Member-only story
An Ultra-Practical Guide to Saving the World
Warning: This Doesn’t Have a Happy Ending
When I was little, the world seemed both simple and exotic. In the exotic column were foreign places, foreign races, and war. In the simple column were love, family, and God.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. If you can’t hear me laughing, imagine Cruella, the reboot.
Mad as hell.
Man, did I have it backward.
As a Gen Xer born in 1975, life was pretty black and white in my tiny, rural town. I couldn’t understand why people struggled, why they fought, why they starved, or why they weren’t educated. They. Them. Not us.
Even though I was on the lower side of the middle class with teenage parents, I felt loved, supported, and wanted. Food wasn’t always healthy, but I never went hungry. Money wasn’t always plentiful, but my needs were met, and many of my wants were too.
My school was a happy place where my friends gathered, I felt safe, and teachers cared despite some bullies and a few rotten eggs. Among many good people, I learned history and grammar, PE and art, math and life skills, and, in social studies, I learned about civil liberties: You have rights, which are yours no matter what, just so long as they don’t infringe on…
