"Be holy as I am holy"

Well, it's Holy Week for me, as a Christian. This is the holiday that I've tried to keep sacred. Christmas has been taken over with Santa and busyness, and really seems to have lost the 'reason for the season.' (I still try though...) But Easter? It has to remain sacred... I always tried to down play the whole easter bunny thing. My friends would include the easter bunny as someone to believe in like Santa, but I didn't do that. And I don't really do the gift thing either on Easter. It's all about Jesus. I think it's the LEAST I can do, since He DID die on the cross for my sins and take my punishment for me...

I always feel guilty working on Good Friday too... in my business, you don't get many holidays, so I usually have to work. It just feels wrong though... I also don't like it that Sundays are becoming more like Saturdays. When I was growing up, very few stores were open on Sundays. Now most are, and my daughter has games, practices and parties all scheduled on Sundays too. What happened to the 'Sabbath' day? Sometimes we just have to say no. No, I'm not going to work for conscientious reasons. No, we're not going to practice on Sunday... no, no, NO! It's so hard to watch America lose it's Christianity. Prayer removed from school. Christmas songs replaced by 'winter' songs. I heard this week that somewhere in Iowa wants to change the name from Good Friday to Spring Day. In Iowa? I thought that is in the heart of the Midwest, with those good, old Midwestern values... guess it's too close to Chicago?

I'm going to spend the rest of the week doing what I think I should - reflecting on what's really important...

it's the least I can do....

"Age is something that does not matter, unless you are a cheese." - Billie Burke

Don't worry, "it's not the years, but the miles," and you still look great. Besides, it's much easier on men than women. Men look more distinguished as they get older, women just get more wrinkled and less desirable... unless you spend all your time and money on it, but who can do that?! And, according to number 5 in the Ten Commandments, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you," you should live a long life, since you were/are good to your parents. So!

Happy Birthday Pablo....

and Many more!!

"Beauty is only skin deep..."

I don't get the fascination with tattoos. It's sort of like drawing on yourself with a permanent marker but it never comes off. Ever. These people like Angelina Jolie are marking up their entire bodies. It's part of that Bad Girl image. I just find it gross. And I have to think that she and others like her will regret it in 20 years when her skin wrinkles like a raisin. Then there's Jesse James... and his mistress with tatts all over their bodies. I guess it's what attracted them to each other? What a great example for the next generation...

Did you know that tattoos are not allowed in Jewish law in the Old Testament, and that orthodox Jews forbid it? Well, Jesus was a Jew (Passover starts tonight) and the Bible says that Christians are adopted into His chosen family by faith.. So, make your own deduction.

I'm ok with temporary tattoos, as body art like henna. It's not something that looks good on older people, but as a fad - if temporary - sure. It's the permanent thing I dislike. God says our bodies are the 'temple of His Holy Spirit' and we're supposed to take care of our 'temples.'

I'm just saying...

"Never underestimate the heart of a champion." - Rudy Tomjanovich

Mmmm... still tired from working the concession stand at the track meet yesterday! My youngest ran 3 races and placed 1st, 2nd and 4th! Yea!! I am totally impressed since I could never even make it around the block running at any point in my life! It just never felt good to run, so I never really have. Too, I just don't have the killer instinct to win that most winners have. It was just never that important to me when younger, but I wish it had been.
Too, I'm old enough where they didn't really even have girl sports back in my day. I was on the dance/kick team (think, Kilgore Rangerettes or even Rockettes) but other than a really small tennis team for girls, that was it. We were just expected to cheer the boy teams and stand by and make them presents...
We've come a long way, baby....

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."

Eighteen years ago today, I was working at a large metro newspaper in advertising. There were six of us on staff in automotive display, and we were all very close. Shelly sat next to me and, when we weren't out selling, we were laughing and having fun while we put together our ads. She and I would also go to lunch or parties, although she was younger than me. She had a wonderful joy of life that you rarely find in people. She was genuinely 'glad to be in the room,' as the expression goes.

That evening she was working on a hard project that was due the next day. She didn't ask for help, but I should have offered. And it will always upset me that I didn't stay that night. We always worked late back then, and I had two children to get to. And none of the bosses asked to help her either... But I should've stayed...

