Folks who know me know that I am a very retro type guy.  My tastes run retro in music, in politics, in lifestyle…in almost every aspect of my life.

I love to cook…and don’t own…or want…a microwave oven, even to boil water or melt butter for a recipe or to reheat leftovers.

I love to fish, but I’d rather do it with a cane pole or cheap spinning rod/reel combo from a creekbank or the banks of a farm pond than with a lot of high tech fishing equipment from a 60 MPH bass boat.  Folks sometimes think I’m so retro that the term “luddite” is a fitting description for me, but I’d like to dispel that notion and tell y’all that I’m retro because I’m so dumb.

Yep…I’m dumb, and my retroness comes from that.

My overall retroness is an outward display of a desire for “the way things were” socially and an acknowledgement that I’m not smart enough to re-invent the wheel, instead looking to the past to find what has worked before and a desire to “fix things” by a return to those times.

A few examples would be:

Today’s youth’s disrespect for rules and authority.

When I was a kid if I screwed up 2 blocks down the street from my house while out playing, the neighbor (stay at home) mom gave me a swat on the ass and sent me home, where my mom’s reaction was to send me to my room until my father got home when my butt got rally blistered.  Now, the neighbor mom isn’t home, and if she were and even looked crosseyed at Little Johnny his parents lawyer up.

The other side…authority…has done it’s share to cause it’s own downfall too.  When I was a kid my parents taught me to “look for the cop on the corner when you have a problem.  He is your friend.”

No more.  Law enforcement has become, in large part, jackbooted Gestapo-like thugs.  If two kids hav a schoolyard fight, rather than being sent home with a note for the parents the kids leave school handcuffd in the back of a police car.  Hey…authorities…listen up!  Every rule infraction doesn’t require criminal charges!

In the 50’s and 60’s the family unit included a father and a mother.

Single family households were rare.  Also in the 50’s and 60’s dropout rates were much lower, drug useage was not as bad, teen pregnancy was an anomaly rather than something normal…

…can you imagine an out-of-wedlock birth in the 50’s being cause for celebration, complete with baby shower and proud grandparents?

So…I’m retro…because I’m too dumb to come up with new ideas to fix societies ills…but I see solutions in the past.  I’m a big believer in “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.  I’d kinda like to return to societal mores that weren’t broke.