I've told this story many times, but it needs repeating for younger people. Soon after I returned from Vietnam, I was living in Minneapolis going to the U of M, and even with the tens of thousands of young women on campus, I ended up finding a girlfriend who was going to the Art Institute in Chicago. Yeah, right. Life has never been that easy for me.
At that time it didn't cost that much to fly from Minneapolis to Chicago and back. In fact, you could hop a flight Friday afternoon and get back Sunday night and not have to miss any classes. In theory that worked, but if you partied too hard in Chi-town, it could be nearly impossible to make that Sunday afternoon flight.
Well, back to my story. I decided at the last moment that I wanted to fly down to see my girlfriend. I packed a weekend bag and headed out to the airport hoping they had room on the 3:00PM flight. I was parking the car at 2:45 and thinking I would make it no problem. I reached for my wallet, and it wasn't there. I remembered I had changed pants right after my shower and must have left my wallet in those old pants.
This was in the early 1970s, and the wallet wasn't that important, but money was. I felt in my front pocket , and I had a roll of about $400 bucks. I had more than enough to fly down and wine and dine the weekend away and come home with plenty. Yes, money went a lot further back then.
I went in and bought my ticket paying cash, and nobody even asked for an ID. Back then even if you were driving and got pulled over and had no ID, it was no big deal. You just had a few days to present your valid driver's license at the police station. If you didn't, then they issued a warrant out on you.
Now really, that wasn't that long ago. You know, back then they didn't have a Secret Court that could issue warrants, nor did they have the Patriot Act, pepper spray, or taser weapons. It was not that long ago that American citizens trusted their government, and they did not live in fear of the police. You didn't need to carry "papers" to prove who you were at any time of the day or night.
This year we are having another election to see who will lead our country, but neither major candidate, (Barack Obama or Mitt Romney) is talking about returning to us the freedoms we had just a few decades ago. Both men try and garner votes by telling us to fear a few hundred men who live in mud huts on the other side of the world. With the money the political parties these two represent spent on wars the past 12 years, America could have relieved all the poverty there is in the world today and the United States would be looked on with universal admiration instead of the hatred and fear that most have for us.
Nothing in the history of our country has been better than the attack we suffered on 9/11 for those who want more and more power. That is why we are no longer the Land of the Free, and come to think of it we are no longer the Home of the Brave, either. Americans live in fear of pitiful poor people who live in mud huts on the other side of the world. Pitiful poor people who have learned to hate us because we have killed their children (500,000 we admit to in Iraq alone), their sons and daughters, their sisters and brothers, and their mothers and fathers.
Our government keeps telling us that they hate us for our freedom, but soon that excuse will no longer be at all valid, because our government is taking more of our freedom from us every day.
So, if you fall in love with someone many miles away, it no longer matters if you have the money to buy a ticket to go see them. Today you have to remember to bring your wallet and your "papers" with you, or not only will they stop you from your travels, they will probably detain you, too.
