begin and end in the class room, but starts in the home and ends on the death bed.  How insulting, revolting and ignorant can it get? Who elected you to re-write Webster’s? Who asked you to think for me? If you wish not to use a word, don’t use it, and don’t tell me I shouldn’t use it.

Not all change is bad. Some of it is good, like changing the dress code. You don’t have to wear a suit and tie to go on a plane, or church, and why should you? I can talk to God better in my jeans and fly more comfortably in a t-shirt if I want to.

Evolution: (a process of gradual, peaceful, progressive change or development, as in social or economic structure or institutions.) is usually a good thing. It means we are changing for something better, in a gradual way. It is different from revolution: which could mean a violent change. Our sensibilities evolve like our culture does, we need it to grow, not force-feed it.