UNCLE SACK

I’m not one of those that claims the past is better than the present. Most of those folks who talk about the good ol’ days, never lived in ‘em. It was tough. People worked themselves to death.

Some things was better it is true...but the lack of knowhow was not one of them. Ignorance hurts. Lots of good folks have died of blood poisoning after bein’ cut by barbed wire. That’s nothin’ today. These days, fevers that used to kill thousands never even show up or a simple shot clears them up. That IS progress. Life is better...or at least longer.

Now they have this thing called the Internet. You can talk to folks all over the world for cheap prices. You can find out about almost anything you take a shinin’ to...and best of all, you can waste a whole lot of time.

When you’ve had as much time as I have, you appreciate the opportunity to shed yourself of some. I ain’t got no aversion to diversion. Time weighs.

But this thing, this TV you can type into and talk to folks...that’s a real wonder. I ‘spect it’s gonna change the world.


Course “changin’ the world...” ain’t no big deal... cause the one thing the world can be counted on to do is change. A man who bets on change will always win. Everything is changing all the time. Babies are born, leaves turn, geese fly South...things change.

Why is it we all want things to stay the same?

Isn’t it funny. An unhappy man may care for little in the world but still holds onto the status quo. I never have understood that. If things are bad...how much worse could a change be? Especially since it’s inevitable.

No one ever stopped change...not John Henry...not Paul Bunyan...not Davy Crockett...not Zapp Luger....not anybody.

Best you can do is ignore it for a while. That’s what lots of folks like to do. Ignore change...maybe it will go away. Sure enough, it does...just like a train missed at the station, change passes us by while we sit at the depot hiding behind a newspaper. Next thing you know you’re riding a horse down the lane and everybody you know passes you by on the train.

Nobody likes to be left behind but few like the changes that come with keepin’ up. It’s like I was tellin’ George Burns right before he up and died. "George" I said, "You’ll discover when you get a little older that nothin’ in life ever stays the same."

Wherever Ol' George is now, I bet he's still chasin’ skirts. The boy had a lot to learn but I tried to be patient. You can’t expect that much wisdom from somebody that’s less than a hundred years old. I remember when I turned a hundred...I thought I was real smart but whoa...what silly ideas I had! I guess when I get to be 291, I’ll think I was a real bonehead at 191. That's just the way it is. Most people die off before they get any real sense.

This Internet deal is not likely to wait around for us to get on board. I do believe it is here to stay. It’s gonna change the way we talk and learn and buy and before it’s over, it’ll most likely even change the way we think.

These fancy whizbang computers they have are all the gossip but the real reason they’ll stay around is that they’re another way for people to talk...and people surely do like to talk.

I remember when I first heard about telegraph wires. I thought that was the finest thing...being able to write a message to somebody half the country away. Then the telephone came along and you could even hear their voices. Now you can send them instant mail, buy ‘em a gift or send ‘em a picture of your dog and kids. It’s really somethin’.

But with every good thing comes a burden. It’s like the seasons. Beautiful fresh fallen snow becomes mud an slush. Wildflowers become brown weeds in the summer sun. Everything pretty needs somethin’ ugly to set it off. That why all my wives looked so good. I supplied the contrast.

The downside I can see to the blessing of computers and the Internet is just as big as the opportunities they present.

Computers keep things organized. They are great for getting the information you need. The problem is they’re great for getting information about you too...information you may not want some people to have.

That’s kind of scary because in all my long life, I have never seen a government not use any leverage it could get over the people. Why just a couple of months ago the President and Congress got all lathered up about naked women on the Internet and passed a whole bunch of laws sayin' what folks can look at and what you can't. Now that don't seem right. Sure, there's is some stuff out there that isn't fit for kids but it don't come lookin' for you. You got to go find it.

The way I see it, women in their skivvies is a wonderful thing. God made girls without any clothes on and there's many a man that would just a soon they stayed that way. Now lots of religious folks think there's a sin in that. I can't understand why. It's just a natural part of being an animal. It's like Jesus says, it's not what you take into your body that defiles you...its what comes out, like meanness and gossip and judgin' other folks. I guess some of those "religious" folks kind of pick and choose which parts of the good book they want to listen to.

But back to the subject of governments. That new law is a good example of the fact that if you give a politician an inch, he'll take a mile. Governments are like that. It’s just the nature of power. The worrisome thing is that if we don’t watch out, the leverage that computers and the internet offer our governments might be enough to cost us our privacy and a good bit of the freedom we take so much for granted.

Same thing goes for the big corporations. After all, lots of the big holding companies have country-sized budgets and country-sized resources. They also have a lot fewer statuatory limits on their actions.

If somebody with some swack in a big corporation or high up in the government wants to get information about you...detailed, personal information...things are moving towards the point that all they will have to do is pull you up on the screen. According to some people, privacy is a thing of the past. I hope not.

The other cost of computers and this high falutin’ communications technology is more subtle.

When you sit at a computer screen all day, somethin’ I have done a lot of in my little place in the woods, you get disconnected from the natural world. People that live in the city already got more of that than they need. The Internet IS another world. It will become more so as technology improves and the “virtual worlds” all them computer eggheads keep tellin’ us about become a reality.

Often as not, Children nowadays spend a lot more time in the world of computers than they do in the natural world. Many adults do too. Big city life, television and other modern “wonders” have already separated many people from nature and many of them miss it.

So off they go, hikin’ and bikin’ and climbin’ rocks. They camp and canoe and hunt and fish and everthing else they can think of just so they can have an excuse to be outside.

In the old days, you only did that stuff when you had to... unless you was the restless type...but then we had all the nature we wanted...sometimes a lot more than we wanted.

People who spend all day on a computer monitor don’t get a proper dose of the maker’s world and it wears ‘em down. They start to forget where the come from and who they are.

We may be fancy-dressin’ fast-talkin’ animals but we are animals none the less and an animal that don’t stay alert to the natural world is askin’ for trouble.

Course we been "askin’ for trouble" since Adam an Eve, so what’s new?

Not everything changes. Some things stay the same.

Round Top Register - Texas Fun Travel Guide