America Wasn’t Always Like This
By Larry Durstin
Some of the best memories of my childhood days were of going to the Fourth of July parades with my folks and just basking in the glory and promise of the boundless America that was being majestically celebrated with flags, fireworks and unfettered freedom.
I love Independence Day and it still fills me with hope and optimism, but I worry that young people of today – the so-called Millenials – perceive America and its promise with cynicism and borderline despair. I realize I may be out of step with the times, but I will risk the humiliation of being dubbed an anachronism in the hopes that my humble words will register with at least one younger person out there who will come to realize that America was once a very different land than it is now, with very different values and ideals etched into its landscape.
What I want to convey to that teetering-on-the-brink-of-faithlessness young person is that we weren’t always a nation of victims and sheep, sharing only a bleak unwillingness to take responsibility for our lives and an unsettling tendency to shirk personal accountability and blame everything on the government, society or culture; and that, instead, there once existed an eagerness to accept — come hell or high water — the consequences of our actions without wallowing in fashionable victimhood.
It’s not that way anymore, though. Now we have either the wistful angst of middle managers writhing around futilely in bedrooms and boardrooms or the white-hot anger of paunchy Rambos wriggling around furtively in ill-fitting fatigues and fertilizer. We have a lot of snot-nosed reactionaries who want Constitutional amendments for everything but taking a whizz, and who tell us that the problem with the poor is that they have too much and the problem with the rich is that they have too little, and who get downright apoplectic at the suggestion of banning Teflon-coated bullets. We also have the so-called Tea Party channeling its inner John Bircher and telling us that Medicare and Social Security somehow violate both the Fourth Amendment and the Fourth Commandment and that public broadcasting is synonymous with Radio Iran.
Because of the current dreariness of America’s social, cultural, political and spiritual terrain, it’s understandable that today’s youth appear to wear their glumness like a badge of honor. Understanding this intellectually, however, still doesn’t prevent me from longing – perhaps foolishly – for the America that I remember and wishing it would someday return.
What was it like back then? Let’s see. The critics of that era, and they are legion, say it was a permissive time, when the nation threw away its iron-willed discipline and its unshakeable faith in family, the military, moral absolutes and rightful authority. To them I say, yeah that’s about right – and not a moment too soon.
Because what I experienced during those surreal days and nights of rage and romance was a once-in-a-lifetime extravaganza of events that bedazzled, enraged and left us all wondering about our invincibility, our future, our past and almost everything imaginable. It was a sad, spectacular time when history caught us up in a whirlwind that blew to smithereens the very foundation of our lives and psychedelicized our souls.
From my teetering position, I was blissfully and terrifyingly awash in a swirl of messages from over-under-sideways-above-below-and-beyond the obvious social or financial realm; messages that revolved around the mystic beauty of the heart, the transcendent power of love, the pre-eminence of nature, the majesty of imagination and, most of all, the redemptive incandescence of being on fire with life.
I know that some of you Millenials feel angry because the economy isn’t brimming with jobs for you and you are growing up in a time when relationships are difficult and your elders have left you disillusioned and you don’t know what you want to do with your lives and you feel the hypocrisy coming at you from society and you sense the establishment doesn’t represent you and all you want is for your hopes and dreams to come true. Fair enough. But the problem is that in place of even a hint of personal passion, all you seem to exhibit is a low-grade fever that timidly wanes and waxes but never quite disappears. But don’t take a pill, take a look at your life.
Young brothers and sisters, welcome to the non-MTV version of the real world and please take the following advice for what it’s worth. Fear and scapegoating — not economic turmoil or welfare moms or illegal immigrants – pose the greatest threat to freedom and human dignity. And if you’re looking for smooth sailing, don’t waste your time. But I can leave you with a bit of Eastern wisdom I learned in my America of the 1960s:
Where you stumble and fall, there you find the treasure.
Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. He is the author of the novel The Morning After John Lennon Was Shot. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com
One Response to “DURSTIN: An Independence Day Message for Millenials”
Christopher Green
once again Mr. Durstin puts his own spin on issues of the day that actually to the discorse