Bluegrass Values: Chapter 1, "America is in Trouble"

America In Trouble

Things have changed in America since I was born back in 1953. That’s an understatement. Merle Haggard sang a song in 1984, “Are the Good Times Really Over for Good?” That was over twenty-five years ago.

I wish a buck was still silver and it was back when the country was strong,

back before Elvis and before the Vietnam war came along,

before the Beatles and Yesterday, when a man could still work and still would.

Is the best of the free life behind us now and are the good times really over for good?

Are we rollin' downhill like a snowball headed for hell?,

with no kind of chance for the flag or the Liberty Bell?

I wish a Ford or a Chevy would still last ten years like they should.

Is the best of the free life behind us now? Are the good times really over for good?

I wish Coke was still cola. and a joint was a bad place to be,

back before Nixon lied to us all on TV,

before Microwave ovens when a girl could still cook, and still would.

Is the best of the free life behind us now and are the good times really over for good ?

Are we rollin' downhill like a snowball headed for hell?,

with no kind of chance for the flag or the Liberty Bell?

I wish a Ford or a Chevy would still last ten years like they should.

Is the best of the free life behind us now? Are the good times really over for good?

Stop rollin' downhill like a snowball headed for hell.

Stand up for the flag, and let's all ring the Liberty Bell.

Let's make a Ford and a Chevy that'll still last ten years like they should..

The best of the free life is still yet to come. The good times ain't really over for good.

Haggard made some money from that song, because it hit a nerve. I wonder what he thinks about our situation now, the situation of the average American family. The rich and the transnational corporations control the Congress and the courts. Whatever our U.S. Constitution says, our democracy seems to be in more than trouble. As Citibank wrote back in 2004, we are living in a plutocracy, where 1% of the people rule over the rest.

We cannot turn the clock back. We cannot wash the slate clean and get rid of all the scandals. We cannot ask all the people hurt by our wars, hurt by lost jobs, hurt by things decided by others on Wall Street and Washington, to just forget what happened and move on. We surely cannot ask them to believe their leaders are going to take care of them or their families. So what do we do? Many people simply have no idea what they should do.

Our American values have taken a beating since I was born back in 1953. Families were closer. There was less divorce. More people attended worship and believed God expected them to obey at least the Ten Commandments. How many things would be different today if our citizens just believed and followed only those ten rules. Still, we cannot turn back the clock. Now people get their moral cues from trashy television shows, movies, and the Internet, and make up their values as they go along. People of all ages do this now. I look at my generation and see how we contributed to this situation. We threw out all the rules, rebelled at everything traditional, as if “tradition” was something evil, and then went on our individualistic journeys. America now is full of people who answer only to themselves, and some have helped accelerate our nation’s ruin.

In my case over the past decades of my life, I was privileged to have a strong set of values that have helped me keep most of my moral bearings. I have been thinking about how my parents raised me on our rural dairy farm in Shelby County, Kentucky, and how the lessons I learned as a boy and teen have been more valuable to me than I have realized. While I do not want to romanticize my raising, the experiences and values I want to offer really were part of my life. It’s my opinion that many Americans who are asking, “What should my family and I do?, may find some help in these vignettes from another American’s story.