Market Place

#672

When I was a child, and perhaps it is still being used, a newspaper would come to the school children called, “The Weekly Reader”. This was the government's Communist answer for indoctrinating children about government. No matter what the issue of the week, government was always the answer. We can certainly see, looking around us, every day, results of this type mind control.

I remember, in one issue, in the future, the time would come, that there would be a 30 hour work-week. People would have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, off to do what they want to do. Everyone would have a month vacation … such as all military and government workers now. Everyone would have off all government and religious holidays. There would be “fast food” restaurants with drive up facilities, where you could get food cooked rapidly … sandwiches, drinks etc. There would be self service stores, where you could go in and wait on yourself, pay on the way out with a card. The merchandise would be charged to you and you would pay later.

Such seemed a remote, wild nightmare at the time. I well remember, the first fast food restaurant. It started with “drive-ins” where waiters would come to your car, a tray mechanism would be put on the side of your car to hold your food after you had ordered it through an intercom at your parking place. Then, after the drive in, came today's fast food solutions in which you get in line and get your order in just a few minutes, go to a dirty table where you are expected to dispose of your containers or, drive up to a drive-thru window, pick it up seconds later, and eat in your car … On your way to somewhere else for a fast transaction of some sort … Prescription at the drive store at a drive-up, banking at a drive-up, Brew-thru for buying beer at a drive-up bar (I understand in Las Vegas, there is even a drive-thru wedding chapel where you can get married in a hurry, on the move. I understand there is a mortician who has a drive-up viewing window of the latest corpse).

I ate at McDonald's, the first time, in Nice, France. I was in a hotel in Southern France and a lady asked me to eat lunch with her. I believe I could go right back to that hotel today, though totally blind, and find that restaurant because, there was a cathedral at the end of the street and the new McDonald's was to the right of the cathedral. Such is the way America has Americanized the world. Everything moving quickly. No one taking time for inter-communication with anyone, the art of culinary cooking mostly lost except to Martha Stewart and her rich friends.

I remember the first time I went into a self-service store. I thought to myself, “what is this?” I saw customers taking a cart, walking around, putting items in the cart and then getting checked out at the cash register. It has been many years since I was in a store (totally blind) but, I understand now, you check yourself out at grocery stores, home improvement stores etc.) Like the first time I saw this operation, is this not a perfect enticement or Satanic entrapment enticing people to steal … so easy to put something in your pocket, purse, socks, whatever. Such is America when it is cheaper to lose merchandise than to pay people to work.

I remember the first time I learned of credit cards. Still in the military service, one of my sergeants working under me, for whom I greatly depended, told me he had gotten one of these new credit cards. He said, “I keep it in my briefcase, locked in the trunk of my car. I'm so afraid someone will steal my credit card and charge things to me”. Last year, I received 59 credit cards, unsolicited, through the mail. The greatest crime in America is the stealing of your identification … using your credit card. Over and over, ex-employees of mine try to use my good name, my good credit, through thievery with my credit card numbers, my password numbers on my computer. It has become so commonplace that law enforcement pays little attention to it anymore. There is much larger corruption for them to worry about.

One University student (UNCW), after a background check, his first day at work, immediately stole my password, credit information, and ordered a shipment of pornography, charging it to my account but having it delivered to his address. Of course, this information, with all supporting evidence, was turned over to law enforcement, copies to officials at the University. As usual, absolutely nothing done. This is a prime example of the fast world marketplace in which we are living where Satan has captivated the populous, particularly young people, never reared to know the importance of integrity, the good will of the market place.

I well remember the first self-service gasoline station. This was long ago, before the war, when I could still see, could still drive. I was driving my new Cadillac. My father, in the front seat with me, my mother in the rear. I stopped at a service station for gas and my father said, “we will sit here a long time because this is a self service place”. Until then, my experience had been; an attendant puts the gas in your car, checks under the hood, your oil, your water etc. and even cleans your windshield. At many places, the attendant would even check the air pressure in your tires. Now, you “pay before you play” … they get the money before you, yourself, pump any gas. The attendant is sitting behind bullet-proof glass. Such is the change in vehicle driving 70 years after “The Weekly Reader”.

Business and commerce has changed totally in my lifetime. It was so important,, in business, to make a good impression. Advertisements, store front display windows, even employee appearance was a matter of first impressions.

In Communist China, there are never any display windows or displays of merchandise of any type. In all Communist countries of where I have traveled, stores are just large warehouse type facilities (much like Wal-Mart, Big Lots), stores in this country. Just rows and rows, piles and piles of merchandise, manufactured by slave labor, things which the slaves cannot afford. The news this week, deadly fecal bacteria found in the manufactured clothing in stores and connecting lines of drink machines at fast food restaurants.

When I was young, if you worked in a food handling business you got a health certificate from the health department. A friend took me to a large “fast food” place. He said, “I can't believe he is still working here. He looks like walking death”. Blind, not seeing anything, I said, “what are you talking about?” He knew a young man who was dying of HIV AIDS … still working in the restaurant … still serving food to the customers (he died two weeks later). I said, “let's get up and get out of here. We are not that hungry. Surely there is a restaurant in this town that has better judgment”. In the politically correct world in which we live, judgment or common sense has nothing to do with anything anymore.

This past Monday, I had an appointment with my internist at a medical facility. My assistant had a class at the University so a friend took me to the doctor's office who called a taxi for my return home. The first thing I noticed in the taxi, just how dirty the inside of the vehicle was. The driver, himself, was to the best of my judgment, unkempt and uncaring, smelly. I immediately thought of the taxis in London, men dressed with white shirts and ties, the interior of the taxi spotless, smelling good. As always, with anyone I meet I try to make an impression. I asked the driver how long he had been living here, about his family, etc. He told me, he had been in college studying theology. I often wonder what type theology, what religion, many of our Bible-based colleges are promoting (Liberty University, his school). There is a saying from Roman times, often quoted by John Wesley, founder of Methodism, not in the Bible, “cleanliness is next to Godliness”.

We are human beings, God's chief creation, made in the image of a sovereign God, his workmanship. (Eph 2:10) I still believe that tattoos, piercings, lack of hygiene is an abomination to God. I still believe in making every minute count. Life goes by so quickly and we have so much to accomplish, so much living to do. But, fast everything is not the answer. Fast eating will kill you. Fast cars will kill you. Fast technical work (whether brain surgery or computer repair will bring on disaster). Life is for living, take time to smell the roses, to see the sunset, enjoy some of the enthusiasm of your childhood.