People are Changing, and I Don't Like It
 

Another local landmark has bitten the dust at the hands of hateful people.

At the edge of the small city near me, at an intersection on the route home, a man put a big chalkboard up on the side of his house. Every day he would write some affirmation or pithy saying on it. Sort of a thought for the day. This has been going on since the 1970s, and I always looked forward to driving by and seeing what the guy had to say. The last one I remember was, "A ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are for." Over the past year vandals started spray painting obscenities on the guy's board, and every time he'd clean it up and put up another saying. Today I drove by and the board was gone. He painted "I quit" on the side of the house where the board was.

For decades there was this fence post out in the country near here. It was on the inside of a very sharp curve on a little 1 1/2 lane country road. You could almost reach out and touch it from your car. Decades ago for unknown reasons anonymous people started decorating the post. Over the years there was every kind of stuff on it. Some clever, some just junk - I remember a Hawaiian lei, a toilet seat screwed to it, someone knitted a sweater for it, some nails driven in it with wine bottles on them, pictures, etc. I used to go out of my way to drive past just to see what someone had left there lately. A few years ago someone set it on fire. It got back to normal (although charred) for a while, then they started setting it on fire regularly. A couple of years ago they burned it to the ground. Someone put a little cross out for it and the ashhole even knocked that over.

There was a rustic old swinging bridge across a creek near here. It was 40 feet long and 10 feet above the water, just two cables stretched between trees with planks laid across them, with a cable handrail. Marriage proposals were made there, lots of romantic evenings spent sitting on the swinging bridge, I can personally attest to some illicit activity involving a girl from the local college that took place in the moonlight on that bridge. So some jackass started sawing through the cable. It got put back up once and was cut down again. The people who owned it decided not to replace it.

Is the world really getting coarser, angrier and less respectful, or am I just turning into an old curmudgeon?

someone recently knocked down the "TreeVee" on one of our hiking trails. been there for years, maybe 30 years?
it was a small b and w tv, '70's era. someone had managed to place it 50 ft up, in a douglas fir.

Oh yes, very much so...imho

There are and have always been a group of very unhappy people in this world. Within that group are a % who feel the need to make sure they project their sorrow on the rest of mankind. It seems these same people project that repeatedly to ensure unhappiness continues.

But when the rest of the world gives in and stops trying, the evil wins. So its OK to be sad about those icons being destroyed, buld or help with new ones.

I did crap like that when I was younger. (High-school-aged.) I thought I was getting revenge on people that I had imagined had done me wrong. I have lots of stories of senseless destruction from my youth. Eventually, I realized that I was just breaking other people's stuff and "the system" that I imagined they were "part of" was not the source of my problems--it was mostly jealously and envy on my part.

These younger, rude, and self absorbed people were raised by parents who thought that being a great parent meant being around them 24/7 and hovering over them like a mother hen.

Some people got the idea that the world was theirs, or at least they had a say in it.

Goes back to the brainwashing that convinced the weak-minded they were destroying the planet, then saving the planet. They developed a false sense if importance and entitlement.

It somehow taught them the world belonged to them or at least they had a right ot it and could say what was OK and what wasn't, even on other people's property.

Like the guy that complains when SOMEONE ELSE cuts down trees on his own land.

These people see something they don't like and decide it's up to them. They are entitled to make that decision.


Life was better when everyone took care of their own biddness and stayed out of everyone else's biddness (and wallet).

All of the above...

I lost faith in humanity when ripping off historical markers to make money off recycling the brass plaques became a thing.

That and I live near a park by the sea... on the weekends lots of inner city people come to our town to enjoy the park... and leave their trash all over the lawn.

On a positive note a low rider club regularly visits the park on weekends, and bags up all their trash before they leave.

I agree with this. I guess I'm already thinking like an old grumpy bastard.

How do you define class (i.e. being "classy")? That's probably what is missing in our culture today.

Doing the right thing when no one else is looking

(goes for character also)

Personal responsibility...which has clearly gone the way of the dodo in today's society.

just my 2 (where is the "cents" sign??)SmileWavy

People have always sucked. The internet, facebook, etc just make it easier to tell folks farther away. That said there is a notable book that predicted that things would get worse and worse before the end of the world. I won't mention the author.

Tabs wrote a book? Sounds like his style. ;)

Not exactly the author I was thinking of. OBTW I'm not referring to Nostradamus either.

And there's more of them and they are more mobile so they can get out to WD's special places.

People, can't live with 'em. Can't legally shoot 'em.

I use to be a people person....then they ruined it.

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Nothing teaches like pain. We need consequences enforced on the bozos again.
Then they might recalibrate their attitudes.