The next morning I got to work, and they called an immediate meeting. I said, "We have to wait for Shelly!" but they herded us into the conference room. She had been in a wreck the night before and didn't make it, they said... She had gone to eat (Taipei, her favorite restaurant) after she left the paper with a friend, and had too many glasses of wine. She stopped by her boyfriend's house, very upset, and he saw that she was too tipsy, and took her keys. When he went in the other room, she grabbed them and left on her short drive home. She evidently rounded a corner and hit a telephone pole smack on. They said at the hospital, that she was hemorraging, and she was set aside to die. I'll still never understand that. She was only 24 years old in perfect health. Why wouldn't they try to save her? I've always suspected that it was to harvest her organs, but... anyway, she's gone. And it's been 18 years... I think about her often. Her life cut short. Her father had walked away from her, her sister and her mother when she was about 10, and they had finally talked right before she died. At the funeral, her father was wailing. Not crying, wailing. I'll never forget how sad that was. And I'll never forget her laugh. And I'll always regret not helping her that night. Because it haunts me still...

"Weddings are great... in the rear view mirror!"

Is it just me or are there a whole lot of weddings lately? I had two the last few weeks, and another very soon. In the town I work in, I'm hearing from caterers that the season has more weddings booked than last year. So much for the recession? Maybe it's because the world seems a little shaky right now, and it's secure and stable to be married? All three gals I've just mentioned have all lived with their fiances, one of them for ten years. She just figured it was 'time' I suppose...
My older daughter got married a year ago and I'm STILL tired from that! Don't get me wrong, it is still a once-in-a-lifetime experience with your marrying daughter to do all the fun things, especially to see her try on the wedding dresses... mmmm, that was the best part. For me personally, I found it very stressful due to the money. I'm not very good with money, and when she got engaged a year ahead, we set aside the budget and started making the commitments and deposits in the spring of '08. By fall '08, the economy collapsed and stimulus' started passing, and no one knew WHAT was going to happen. As you will recall, everyone was holding their collective breath, to see if we were going to repeat the stock market crash of 1929. And we were in the crazy wedding whirl with a December wedding! Talk about stress! Everyone's salary started diving, and it was scary. (It still is, with all that's going on lately...)
But, we survived, and the wedding and reception were beautiful and almost came off without a hitch. One 'hitch' was our VERY expensive florist, who kept coming up with surcharges and more surcharges. We were about to give her the boot days before the wedding. Then she double booked our wedding night (which she had promised not to do) and did OUR wedding flowers the day before and they were already dying on the wedding day! Another hitch was our DJ, whom I knew socially. My daughter had sent him her Play List (and even a No Play List) and not only did he not play any of her songs, but played some of her No Play List and others she detested. And then there's the videographer, who I added at the end, in addition to the previous budget so that we could keep it for eternity... He was this older man, whom I now realize was 'challenged,' and he had a camera from the 1950's(?) that was bigger than him (and he was tall.) Well, just after my just married daughter and husband were announced at their reception (see above photo), he dropped the gynormous camera, and there is no sound for the entire reception... ugh. So the father/daughter dance, father toasts, and well, actually everything is a silent movie. This guy decided to put Celine Dion music behind it, and she HATES Celine Dion. Go figure. To my knowledge, my daughter still hasn't watched the video, as it still gets her blood boiling. She wishes she had done a destination wedding now..
It's still an experience I recommend for every mom.. And I do love weddings, especially if I'm not the one having to help make the decisions. Unfortunately for Alex, I am no Martha Stewart. Au contrare... I'm a NON-girly girl with a girly-girl daughter and I'm afraid frustrated her more than helped her. None of these types of things are my forte. And my mother is gone and my sister is afar, and my best friend lives in California.
In my small German town, these German gals have German weddings down to a science. They have certain women they borrow all the decorations from, and they just keep rotating them. They have beer and barbeque blowouts, but I'm a city girl, and we just don't do it that way... although it might be something we should consider in the future?

We live and learn...

