I bought some fig newtons today, and it got me to thinking about life and America

The first time I remember eating them I was 3 years old. It was in Florida, we were there on vacation and I asked my Aunt if I could have one. I still remember that as clear as day (I was looking up at her and she handed me one).

So I bought some today. They taste the same as they always have.

Sometimes in life I think we just want some things to STOP and not change.

Which is why I think so many people hold onto an ideal of yesteryear in America - and I think they may be right to some degree.

I am not talking about the racism and sexism of the 50's and such. I am all for progress - but not all things need to keep changing.

I feel we were more free back then (those of us not living under the racism/sexism of the time). I think the good things we have gained are awesome indeed. But I think too we lost some things (and um, no, they are not connected).

From banking to credit cards, from passports to get back into america from canada, to a government that keeps growing in power and wanting more and more to control you instead of you controlling it.

EVEN if we can argue all day about what the perception of the time versus what it really was - the ideal is still there and valid.

Small town America. Your local barbershop and grocer. The world of I love Lucy and leave it to beaver.

We want a simple life, equality for all, and freedom from prying eyes into our every movement through cameras and gps systems.

We do so much now in the name of protecting ourselves.

Everyone is a suspect in a crime that might happen.

We went from believing in people to do the right thing and being aghast when they didn't, to believing we are all about ready to snap and kill or rob. The worst of our entertainers get new life by doing bad things, and people like Paris hilton are stars.

No I don't want to go back to the 40's-60's - I want to bring them here to our time and meld the best of them with the best of now.

I am curious, do you sit around thinking up pithy stories to share and make a point with all day? I like your stories and the points (mostly, which is saying something) but I was just wondering about you.

Which politicians have done this also, added in stories about the little people, was it Reagan? Not meaning anything, truly, just having a wandering mind at night after a glass of brandy in the bath. Nighty night SS, sweet dreams.

And as I am online working I tend to have time to post them (I work from home now).

I am not sure which politician in relation to your question :)

I think overall at times when we have something good we should keep it and work on the things that really need changing.

Coke was best when it didn't change the formula. Fig newtons have been the same over the years (to me anyway...).

Change the bad, leave the good.

Time to hit the hay! FWIW, I like your opining! :)

I play chess a lot, so my mind is always going over things all day long. Same with my programming, I am constantly looking at things in new ways and working out solutions.

The writer in me, poetry and short stories, looks for ways to express ideas in ways that hopefully make sense.

Today's trigger: I was in the store and I saw fig newtons. Thought 'hell, been a long time since I had em' and then realized that they were the same before as they were today - which is why I wanted them. I knew the good things about them I liked were the same they were years ago.

Politicians can sometimes change the good to try to make it better. Sometimes that works, but sometimes you need to stay with the same formula.

Our government has changed the formula, and it taste like crap now.

:rofl:

I think instead of this constant push "forward" we would be better off finding a mixture of ideals that actually works - advances in technology paired with a revival of small, community-based businesses for example.

I think it is possible to bring back what was good about the past while still advancing in many ways, but I'm not sure that most people would want to...

Still, food for thought.

some things from the past and build the good things of today around those ideals :)

In practice, not so sure.

i had to get up and go find my stash. My kids wouldn't eat them, they aren't chocolate.

so they are mine. all mine. :D

the good never changes, but the bad has to adapt for everyone spits it out eventually.

we should all plant fig trees, fight for social progress, make cookies and share them.


:blush: i just ate the whole sleeve of my fig newtons.

i wish i could have shared them.
dp

I remember reading something about fig newton production being moved out of the U.S.

:rofl:

But hey, they taste the same damn it, and if I have to go south of the border to get the good times a rolling, well, just call me figero newton.

but my memories of 'those' times are shadowed by the specter of poverty.

Happy memories of eating left-over dried beans for 4 days out of the week...

Fig Newtons were a luxury... for some, they still are.

While I understand pointless nostalgia all too well, I don't want to go back. It often comes the older you get.

My mom was dirt ass poor for some time after her dad died. I am sure she would not want to go back to that (well, is dead now so she can't anyway).

But there were some things she wanted to hold on to from that time. Some simple things that made life what it was. An easier time in some ways where people weren't always a suspect and needed to give a fingerprint just to get a check cashed, and so on.

and build something new and better...

Proust ate a ladyfinger and it sparked 3000 pages. Fig Newtons are way more substantial. I'd say you've barely scratched the surface.

I'll never lose weight as I strive to learn more in life :rofl:

When I was 5 years old in 1956, in upstate New York, I remember somebody, maybe my dad, putting one fig newton horizontally on top of another upright fig newton, and playing Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. I would then want to do that every time I had fig newtons, and would get upset when I forgot to do it.

One of those things I remember from when I was a kid.

For the second day in a row I'm reeling from forced insomnia, and as I sit here waiting for the morning's second cup of coffee to take the edge of desperation off my thoughts, you've got me speculating on the ontological significance of fig newtons...:crazy:

So here's my tangent. What bothers me about the impasse we've come to is that I can now go into the grocery store and buy not just the fig variety, but apple newtons and even raspberry ones (though I think the latter might be a knock-off brand). That in itself is not such a bad thing, especially for those of us who love cookies. But...

What was the Springsteen song from years back? Something about "57 Channels and Nothing On"? We've flat-screened, cell-phoned and X-boxed ourselves into absolute self-perpetuating numbness. Consumerism is easier than citizenship. Partying is easier than polity. Whatever this condition we live in can be called, we can no longer call it civilization.

I might be reading too much into this. After all, most of us grew up in a world where we were told, "Clean your plate. There are children starving in India, you know." Haves and have-nots are an eternal constant in human society. But we've reached a point where the consequences of having are becoming untenable. How far away are we, really, from a "Road Warrior" world, where "decent people" are driven to savagery for the sake of survival, where the orderly conduct of humans living with one another degenerates into a hideous struggle for the last few bare necessities available just to sustain life?

Are cookies responsible for the impending apocalypse? Probably not, and at least we'll have something tasty to nibble on while we watch the last of our precious "lifestyle" circle the drain. Or at least some of us will. For a while.

Jeez. Now that I've got that incoherent rant out of the way, it's time for my third coffee. And damn, I really wish I had a fig newton right now, but the stores aren't open yet.