What Happened to America?

The Soccer moms and dads all started walking their children to the after school practices, soccer, baseball, football, band. I soon wondered why. My childhood was spent "going out". Mom would ask where'd you go?" out. "What 'ja do?" nothing. Get washed and get ready for bed. And do your homework.  And it was evening and another day with the kids on the block, in the yards of the block, or in the baseball park with a play ground slightly separated from it.  I thought about it. There in my childrens home town, northern Jersey. Then it hit me. We walked the kids to and from their regulated play time to keep the police from taking them. This is in the late eighties and early nineties.  But It had been happening at the end of the seventies. We didn't trust the police and the police hastled all the children.  We've let it go on for 4o or fifty years now. We need public service we can trust and not fear. Especially the black and latino communities.  And we have to welcome all the children into the play ground and inform our children to get together and keep the bullies out of the play grounds. We did. And we were free. We talked to each other. Asked each other questions. Learned how to charge a ground ball, set a volley ball, head shake a would be tackler, remember what multiplication tables and points on  lines  were. Children of my generation helped each other, educated each other, played,worked,studied, and read books together. And we knew the first paragraph of the Declaration, the preamble to the Constitution, and most of the Gettysburg Address, and that most people were good people. WE got afraid of each other and afraid of the police. Pity...