An American Remembers

Volume 4 1989

“REMEMBER BACK WHEN: Teenagers answered “Yes, Sir” and “No, Sir” to their elders? When helping the enemy was treason and punishable by death? When a farmer could plant what he wanted to? When you left the front door unlocked? When THE NEW YORK TIMES was pro-American? When our government was the servant of the people, instead of the master?

When a handshake was as good as a written contract? When the poor were too proud to take charity? When what you made was yours? When before the “new math”, two plus two was indubitably four, and not “probably four”? When the doctor’s first question was: “Where does it hurt?”, instead of “Do you have insurance?”

When it was preposterous to believe that America could lose a war? When you went to church and heard a preacher who believed in the divinity of Christ and preached from the Bible? When you could go abroad with the assurance that your government would stand up for you? When a white wedding gown meant something? When the courts protected society, rather than the criminal? When there was such a thing as treason?

When charity was a virtue, instead of a $30-billion business? When people used the phrase “sound as a dollar”? When pornography in the schoolroom was illegal, but prayers were not? When you could depend on what you read in the papers? When only cowards and traitors traded with, visited, and appeased the enemy?”

From Tom Anderson’s