Salad in the
Sun
Charlie Earl
One of the
highlights of my youth was the annual church picnic. The entire congregation
would go to an area park, enjoy an outdoor service, a scrumptious picnic lunch
and an afternoon of softball, swimming, volleyball and friendly chatting.
Typically the food would remain on the tables until it was time to go home.
Invariably…our tasty fare included potato salad, macaroni salad and various
other types of egg-based delicacies. Frankly I’m lucky to be alive given the
July heat and long exposure to the sunlight those delectable dishes endured. I
haven’t attended any of those church picnics for many years, but I assume that
today after lunch is over, the food is securely packed into 5-day coolers with
cold packs. It’s a new “wussie” world we inhabit, my friends.
We didn’t
have a “5-second rule” when I was a kid. Even when a tasty morsel was dropped
on gravel, we would rinse it and consume it. If one were fortunate enough to
drop the culinary creation indoors, a slight taste of “Pine-Sol” or “Murphy’s
Oil Soap” would enhance the flavor of the recaptured sustenance. As a
consequence I never had worms or internal waxy build-up. The only exception was
the dung or manure pile. We wouldn’t try to salvage the wayward food….but would
attempt to convince younger siblings that it was still “OK.” By the way… my
younger sister and brother are still alive although they both have an addiction
for breath mints.
As a
youngster growing up on the farm, I managed to avoid ornery cows, angry sows
and rampaging roosters. My luck wasn’t always perfect because I had the mumps,
measles and chicken pox, but I somehow escaped the polio threat of the 1950’s.
We children did a lot of stupid things back in the day such as attempting to
fly from hay lofts, climbing tall and slippery windmills and engaging in BB gun
fights. We worked around dangerous machinery and ignored whatever child-labor
laws may have existed in those days… and most of us are still here. Maybe a few
of us were maimed, but we learned the lessons of survival and how to overcome
fear. As an example, one of our adult acquaintances contracted the mumps but
continued riding his tractor while working the fields. I can recall hearing
that the mumps “went down on him,” and my pre-pubescent mind recoiled at that
painful notion. We learned from others as well as from our own mistakes.
Times have
changed and Big Brother and Nanny State are committed to protecting us from
ourselves. We no longer learn from our own stupidity and recklessness as
quickly as we did in earlier generations. Our innate ability to acquire wisdom
and common sense from our adventures has been stunted by government’s
“bubble-boy” mentality. Our learning comes from secondary sources and does not
carry the power or endurance of hands-on mistakes. The Nanny State’s
over-protective stance may indeed prevent some tragic consequences from our
lack of judgment, but we are failing to learn the lessons of losing as vividly
as we might if we erred. We are becoming soft and dependent as government
protections increase their controls over our lives.
The ultimate
government interference in our lives is epitomized by the “death panel’
provisions of Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare). When we become infirmed or
grow older, government will assume that we are incapable of addressing our own
“end-of-life issues.” Care will either be withheld or administered depending on
a series of undefined criteria….which given Big Brother’s lust for secrecy may
never be revealed. Well….pay attention, my government masters, I defy your insistence
on determining the quality and quantity of my life. It represents my personal
decision to nullify your egregious over-managing of my life. I have lived to
this age by consuming dirty food and outwitting surly sows, and I neither
desire nor will I tolerate your notoriously inefficient meddling. So far, Big
Brother and Nanny State, you have undermined my quality of life. I will not
allow you to determine its end. Please pass that gnarly potato salad…. time for
a snack.
Charlie Earl
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