My Thoughts

Whatever happened to the good-old fashioned names that Insider often used when he called out for friends. When the old guy reads the obituary section of this newspaper, all the names of the dead people are familiar to him. There's a Walter, a, a Patrick, Josephine, a Charles, an Anna, a Frederick, a Susan, Carol, a Kenneth, a Kitty, a William, a James, a Frank, Sally, a Dorothy, a Helen, a Mabel, a George, a Cindy, a Mary, a Louise, a Joanne, a Jason, a Nicholas, a Thomas, a Michael, a Wayne and the list goes on. But, when Insider browses through the list of survivors, he wonders what drug some of the parents were on when they filled out their child's birth certificate years ago. Some of the strange names Insider spotted were Evan, Taylor, Cameron, Jordyn, Peyton, Haylea, Devon, Carson, Karsten, Reece, Duncan, Hunter, Grace, Olivia, Ivan, Julian, Logan, Kaleigh, Marissa, Cameron, Austin, Gavin, Connor, Summer, Paris, Zoe, Jackson, Collin, Haley and the list goes on. It seems to the Insider in an effort to be unique and creative the young-timers have done quite the opposite. They have all blended in. They have all come up with the same names, and the old guy hopes eventually parents will return to the Mabels, Ethels and Agathas of the world. If all things are cyclical, as the one saying goes, it will happen soon enough.

You can't do it yourself anymore. The one thing that made America great and set it apart from other countries was maintenance. We cared for our possessions, fixed them when they broke, sheltered them when we could. Not anymore. Today, like the rest of the world, we use things until they stop running, then cast them by the side of the road to rot and rust. And it's not our fault. You just can't fix things today. They're designed that way, supposed to be good for the economy. Long, long ago Dad used to fix the toaster, nurse the car, repair the radio, fix the faucet when faucets used washers, and mended broken toys before batteries. Coffee was not a plug-in thing, but made in a percolator that lasted forever, and dishes were washed in a sink they never stopped working. So-called progress put us where we are today and we are helpless.