"A skeptic is someone who hasn't had an experience yet." - Jason Hawes

Today at my weekly Thursday networking club luncheon, in our separate party room the double french doors (which open to the restaurant) both blew open. We all looked at each other eerily because both sides of the door were indoors, and there was nothing that could've caused it. The owner immediately said, "Don't worry, we have a ghost," and apparently wasn't joking.
I've had ghost encounters my entire life. The earliest recollection is my invisible friend when I was 3 or 4 that I had tea parties with. My mother and older sister thought I was crazy or had a vivid imagination. Since then I've lived in more than a few houses that had ghosts. Why this happened to me, I'm not sure. It does pique my curiosity, so maybe that's it.
My youngest makes me tell my (true) ghost stories to her friends and I'm popular at their parties, since they love hearing them. She notices the orbs in photos now, and even on my iphone we see strange things sometimes. I read the book written by the lady that the Ghost Whisperer TV show is based on, and it's fascinating. People hire her to attend their loved one's funeral to get information, like where something is or who killed them. She says that in all of the funerals she's been at, the deceased is ALWAYS there except for infants. Makes you think! She says almost all of them 'cross over' after the funeral, but some stay with unfinished business.
After my father committed suicide a few years ago, I was at his house sitting at my (then deceased) mother's computer in her home office, and I heard him start coming down the hall. The house had very thick carpet, and he had a paralyzed leg that he sort of dragged after his stroke. It was a very specific sound. He always stopped at the doorway to say hello, and did this day. I got goose bumps. There was no doubt in my mind that it was him.
I don't understand ghosts but I know there's something to it. Even Jesus lingered here for awhile and then ascended to heaven.
I'll have to relay some of my ghost stories in future posts. Happy Thursday!

"All that glitters isn't gold..." - Shakespeare

Ah yes, another Shakespeare quote. Amazing how relevant he is to today...
With all the news about Sandra Bullock and her husband's cheating on her, it brought this quote to my mind. Hollywood lures like a snake with lies and deception. It beckons with the promise of fame and riches, only to disappoint and ruin lives. I'm sure when Sandra was younger, the call of Hollywood was very exciting. Now, after 20 years in the business, and after the string of actors that have let her down, she might be rethinking her line of work... I see young girls like Heidi Montag, who were plucked from regular life to be on a reality show, and then look at her now. In Hollywood, you can never be young-looking enough, blonde enough or busty enough to satisfy. This poor girl has become a monster trying to appease what she thinks Hollywood desires, but looks twice as old as she did before the last surgery. And she says she might do more... God help her. And God help Sandra too...

"Give thy thoughts no tongue." - Shakespeare

I wish I could follow Shakespeare's quote. Why is it so hard to do this?!

Our office all gets together on Tuesday afternoons for a few hours to do a job, so the conversation usually gets to current events. There are only six of us, and only one Obama voter among us (she's the youngest.) But it's impossible to change someone's core beliefs, and so it is with her. She is a great gal, but we are polar opposite on politics. We all tried to talk to her about the consequences of the healthcare bill on her life, but she's excited and thinks it will be great. She is for abortion, I say it's murder. She is for redistribution of wealth, saying that she feels entitled to some of Bill Gate's money. The rest of us think it's up to him if he wants to share, since it's his money. She likes the idea of government taking care of her, the rest of us do not.

People's actions reflect their beliefs. I get that. This gal is 31 and we have to teach her history. And what is the expression? Learn history or it will repeat itself? America is now reaping what has been sown for about 30 years... The dumbing down of the public school system. The removal of prayer in schools. The re-writing of the history books to reflect a liberal view. The infiltration of liberals into the NEA, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and secular children's groups.

With feminism came working mothers, myself included. 'The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,' shows the power of a mother's influence, and when someone else raises your child, your values are not imparted as you would like... Schools are having too much of an influence, and are indoctrinating our children with their agendas all their lives.

Unfortunately the results will be that this next generation will not enjoy the freedoms or great economy that mine did. Every action has a consequence....

I'm just saying....

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato

"Never neglect to show hospitality to strangers for some have entertained angels unknowingly." - Hebrews

