JOHN VC

I was thinking, after a phone conversation with David Mezzo in which he recalled riding in the back of my open pickup truck on the freeway through St Louis when he was a teen ager, that each generation grows up doing things that their own kids will never experience.  If David put his kids in a pickup like that, even after he climbed over Linda’s dead body he wouldn’t get 20 feet without a cop pulling him over

I recall Dad telling us how he used to take a cartload of onions from Zeeland up to Grand Rapids, and then he and his cousin would climb into the empty cart and go to sleep while the horse found its way home again. Only in my dreams! And none of my kids would experience the youthful discomforts which I and my brothers and cousin took for granted, of getting up at 4 am to fold newspapers and then ride out on our bikes in the darkness, on back roads, to toss them onto the neighbors’ front yard.  Oh yeah, no helmets either.

What will our grandchildren do that THEIR kids will never experience? “Dad!  You mean you rode around in uncontrolled travelcars that you had to steer yourselves?  Didn’t you crash into things? You could even run into one another and get really hurt,  if you weren’t watching and steering every minute!  How could you sleep?”  –  That’s why we had insurance, my dear. But Dad in his horse drawn wagon would have to smile.

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