When I was growing up, people had big porches.  From one side of the house to the other.  Sometimes they had what were called “Wrap arounds.”  My grandmother had a wraparound.  One end went into the living room.  The other end of the wrap went into the kitchen.  People sat on their porches in swings and visited with each other...or those who were passing by.  

TV ruined all of that.  Houses were no longer built with big side to side porches.  No more swings.  No more visiting with the neighborhood.  We became more isolated from each other.  Something was lost that we have never gotten back.

Nobody talks much any more with their neighbors.  Some of us don’t even know who our neighbors are.  In the late forties, you knew everybody.  Everybody knew you.  Kids acted better because if they didn’t, their mom knew it immediately.  I wish we could recapture some of that time.  I’ve lived through over eighty years of social interaction, and what we have now is social in-action.  It seems like a phone or a computor is “man’s best friend.”  Or some game.  I know...you can’t go back.  But sometimes I really wish we could.  I miss Pryor, Oklahoma back in the forties and fifties when everyone knew me and I knew everybody.  It was a blessed time.