The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

Our Country Is Closer Than Ever

by Dessa Rodeffer, Quill Publisher/Owner

31 August 2005

We use to, in the olden days, neighbor over fences and gather after church meetings, offering help to our neighbors, and our children. We were close, gathering often like the Amish in their barn raising, farm families with their threshing, canning, and quilting and delicious family Sunday dinners of homecooked meals.

Children enjoyed playing nearby and taking part in the conversation of what was happening in their families or communities. Children were raised by a small community of neighbors who kept an eye on everything leaving no need to lock doors or worry about your homeplace.

But that was before the modernization of electricity, which sped up our lives in a variety of ways taking us not only away from visiting across the clothesline due to the electric and gas dryers, but also because of the necessity of jobs for housewives due to the cost of all these fine appliances, cars, and home conveniences.

And what about the children and the neighbors? Many kids are at Day Care, Preschool or are alone at home being entertained by the television, learning a different kind of education than we did in our good-old-days.

Yet all of this has a good side, for it is television that brings us instant news of weather or war, as does the Internet. And it is the email and cell phones that keep us connected around the world. Parents have talked to their children trapped in cars, in a Columbine school shooting, and a Stronghurst parent this week talked to her daughter in a Louisiana hurricane. The backyard fence has extended around the world and as a result, family and friends in our country are closer than ever.