MOJAVE MULESKINNERS

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older that I have time for more tentative thought, and for that same reason I find myself questioning the actions of the ‘under thirty’ group. But it seems to me that I and my contemporaries of the days when I was in my twenties were more appreciative of a lot of things that current youngsters seem unmindful of. Now don’t misunderstand, I’m not flaunting my eighth grade education here, but rather commenting on the seemingly hurried and harried existence of our young.

 

For example, today’s humor comes in short clips called sound bites that more remind me of what we once called a smart ass. There’s no genuine intelligence involved to provide this verbal debris, and yet I see it and hear it everywhere.

Moreover, it has seeped into music to such a degree as to render most words of the songs difficult to understand and when I do I regret I tried.

 

Admittedly however, the female artists, as they are called nowadays, are better to look at than to hear. When I was their age I was observing movements like theirs on stage in theaters given to burlesque. They scream into their electronic magnifiers and threaten to strip away the remainder of my hearing and the only talent I can discern is that they scream on key. And the male ‘artists’ contrary to the days of the fifties when they stood in elaborately tailored costumes, now show up in levis that appear to have accompanied them since their teens complete with see-through holes in strategic places. Then, when they sing it’s most times accompanied by a bank of amplified screeching guitars or by a compliment of musicians that would empty the musicians union hall. Is it country and western or is it popular? Again, I’m unqualified to say.

 

But I believe the most disappointing and scariest part of this condition is the complete ignorance of history. A large percentage of them don’t know who the founding fathers were. Nor care. We walk about as reenactors among many who are mildly interested in the old west, and highly curious as to the caliber of our weapons. But if I told some of them that George Washington, carried a single action .45 Colt in the revolution, they would look upon it and ask who was Washington.

 

However, to make my day, albeit not too frequently, some fresh faced little child will come down the pike who knows who composed Stars & Stripes Forever, Battle Cry Of Freedom and Beautiful Dreamer all in one felled swoop. Then without hesitation I kneel down and ask, “Who are your grand parents?”

 

~ Weakeyes Cody 2008