About 35 years ago (has it really been that long ago?!) I
had the “opportunity” to step back about 200 years in time when
Uncle Sam sent me and about a million other guys on an all-expenses-paid
year-long tour of South East Asia. While
there are those who might wax nostalgically about the “good ‘ol
days,” I’m not one of them. Believe me, living without
electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration and just about every other “convenience”
of modern American life, is no picnic. The squalor, ignorance and misery of
such an environment is overwhelming. Life under such conditions is
hard, very hard. Disease and injury are your daily companions. To
live into your 40’s is a minor miracle. I suggest that those who
would like us to return to such times spend a year or so with the Peace Corps
in a third world nation and really get a taste of it. I will bet that when
you return to the U.S.,
with all of our so-called superfluous technology, you will do what so many of
us did – fall on your knees and kiss the ground of the good ol' US of A.
