Seems as I go about my day-by-day chores doing the things that have became a habit to me over the years I pay more attention to others and the way they treat others, which includes their children. I have came to the realization that it is not culture between the American people I was raised with nor the lines drawn between America and Colombia but more the lines that are drawn in ones own individual thinking.Β Β
Parents today want control of the child or the others they come in contact with. When I was in grade school I started to date girls. Yes I was still in the third grade when I would ask a girl to go to the show with me. In those days with one dollar, I could take a girl to the Saturday matinee and after the show we would go to the Arctic Circle for a hamburger and a malt.Β Β The show was fifteen cents and the hamburger was twelve or a hot dog for the same. The malt or ice cream drink was also fifteen cents. So how can I remember this? Sally Peay one of the girls I had taken to the show told me that her father have gave her a dollar to put into her shoe just in case I did not have enough to pay. One dollar for a date was how it all started. Today the girl I would date has to be with her daughter and I can meet with her on Sunday after four if I want to go to dinner with her.Β Β
Fifty years old and still obligated to control the daughter is almost beyond my reasoning. No, I said if I am to meet with her between the hours of this and that I am in the wrong world. I worked ten hours a day not counting the time to service the machine, which usually ended up with me spending twelve hours a day. Then I would drive fifty miles to see Shiela spend time with her then drive back and be up the next day to go to work. Where were my parents in those days? They were living their lives and I was living mine I was allowed time to learn and each morning we would gather around the table to discuss what each of us were doing but I was not instructed as to what I was to do I was allowed to live my life from the time I was in grade school. Now as I watch others they want to control the child be in their lives and live with them.Β
Still in grade school I had decided I wanted to fight so I would go down to the highway stick out my thumb and go to Provo from Springville Utah and I was in a gym with an instructor who would teach me boxing and how to do this and that. I had a manager for fighting while still in grade school. Today do you think a parent would allow a child this much freedom. I fought in Salt Lake City at seventeen for the AAU champion Ship of the Westen United States. I weighed 178 lbs. and there was no one in my weight class so I was allowed to fight the unlimited guy whoβs last name was White and he was a big black dude weighing in at around 234. He went on to Madison Square Gardens and won the unlimited championship of the United States. Today they would not allow that but I had never lost a fight so my record allowed this. He beat the stuffing out of me but I earned it. Where were my parents I have no idea. I was busy and not concerned with that in those days. Today the child cannot play a game that the parents are right there to encourage them.Β Β
As I look around me today I believe that the biggest difference is control. Parents want to control that child make them into what they wanted to be not allow the child to do as they would. My problem I am told is I am stubborn. Might be that I learned that I had to get what I wanted out of life not wait for instructions so I am stubborn.Β Β
Β A Messenger,Β
Verl K.