I remember that train. We probably met in at sometime. My Dad grew up in Redondo. Sometime in the mid 50's he took me to the Redondo pier once to see Winny the Whale with the Detachable Tail. Winny smelled really bad.

I grew up in Redondo Beach. In 1958, my dad and grandfather set up tracks and ran one of their steam locomotives at Lake Enchanto. I was hired (I was 14) to take tickets and be slave labor. For giving up my weekends for that summer, my dad gave me an over-under 20 ga shotgun. Great times, great memories.

That's the place. I grew up in Malibu when it was a great place to grow up.

Lake Enchanto in the Malibu Hills of Southern California?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0bwLBck...

This is quite key. Like your terms "looters/control freaks".
What makes them successful are the larger numbers of well-meaning ignorant. It is these people that provide the looters with democratic power, and it is these people we need to provide the simple arguments we all understand to slow down or avoid the horrible decent this country is making.

Thanks. This is really a perfect example of where the well-meaning socialists are taking us in the wrong direction as they sell us our own fears, some as ignorant lemmings, some as power hungry central government-types.
I have to admit to partly being a party to the foolishness. As an adult we lived not two blocks from the elementary school in a suburban area. However, the rule was that all kids ride the bus! The worst thing was that due to the bus direction, my kids rode for over 20 minutes, as they were picked up first, not last! I should've made an issue of it, but picked other windmills to joust.

Hell, we didn't even have seat belts, we didn't have helmets except for football, we didn't have knee or elbow pads, we started hunting alone at 10 or 11 with 22's, we went swimming in the lake and surrounding creeks, we launched each other into the air with bent over saplings, we lived.

Yep--we used to go play around in half-built houses and collect wood from the scrap pail, along with any stray nails we could pick up. That's probably a felony now.

The problem was that we (the baby boomers) survived and we did not want our kids to go through the same thing. We can only blame ourselves, we raised them, we lived our lives, vicariously, through them and now we are having to live with consequences. So, if you want to know what happened, look inside yourself.

Nostalgia. There is a lot of the glossing over of the problems, but there is a germ of truth here. We have given up freedom for the semblance of security. One big problem nowadays is that everyone has a pet cause and even libertarians want to cram it down other throats. Especially if it pertains to health or property. We used to mostly leave you alone if you wanted to make different choices. We may have grumbled or argued but now, in addition, laws are made about every little thing.

Bingo on the seat belt comment / observation. I recall my folks driving us kids to the Drive In theater and we're just bouncing around in the back seat. Ditto on the tree forts (made from excess home building materials and scrap from along the railroad tracks). Cheers!

My parents sent me this posting about a week ago -- and so very true it is. Back in the 70's all us kids would enjoy the experience of discovery as we put on the miles wandering the countryside which was our neighborhood. We built tree-forts right next to the railroad tracks on a hillside - and used bailing twine and debris from the railroad to construct a crude physical line 'telecommunication system.' At one point, a train had started a fire due to excessive sparks. We had a hundred gallons of water in old milk jugs (yeah, public works - a firestation) -- put out the fire before the city crew even showed up! Nobody was overweight as we were out running and climbing and cycling all day. Of course, you cannot do any of that if you're a kid nowadays what with all the Amber Alert crap. Those were the days...

Perhaps we are still a majority silenced by the propaganda machine owned and operated by an evil well-funded minority. Smash your kid's iphone and tell them to go skip rope instead.

In 1964 I had just graduated from dental school. I was 30 years old. "Don't trust anyone over 30" was a very popular slogan at the time. For the past 50 years of my life I have been subjected to this garbage and other slogans and attitudes closely related. I read "Atlas Shrugged" for the first time in 1966 and entered the Gulch in 1983 where I have remained to this day.

Minnesota, known to some as "the state where nothing is allowed".

awesome comment, Thor. looking for more...

Absolutely right!
"They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
"Experience is the name we give to our mistakes."
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful, than a life spent doing nothing"
Used to ride my bike ~5 miles to swimming lessons every day in the summer. One day got hit by a car backing up. Went home and realized my foot was bleeding a lot between two toes that were split apart. Taped them together, healed just fine. No lawsuits, no fuss, more watchful for blind spots.

Yes, those were the days! There are many posts here expressing the joy of those times. I certainly have a million marvelous memories from exploring the woods, shoveling snow off the bay so we can play hockey, and doing things with friends and family. One thing that never happened is we and our parents never sued each other if someone got a scrape or a bruise or if something accidentally got broken. We made things right in our own way. Now days lawsuits and liability crushes almost everything. Today's kids have to just watch TV or play video games just to avoid creating lawsuits.

My daddy (rest his soul) taught me a damned valuable lesson as a kid (even tho he didn't realize he was doing that) - that if you coddle, shelter, and come to your kids rescue every time they get in dutch, they will never be able to handle responsibility, situations, or life as an adult. Saying that breaks my heart, but it's true - not allowing the kids to experience the results of their untoward actions when young will mean as an adult they will not know right from wrong, or worse, choose to do wrong because "someone will come to their rescue", whether its a rehab revolving door, a lawyer with pull, a rich relative, a bail bondsman, or a loan shark... in short, it turns people into moochers and pullmongers.

I *wanted* my kids and grandkids etc. to enjoy at least the same things I did when I was young. If not more. I wanted them to experience life, so they could forge their own path, and NOT learn how to be good serfs to some stranger, and have THEIR sense of discovery and challenge prohibited by some stranger. Grrr....

And if you don't believe exactly what I believe you are WRONG WRONG WRONG... and no one wants to stir the pot, or jostle the boat, because we all have to be cookie cutter model worker bees... and not have anyone say anything about us.

Remember "Mind Your Own Business"? Now EVERYONE has to get involved in someone else business, because its the social norm. Absolute strangers have to "correct" others because they have to insure everyone fits into *their* model of what's right and wrong. And if you have different beliefs, then you need to be turned in. Punished. Run off the road. Shamed and Humiliated. Because you're not following *their* rules, and you didn't let THEM tell you how to behave.

We gave up Freedom, because no one wants the responsibility of making their own decisions, finding it easier to let someone else tell them what to do, so they will never suffer the shame of being blamed for anything. We've gone 180 degrees from responsible adults and became cowardly juveniles. And no one dares challenge that because to do so would be considered "anti-social and rude" by those we wish to take charge of our lives.

Problem is, instead of raising kids to be responsible and the difference between right and wrong, and not being part of the zoned-out TV and Game example, society has taught itself not to get involved, to turn their collective head, and even if something seems totally freaking wrong to ignore it out of fear of being "rude" to someone... When we were kids we were taught to keep away from the perverts in the neighborhood, and they were pointed out to us. Now, that would be "anti-social" to point out a pervert. I remember being swatted when I misbehaved - and people *knew* the difference between disciplining kids and beating the crap out of them as if they were the insulting target of a drunken bar brawl... now, a whole gov't bureaucracy is there to imprison the parents for doing such a brutal and bestial anti-social thing as swatting them on the butt when they misbehave.
Then again, then you could trust other adults in your neighborhood. Nowdays, no one knows anyone, even their next door neighbor, and FEARS talking to them. Because, ya know, *they* might be child molestors or cannibals, and instead of saying "Heya NEighbor" it's better to stay in the dark and become mushrooms with the you-know-what we feed ourselves...

Yeah, I do miss those days. Because living like that now is... figure this out... "anti-social" behavior. Making friends outside of your office. Or outside your own 4 walls...