This action is just the latest in a string of events that have occurred over the past few years that surely are a sign of the "end" times. It hits home the fact that our society is crumbling beneath our very feet and I'm of the generation that has lived long enough to have seen this slow-but-sure disintegration first hand.
If I had to point to a decade in my past that has, to me, fulfilled the aspirations of mankind on a progressive path for the most part, it would be the 1970s.
Up to the 1970s, Western Civilization had grown, virtually unabated (even a couple World Wars hadn't stopped it) since the dawn of the Renaissance. It did a bang up job in ancient times with the Greeks and Romans too, but the Middle Ages kinda put a kabosh on that.
After the 70s, everything became, well, complicated and wrought with stressors that, unless you looked the other way on purpose, foretold of the end of our way of life.
In the 1970s, we were giants.
We built massive rocketships and blasted off to the moon. So nonchalant were we to such awesomeness, our astronauts even used the adventures as golf outings.
Our cities we being transformed into gleaming towers of steel and glass. Monolith structures that rightly rose from the rubble of demolished inner-city slums, derelict warehouses and crumbling factories. No pesky revitalization teams or ethnic homestead bureaus or neighborhood protection committees stood in our way. Bulldozers meant progress.
We celebrated our nation's bicentennial with pride and patriotic fervor. Red, white and blue polyester leisure suits may have been a bit too much, but damned it, we were proud to be American. We needed to look forward past our recent minor setbacks like a pathetic, drawn-out needless war in a far flung part of the world and a corrupt and arrogant president who had left office in disgrace. (Little did we know then we'd repeat this in about 30 years.)
Kids played on the side streets and in parks, even after dark and got plenty of fresh air, physical exercise and sunshine. We kids weren't cooped up indoors all day. We didn't have video games, and we didn't fear child molesters.
If people wanted to talk to one another they "went visiting", or simply out for a walk and talked to each other, face to face. If we were lonely, far away or on the road, we spoke to total strangers with respect and civility through CB radios.
When we needed to throw trash away, we did so, effortlessly and without guilt. We didn't separate our garbage into recyclables. Mess around with our garbage? What? We were civilized!
We utilized technologies that would be replaced in later decades by inferior "upgrades." Vinyl records and cassette tapes, electric can openers, electric knives, warm glowing incandescent light bulbs, console cabinet TV sets, transistor AM-FM radios, electric typewriters, folded paper roadmaps.
But above all, and without worry, we knew we could depend on our letters and packages being accepted and delivered six days a week. We knew our mailman by name and he knew us. Since most dads worked and kids were in school during weekdays, Saturday would be the one day of the week we'd have a chance of greeting our mailman and receiving our post from him. Mom would get her magazines and letters from Aunt Mable, we kids would get our mail-order goodies and free sample packages of new cereals and treats. Dad would get a few bills, of course, but it was the price for living in the zenith age of civilization.
And we all loved it.