One of many advantages I enjoyed as a child living in that part of Southeast Bakersfield called Little Oklahoma during the 30s and 40s was some of the superstitions and beliefs of the adults most of them being Okies and Arkies from the Dust Bowl migration. I call this an advantage because such superstitions and beliefs are part of a culture, and lend the spice to otherwise cruel hardships of ignorance and poverty and often help people deal with these.

One old fellow I remember would never eat anything from a can that had been opened from the bottom because he believed this pizened the contents. I never learned where he had gotten such a preposterous notion because as a child being raised to never show disrespect for my elders it didn’t cross my mind to ask this old fellow about it. Besides, his belief about such a thing didn’t really bother anyone; it wasn’t something that he used to take advantage of anyone so what was the harm, and looking back I realize no amount of arguing with him about it would have changed his mind. Over the years I have known quite a few folks just like this old fellow, and most of the time I don’t waste my own time arguing with them. Their beliefs and superstitions may be just as preposterous, but so long as they do no harm why not just leave them be.

But education is very important because we realize a society cannot function and prosper in a civilized manner unless it is made up of educated individuals. I had an aunt that could not read or write. On one occasion she made a cake and mistook a bottle of cough syrup for vanilla extract. The bottles looked the same so the error was understandable, though it did lend an odd flavor to the cake; but had she mistaken a bottle of poison and used that this could have resulted in a real tragedy.

My grandparents used to tell the story about an elderly woman they knew given to burying socks full of dirt in the backyard. When asked about this bizarre behavior she would reply she was burying Beelzebub’s guts. Apart from this mild aberration she behaved quite normally and was a delightful person to be around.

Then there was the old fellow grandad used as an example of how people can carry their religious beliefs to extremes. The man had a deep conviction about keeping the Sabbath and would not do any work on a Sunday, but he had chickens that needed feeding each day. To get around doing this on Sunday, on Saturday evenings he would place a pan of feed on the gatepost to the chicken yard and accidentally hit it with his shoulder on Sunday so it would spill over to feed the chickens.

Every one of these people I have described intended no harm to anyone, they each had peculiar deficiencies but in a way as to add spice to the lives of others. If nothing else, they gave other folks something to think and talk about. When I was a boy living on the mining claim here in the Kern River Valley back before the lake went in we had our own mad scientist, Harold Adams, who was a real genius and a fascinating character. He took a real liking to me and would sometimes share some of his ideas and inventions. However, the grownups would laugh and talk about things like his housekeeper, a younger woman, but there was never anything mean or malicious about such talk; it was simply gossip that added spice to our small society at the time.

One of the things I miss most about my childhood is the sense of community we used to know where neighbors could share stories, visiting with one another, each person having something or someone in their families that were a source of embarrassment but simply accepted as a part of the community while often proving to be entertaining to us children though the grownups were careful to caution us about anything or anyone to be wary of. However, in small communities the grownups could usually count on each other to watch out for children, but the tragedies involving children back then as today were always the result of the lack of proper adult supervision.

WWII was an ongoing time of interest to me as a boy, there was so much excitement all about and even children were involved in the war effort. But I don’t remember it as a climate of fear for me, rather one of excitement and interest, which is as it should have been for children. Perhaps what people are expressing to me now largely because of TV there is a growing climate of fear Americans are in no way prepared to deal with, one of the reasons for this being the lack of family and community for many Americans, families and communities such as I knew as a child where there was allowance for the idiosyncrasies of adults that added spice rather than fear to such communities.

Several times I have shared my thought that the real virtue and character of America is to be found in rural churches and communities, places where the emphasis is on those things of real and lasting value, the things that emphasize the importance of children and families rather than wealth and power. In my opinion Norman Rockwell got it right concerning the real virtue and character of America; but now it seems America has gotten too big for its britches and has forsaken the things of real value that made us a great nation, those things that once made for strong families and communities.

There are those that have succeeded in dividing America into self-serving groups that would make America over into their own image; but such an America is not a nation of communities where there is allowance and understanding for those that add spice to living because of their harmless beliefs and superstitions. Too often now communities have become the victims of violence and crime where parents are afraid for their children both at home and at school, where people must live behind iron bars on windows and heavily reinforced doors.

I spend a good deal of time now in reverie and contemplation, refusing to watch much of the madness on TV that seems to have descended on America like some dark and malevolent cloud of foreboding creating a climate of fear. Through nothing particularly deserving on my part I have come to this last stage of life’s journey and looking back over the many changes I have witnessed in America, realizing it is no longer the United States but a nation divided and fragmented beyond my recognition and without any sense of community.

There was a time within my recall when music and films were fun, when there was humor without being vulgar, crude and profane, humor without a mean and malicious intent and content and parents did not have to fear their children were being brainwashed into accepting things like perversion as an alternative lifestyle. America once had communities where children were expected to learn good manners, correct speech and dress at home and these were supported and encouraged by the schools.

The loss of community with its concomitant failure in education has resulted in the loss of morality replaced by the pervading barbarism that is now the rule in America. Our own government is a continuing reminder of the degradation and corruption of an America without any sense of community and community values with an emphasis on families, which was once the very foundation of our nation and one that also accommodated the spice of beliefs and superstitions, aberrations such as I have mentioned together with a few cranks and crackpots that do no real harm and without which we would be the poorer.

Heritage, culture, a common language and secure borders that once defined America and made for strong communities with moral values and standards has been betrayed for wealth and power, but these will not save America. A sense of community, the very soul of a once strong foundation of American families with faith in God has been sacrificed to benefit the few, but these few will discover that without that sense of community and strong American family values that held America together and made us a great nation they will destroy both themselves and America.