When I was but a wee lad, I went to school like anybody else. Every day after school, my Grandma would be parked outside waiting to pick me up. From there, we had our timing down to a dime. We would go straight from there to McDonalds, where she would buy me a chicken nugget Happy Meal, and from there we would sally forth to her house just in time to catch the beginning of Winnie the Pooh on Disney Channel. This ritual was repeated every day, and I loved it. I miss the "old days." The times when Disney Channel's claim to fame was Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Goofy. The times when Disney Channel won its popularity through ingenuity and REAL kids shows, rather than dramatic teenage soap operas and innuendo-filled shows borderline inappropriate for little children. The times when Disney stars didn't all become sluts soon after becoming famous (I know, I'm stereotyping. But hey, it is what it is). I miss the days when the shows on tv were just plain better, and actually spurred people's minds to think while entertaining them rather than filling them with mindless drivel and dumbing down the next generation. I miss shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Zoom, and Between The Lions, and Reading Rainbow, and Boy Meets World, and I even watched Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. I miss not having to worry about whether what I found on PBS or Disney Channel in the afternoons would be appropriate or not; stupid or not. Have you ever seen what children's shows are like now? They're absolute stupidity. There is not one bit of substance to them at all. They're mindless cartoons to entertain and retardate the brain (I don't even know if "retardate" is a word, but I'm going to use it anyways). They are either completely idiotic or they're based on the premise of "child is somewhat of a genius and always cops an attitude to his/her moronic and spastic parents." And people wonder why the next generation has gone downhill. I was raised to read. Dr. Seuss was a genius. I would just sit in my spare time and read and read and read and read and read. I would go outside to the park and play in the sun. I would laugh with my parents and find no reason to fear or mistrust them. That is how a childhood should be. I like to think I was raised pretty damn well (pardon my French, but it's necessary for my desired emphasis). I'm politically interested, I'm literate, I'm intelligent, I'm creative, and I inherited my father's sarcastic sense of humor (which a lot of people don't like, but honestly, that's their loss. I think it's awesome). I look down at the new generation of junior high kids or even at my own peers finishing high school and entering college and I'm literally disgusted, shaking my head in disappointment as I type away at my laptop. Generations are remembered for the highlights of their existence, are they not? The 70's were the hippie years. The 80's (in my interpretation) were governed by classic rock and "gangsta rap." The 90's were the years of progress. What are people going to remember us for, being the first decade of the second millenium? We are going to be remembered as the people who couldn't find our belts and thought we were cool because people could see our underwear. The people who took an already-declining economy and shot it in the back with whatever we could find. The liberal generation. The illiterate generation. The generation of "change." Everybody wants change, but nobody ever stops to think about whether the change they're making is a good one. I look at my peers and probably more than half of them don't read. More than half of them can't understand anything higher than a 7th grade reading level. I hear things like "reading is only for nerds," "I hate reading," "I only read when I have to," "reading is for losers," and "why would you want to read? It's a waste of time," and it makes me sad. Sad that I'm a part of the generation that is willingly allowing itself to be recognized as the illiterates. The idiots. The destroyers of progress. And what's worse is that when confronted with that fact, at least in my experience, those individuals simply laugh it off as if it's all a big joke or it won't ever matter. Well in the next generation, when we are the ones who have to tie our shoes and pull our pants up and fill positions in the government and other important occupations, there's going to be a massive and unpleasant wake-up call for a lot of people, and I dread what's going to happen. I could go on and on about the decline of the nation, boiling down to the thought that the more we remove God from America the worse off as a nation we get. Think about it for a minute, if you will: nobody wants to allow prayer in schools anymore. They want to take "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. We are pulling backing away from our longtime support of Israel, and in the Bible God tells the Israelites that "whosoever blesses you shall be blessed, and whosoever curses you shall be cursed (I think those are the exact words but I'm not positive. You get the idea)" We've even gone so far as to move the phrase "In God We Trust" from the face of the quarter to the border around it, so it can barely be seen. Consequently, we as a nation have been on an inexorably stagnant downward spiral of economic and moral collapse. I don't see coincidence; I see providence. Obviously there are also many other reasons for America's dire position, but you don't need me to tell you that.
To be short, I find myself deeply disappointed in my generation. I wish I could be living my years during the 80's and 90's, when everything was so much simpler and so much better. I miss the days of innocence and conscience that are now so far gone. I miss the good, clean, magical, classic Disney movies that have been now succeeded by such inferior replacements. I miss everything that is now gone. I hate having to wake up and hear constantly about how bad everything in the world is. And I know it's foolish to want to think everything is okay in the world, but that's how I feel. As cliche as it is; I just want peace. So to the past times, I salute you. I shall never, ever forget you. And to my generation, I'm disappointed in you. In us. In all of it.
J R Williams
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