The Cracked Acorn: Back When

Once, our young sons every now and then would ask me to tell them about the good old days. Well, are the good old days gone? For us, the now older generation…those days are well gone. If you grew up on a farm or in a small town, the scenery is mostly gone. Family farms may still be trying to make it on 100 acres, I doubt it. The small town may now have its Walmart or a strip mall. Holidays are celebrated in a larger fashion than 50 years or so ago.

Some of us would think that the good old days were not really that great. Doctors usually had an office nearby and sometimes acted like Doc on Gunsmoke..you know, “Try this and if you make it through the night and have no more pain, well, then you are cured of whatever you had.” We are definitely living longer than past generations who died of flu and childhood infections that were killers to the older ones.

There was the church and the church building, one for the soul and the other for fellowship and picnics, vacation Bible school for the farm kids. At Christmas, there were boxes of food to be made and delivered. That is still done today, not as much maybe, food stamps and charity agencies now exist. Since we were less than 10 minutes from the church building, we were there any time the door was open. There were many sermons, a week-long gospel meeting every year. I never remember the members ever strayed too far from the straight and narrow way. If they did, it was down the front and put back to the work of the Lord. (Matthew 7:13)

The one thing that I miss from the good old days is freshness. There was a large garden that brought in all the best of vegetables and fruits. You name it, it was grown. I don’t think that I recall anyone dying from too much homegrown nutrition. I, also, miss the open invitation for visiting. Remember those days gone were the time of much openness with farmers and townspeople. If you decided that after supper and you were spruced up a bit, there was the chance for visiting a neighbor or having a neighbor stop by; this was when stories were told about hunting or about the latest failures in crops and the plan to do better next year. Pigs on the loose and a stray cow were items to laugh about.

I turned on my radio, in the middle of the night, And I heard things I need to know, Well, I never knew I had Martians in my Garden, And I never knew there were Aliens on my roof. I’ve got Shadow People, and they’re living in my basement, Got a funny feeling, Bigfoot’s gonna be here soon. I was so blind before, I was so unaware, But now I swear I’m seeing Sasquatch over there. (from Coast to Coast Radio AM1100)