Was there really ever such a time? I hear a great deal from some in my age group about how great things use to be. Yes, I will agree I do say that myself sometimes. I miss having gas pumped for me by a gas station attendant, and I miss talking over the dinner table instead competing with phones and other electronic devices. I miss large seats and leg room on airplanes, and I miss clerks in stores who know their products. I miss Sundays when no stores were open, and quiet reigned over the earth.
But there are many things that I do not miss. This was brought home to me last year at a high school Friday night football game where I had gone to watch my grandson play in the band. I sat in the bleachers and watched the crowd around me as well as the cheerleaders who were whipping up the crowd. In my day they just leaped about and led chants, but these girls were accomplished gymnasts. The leaps, back flips, and handsprings would never have been thought of in my day. But more importantly was a group of obviously mentally challenged students who were dressed in the school cheer uniforms. They were being overseen by an adult, but were obviously a part of the team as a whole. At one point the cheerleaders got together and lifted one of the girls up in the air where she stood balancing on their uplifted hands for a few seconds, a smile splitting her face. The bleachers erupted in cheers.
In the ‘good old days’ that would never have taken place. Children and adults who were physically and mentally challenged were tucked safely away from the rest of us. They were in fact warehoused, and society at large was allowed to remain blissfully unaware of their existence.
I walked away from that game realizing that what we experience as we move through life is change. Some change is good and some not so good, but there is no time in history where things were perfect. And it is up to us as individuals to face forward and handle the changes whatever they might bring. It is just a waste time looking back over our shoulders at a perfection that never existed.