Here's another true story about a friend of mine from church. This happened two years ago in my town in Texas. Jimmy is in his mid-forties. He's tall, big build, shaved head, with tattoos all over him. He used to be a biker in the wrong crowd, but along the way found Jesus, and now is 'Gentle Ben.' Jimmy had been talking to a gal on the internet, and she wanted him to move to Missouri so they could live in the same town to date.
He was struggling with the decision, and wasn't sure what to do. (He also had separately prayed for a long time for an angel encounter - it's just something he really wanted.) He was working two jobs to make ends meet and was praying about moving. When he came out of Wal-Mart (one of his jobs) that Sunday afternoon, there was a big man waiting for him next to his truck. He asked Jimmy which way he was going and when he answered to church across town, he asked him for a ride.
Once driving in the car, the man said his name was Gabriel, and told Jimmy all the things he had been praying that no one knew but him. He had this wonderful countenance about him, and also told Jimmy that God didn't want him to move at this time. When they got to the cross street, Jimmy stopped to let him out. As he drove into the parking lot, Jimmy looked around, but the guy had vanished in thin air. There was no where he could have dodged into. I was in church that night, and it hit Jimmy as he walked in, that he had just been driving with an angel...
The rest of the story is, that Jimmy lost sight of what the angel had said and moved to Missouri. Things did not go well with the woman. He was working at a juvenile detention center for older boys, and one of them tried to kill him with a baseball bat to the head, and he was in a short coma. After a few months in the hospital, my pastor lent him the money to come back to our town, and I saw him a few weeks ago, and he's dating a new lady. He says he's going to obey God next time... it's for his own good...

"Wars are not won by evacuations." - Winston Churchill

"A true friend is someone who thinks you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." - Bernard Meltzer

I've always classified people as Good Eggs or Bad Eggs. It's one or the other... but we're ALL slightly cracked. Our true friends will like us anyway...

So hang on to your friends because friendships make for a happy life.

"Your children get only one childhood."

Children get only one childhood, so I get only one chance at this...

Today I took my 7th grader to Fiesta Texas with her friends for Spring Break. I think it was a great day for them - gorgeous, chamber-of-commerce day and fun with friends.

Life goes by quickly...

I'll blink and she'll be graduating from high school...

"When Irish eyes are smiling..."

On St. Patrick's Day, I wish I was Irish... I want to look like a beautiful Irish gal like Touched by an Angel's Roma Downey or have the Irish's pretty red hair like Leap Year's Amy Adams.

I still love to watch the old John Wayne Western movies with Maureen O'Hara or Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. There's just something cool about the Irish. They definitely have good looks, but I like the Catholicism influence too. My ex-mother-in-law is a wonderful Irish Catholic - tough as boots with a heart of gold. And the Irish accent is incredibly sexy, lulling me with a sing-song tempo. It comes as no surprise that a huge number of the NYFD and NYPD are Irish Americans, and many of them were 9-11 heroes too. Such great salt of the earth people... I even love the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame - just seems like God is on their side!

Mmmm, can I fake being Irish since my dad's side of the family is Scottish? It IS close, but I guess not....Still searching for my pot of gold though.

"We are the product of the lives that have touched ours." - Gordon Hinckley

Well, here I am ready to take on the world at age 3... I'm with Mammy, my great-grandmother whom I adored, and I think she was pretty fond of me too... What's the quote, 'It takes a village?' and I believe it's true.

I saw a movie once, actually I only saw the beginning because it sort of freaked me out, but a couple had lost their only child at a young age, and they were thinking about cloning her. I thought about this - a lot. You see you would have this person that looked the same and had many of the same tendencies, but they would not have the same set of circumstances that make us who we are. They wouldn't have the same teachers or the same friends or the same time period. Even as a clone, it would be a different person (although with the same DNA it DOES make you wonder... maybe it's like identical twins; two different people but very similar?) Anyway, I digress.

My point is, that we are the product of all of the lives that have touched ours - usually all of the positive influences, but it does not exclude the negative ones as well. All of our experiences make us who we are. My older children got the wonderful benefit of growing up around my parents, but my youngest does not have this privilege. It makes me sad for her but we all try to make up for it. She has a different set of influences, and they are good too. I just wish she could've known them as we did...

I believe God picks the people that will be around us, and I'm glad for the wonderful ones that were part of my 'village.' My goal is to make them proud...

"Beware the Ides of March..." - William Shakespeare

There's something about Shakespeare when he says that... It sounds foreboding; you just feel like something bad is going to happen.... I'm a worrier. I come from a long line of worriers. It's not in the genes as much as it is in example. And, as hard as I try, I still worry. A lot. I have had a hard time sleeping lately...
My pastor says it's actually a sin to worry. Because when you do, you're not trusting God that He has it all under control. When I was in (church) preschool, we used to sing, "He's got the whole world in His hands," and when I envision that, it seems to help. Faith is the opposite of fear, and if we don't have faith, the bible says it is "impossible to please God." Well, that's a no-brainer. I definitely want to do that. Who in their right mind wouldn't?
My mother was a 'card-carrying' worrier. She would puff her cigarette, smack her gum, and drink coffee (or cocktail) depending on what time of the day it was. She never really prayed about it; that never really sank in. My dad was the opposite. He had huge (emotional) walls built up miles high. He wanted to ensure that nothing would hurt or affect him. He let me do whatever I wanted, and would say, "Just don't come crying to me..."

