Strange, But True.

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Here in the North-East of England during the sixties, there was a real 'working-class' mentality that strongly urged many
to battle through schooling and then acquire a menial job that would basically recycle a level of living one had just been
reared in.

A few realised that further education was the path to a better lifestyle, but the kids that I'd grown-up with merely accepted
this was their destiny, a dead-end job for the men, maybe 'pin-money' part-time employment for a married woman whilst
raising a family. But of course, not all.
I must admit that in my little corner of the world, the community spirit was better than it is today.

It's ironic that it took a spell of incarceration to educate me in regards of self-discipline and the way that the game of life is really
played. For many of the young boys I saw in the detention-centre, they failed to grasp this and probably continued down the route
of crime.

So much as changed in regards of schooling and the steep drop of being without money due to unemployment has certainly improved
from the days when a JobSeekers office used to be called 'The Employment Exchange'!
................................................

I used to watch with awe at the family-contestants in the TV game show 'Ask The Family'... they were so 'mentally- healthy' and miles
away from my own lifestyle at the time!

I was the first in my family to complete university. My grandfather was sent off to Pennsylvania to college, but he got a job working for the railroad, which meant he got to travel a lot. His job took him to Arizona, and out to the Pima/Gila reservation, where he met my grandmother.
The rest is history and then there was me.

Back when I was growing up, people believed working hard, and saving hard, was the ticket out of poverty. People used their skills, their blood sweat and tears to climb up. Few worked harder than my Mother and Father, and he was not happy with the results. So, he pushed education.

His constant mantra was, "They can take your money, thy can take your land, they can take all of your possessions, but they can't what you have upstairs" Always pointing to his head when he said it.

I was the oldest so he fostered my love for education. I would read one to two books a day. I spent hours in the library, reading reference books. Everyone in the library knew me by sight and by name. I became known as the information junkie. I knew a little about everything, and a lot about nothing.

It worked. That tiny little backwards village produced a lot of financially wealthy American citizens. They did very well for themselves. And they never strayed far from their roots. My Mother, I guess because she already had ten children, one more, was never too many. Our house was the playground, the park, and the community center.

One of the wealthiest of the groups when he came to Florida surprised my Mother with a dinner party, at an exclusive restaurant. He even flew down several members of the old gang that used to hang out at our house, to thank my Mother for all of her love, time and compassion that she spread throughout the community. He still comes to visit when he is in town.

Those children were raised in a completely different world, with a completely different foundation. We had different needs, different wants, different dreams. We had only one way out. We watched our parents work their fingers to the bone. We thought our out was education. We took it. But college degrees are now a dime a dozen. Education alone will not work.

So what is the answer for the next generation? This generation thinks the answer is standing still. They don't expect to be able to do better than Mom and Dad. So many do nothing. The question for them is, what do they do when Mom and Dada are no longer around.


Maybe we have reached the end of the road. Nothing lasts forever.