There’s a brand of whiny, journalists who use nostalgia to attack the affluence that capitalism has bestowed on us. Usually, they flash their columns on July 4th. Their gimmick is selfishness masked in childhood memories. The scene is always one of youthful recollection; the bucolic picnic grounds, rippling lake, quaint rural paradise of their youth. (Aunt Gertrude always made her famous stuffed eggs, Mama fried up a mess of chicken.) I encountered one of these scribblers the other day bemoaning the excess of of happy boaters that crowded the lake she and her family used to visit in serene solitude.
Alas, the days of yore — they are no more. Too much competition. the newly enriched public has squeezed them out. And evil developers responding to the publics’ desires have build homes, condos, vacation cottages. And there’s too many cars, too. Can’t hardly find a place to park, compared to the good old days when “we”: pulled up rite beside the water. This widespread prosperity makes them yearn for their privileges of yesteryear. The spoiler is that devil — headstrong capitalism — that answers needs without asking society’s permission.
It was lovely when they owned the only home on the hillside — serenity and an unobstructed view was exclusively theirs. But today everybody wants serenity and an unobstructed view. And since they can afford it, builders supply it. What’s the world coming to? The big news is that everybody’s competing with “us”. We need a new set of “Grandfather” laws, they clamor. If it wasn’t that way when Mama packed up her fried chicken and Auntie Gertrude half poisoned the family with her stuffed eggs — well, it just shouldn’t be legal. Why not a little central planning? Say, 20 speedboats, 12 catamarans, and 28 water skiers. A lake traffic planning commission — that’s what we need. They could regulate lakeside housing too.
These dreamers would call themselves “Liberals”. They don’t know that they sound like Aristocrats.
They yearn for the generalized poverty of their youth where less fortunates were confined to baking backyard outings while they splashed in the unpolluted blue of the lake. Damn developers — now the lake, due to a genial economy, is full of non-plutocratic ex-backyarders!! There oughta be a law..........