They say people imagine God how their father was. THAT took me years to dissolve. My father was emotionally unavailable (due to abandonment issues from childhood) so I had to imagine someone else's dad. I never trusted my dad. He was verbally abusive, selfish, and a bit sadistic. I avoided him at all costs, and tried to stay gone or completely out of his way. On road trips I sat directly behind him, so when he started swinging around to smack us, he couldn't reach me.

We survived, but the trust issue has always been hard for me. And it's really hard to trust God because you can't even SEE him. But slowly but surely, I am learning to trust. My analogy is a tree. With my dad, if I went out on a limb, he ALWAYS cut it off. With God, He never has, but it's taken a lifetime to get pretty far out on the limb. I am still working on the worrying part of life.

My daily prayer is, "Lord, I put it all in Your hands," just like the song says.

"Living on borrowed time..."

It has occurred to me for many years that I am on borrowed time. As a child, I had my stomach pumped three times. Roach poison, rat poison and a bottle of baby aspirin. Hearing those stories early on gave me an indication that God wasn't finished with me yet...

After high school graduation, I went with 3 families and kids to Acapulco. It was summer and their rainy season, so although it was raining, we decided to go swimming any way. Unbeknownst to us, the flag out was the 'no swimming' flag since a huge storm was just off the coast. We were immediately sucked out to sea by the undertow. We kept trying to swim back, but the waves were getting higher and higher. I was no novice at this, since my family went to the Texas beach every weekend, but the waves became 15 - 20 feet high, and it took all my breath to dive through them. They would pick me up and then roll me underwater, and I didn't know which way was up to swim to... I was 18 years old, and young and healthy, but I lost all my energy and couldn't make it in. I remember thinking that it would be a painless way to die, because I would just lose my breath and that would be it. All of a sudden, my friend's younger brother (age 16) hooked his arm around my neck and in nothing short of a miracle pulled me to shore. He dumped me on the sand and tried to save another man out there, but unfortunately it was too late - he had drowned... I didn't even have the energy to sit up. I just lay there. My friend (who was on the swim team) had just gotten in too, and we realized that we had come so close...
I'm not even going to count my emergency caesarean with my middle child, although if I had not been in a hospital, we both would not be here. In 2006, my mammogram showed a problem. After a biopsy, the doctors determined it was early stage breast cancer. I opted to have a lumpectomy, where they put a BB as a placer where it was, and they took that area out. I then got the phone call that they missed the BB... Two weeks later, I had to have a second lumpectomy; they got the marker this time and all the area around it, and it was GONE. I was on every prayer list I could think of, and it was gone. Borrowed time.
And last year, my youngest and I were on one of Texas' biggest interstates just north of San Antonio. I was on my cell phone and saw rain ahead so told my friend I was getting off. At that moment, I went into a 70 mph spin in the MIDDLE of the interstate. It usually is packed with 18 wheelers and my truck is out of control in a spin. I'm looking all around to see who will crash into us, and miraculously no one was close. Our spin gets a wider and wider circumference in the pouring rain and we are still out of control. We spin into the median (which I see has 2' weeds, so I was hoping it would slow us down, but didn't.) As we are just about to go into oncoming traffic on the other side of the interstate, I see an 18 wheeler in the lane I'm about to go into, and he cannot move over since a vehicle is along side him in the other lane. My truck comes to a stop literally 2 feet from the 18 wheeler going by..... I had been breaking the entire time, and brakes were locked. Something else stopped my car, and I knew a miracle had just happened. Once again, borrowed time.
I realize that God has saved me many, many times, and He still has a mission for me. It's whatever He wants me to do.

You see, I'm on borrowed time...

