Little League Baseball … Insidiously American

My two boys both started Little League Baseball last weekend. We had six games between them on Saturday. Welcome to the wild ride of American schedules being full to the brim. My wife and I had to divide and conquer to see both boys play. I love League Baseball. There is just something about it that makes you feel like everything is right in the world. The parents are in the stands sharing life and keeping score. The boys on the field are doing their best to run, catch, throw and win. The hats, the gloves, the shoes, the green grass, it’s a real gem of American culture. I put my phone on silent so I have no temptation to read twitter, or Facebook or news. I stay in the moment, so I can give my son a thumbs up when he does something good. It’s awesome. God bless America.

Experiences like this used to be pretty common. Not so much anymore. It’s a common lament of aging folks, which I am one I guess. Where have the good times gone? Or what has happened to my country? I suppose my grandparents felt the same way as they admired my sweet mullet at High School graduation. I must admit though, I have a hard time sometimes as it seems that we’ve lost a lot of what was great about this country already.

I am a generally an optimistic kinda guy, but sometimes it’s hard to be a glass-is-half-full type of Conservative. Everywhere you turn it seems that our beloved USA is under direct assault. With the latest bombing, everyday events like a little league game are now threatened. It appears that we have lost our hold on what was so special about America. Other than the few signs of an awakening amongst our fellow citizens, it looks pretty bleak.

I’m the father of four. My oldest is almost fifteen and the youngest is five. I love those kids more than anything on the planet as most parents do. So when I look around our country, it’s easy to lose hope for them.

My oldest daughter is already engaged in daily warfare against the culture that runs counter to all that I’ve taught her. I find she is fighting battles I think she shouldn’t have to fight at her age. It forces me to wonder what’s to become of our world. All the way down to my littlest ones, what will the great U.S. of A. be like for them?

I was a child in the late seventies and eighties. I remember our first microwave. We had a giant satellite dish before they scrambled everything … that taught me a few things about our culture! I remember our first computer with a green screen. I remember an Atari. I remember the Challenger blowing up. I remember Reagan and Gorbachev and wondering if we would nuke each other to smithereens. I remember an East and West Germany and when the wall fell down. I remember going to see Top Gun in the theater about fifteen times. I remember having to call my friends from a phone in the kitchen with a cord to the handset. I remember most everyone loved America. I remember most everyone believed in our greatness. I remember a slower pace. I remember the future always looking better than today.

What will my kids remember?

I think they will remember going to a movie store to rent a movie. What else? Will they remember really slow downloads? Will there be fantastic advances? Will they remember when cars touched the ground? Will they remember when cancer killed people? Will they remember the towers falling? Will they remember Obama? What will it be? Will it be more striking? Will they say something more like, I remember the day they came and took dad’s guns? And took dad?

If it’s not that dramatic, will they remember having hope? Real hope, not Obama’s slogan for false hope. Will they remember thinking the future always meant things were looking better than today? I hope so, but I must admit it seems like that is a pretty tall order. Maybe even a pipe dream. Our Pravda-like media has been telling us how terrible everything is for so long, how can it not sink into our national psyche? Especially for the kids of today. The food supply is in jeopardy, the water, the power grid, sex-trade kidnappings, even the bees are disappearing, and on and on. Nothing is safe.

I guess I worry too much about those kids of mine. Recently Melissa Harris-Perry told me not to worry, because they aren’t really mine. America’s kids are part of the collective anyway. What?