"After all, there is something about a wedding gown; prettier than any other gown in the world." - Douglas William Jerrold

Weddings restore my hope for humanity... ah yes, love and marriage. We went to a beautiful wedding tonight, with a beautiful bride, and white twinkle lights, and wedding cake and marriage toasts. In our small town, weddings are the social events of the year. It's a great mix of really nice old people, the middle-aged, and the young kids and babies, all welcome at the event. It's part of the reason I moved to a small town and accept the fact that I cannot make as much money as I could make in the city. But when you attend a local wedding, it confirms your original thought. It's so great to know everyone in town. And to know that they look out for you, as well as your children. In our town, settled by the Germans, they used to live out on farms in the surrounding area, and drive into town on Saturdays to shop for what they needed, go to social events like weddings, and then wake up and go to church. They owned tiny houses in town for the weekends, which are called Sunday houses. These German-Americans are the salt of the earth and some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. They have kept their traditions alive, and have maintained our town as a wonderful place to live. I love my little Norman Rockwell town. I'm so blessed to live here...

Auf Wiedersehen!

"Love and peace are eternal." - John Lennon

I'm feeling nostalgic - walking down memory lane.... Marlo Thomas (top) had the same hairstyle/ makeup that my big sister had in high school (graduated in 1970). My dad looked like the guys in the Rat Pack - he always had a drink in his hand and my mom, a cigarette. Our station wagon was similar to the one here - they were huge like boats. But they held all the big families, and took us on fun road trip vacations when no one ever worried about gas prices.

My hometown, San Antonio, hosted Hemisfair in 1968, and it was a big deal for the city. I remember wearing fun, bold, bright, colorful clothes there, and buying my first peace sign necklace. It was the first time I'd ever seen a 'food court' - booths of restaurants together like that. And I can still smell the food... The photo with the girls in orange and yellow is actually from Hemisfair, and my mother's clothes of that era looked just like that.

In the mid-sixties on vacation (family road trip) I remember listening to the radio of the riots in L.A. and the civil unrest. It was a scary time since right in a row, President Kennedy was killed, then Martin Luther King, Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy. Every baby boomer knows where he was the day Kennedy was shot and what they were doing at the exact moment it happened. It changed the world as we knew it, like 9-11 did for the next generation.

During dinner, we watched the tv show, 'Laugh in' with Dean Martin (and other Rat Pack members on occasion) and Goldie Hawn. It was soooooo 60's... My best friend had moved to California in '67, and she visited me to see Hemisfair in '68, and I visited her in '69. We walked to the infamous street corner of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the height of the Hippie days, and it's a day I'll never forget. I felt in my bones that it was a historical moment in time.

There was a huge influence from England, the London invasion, of pop music groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Doors. Twiggy (also English) was the 'it' top model in Seventeen Magazine and started the skinny/anorexic look still popular today... The early part of the decade was innocent with the Beach Boys and Gidget, but as it progressed and the national murders happened, the unrest started. The Beatles ushered in the drug era, and the Vietnam War started. My generation didn't believe in the war, and fought it. "Make Peace, not War."

In sixth grade, all of my friends and I got white go-go boots, and thought we were SO 'groovy.' We didn't have the worries we have today... Most parents stayed married. Gays stayed in the closet. Kids could ride their bikes all over the neighborhood, and NO one worried about it - ever. We went to the Texas coast every weekend in the summer, and could walk the beach, and the island, and NEVER have to worry about being abducted by a pedophile. Cops were different. They understood that kids are kids, and didn't throw them in the slammer over silly pranks. Back then, boys would take cars for 'joy rides,' and get grounded by their parents but not thrown in jail. It was such a simpler time. And I am so fortunate to have been young then...

I feel bad for my children to live in these times, although they don't have those experiences to compare this to.

It seems the world has gone crazy. Black is white, and white is black. And it seems like time goes faster, not just because I'm older, but because it just is. People were more moral back then. Doctors cared and weren't just in it for the money. Americans had a 'can do' attitude, instead of looking to the government to solve our problems. Company owners had a heart, unlike now where so much greed has set in, that loyal employees of over 25 years are canned without even as much as a 'thank you for your service.'

Church goers were respected, not mocked. People spanked their children, and didn't leave disciplining for the schools. The media were not nearly as biased as they are now, admitting they have their own agenda. People could be trusted. Kids actually played outdoors instead of on electronics inside. You could go almost anywhere in the world, and not worry that they would try to kill you if you weren't their religion. We could cross the Texas border to Mexico, which is impossible now due to the drug cartels...

Yes, the world has changed, and not in a good way... But the sixties for me are sweet memories, and still bring me 'sunshine on a cloudy day.'

Peace.