Intersecting Roadways

The Eiffel Tower, one of the wonders of the world, built in Paris in 1889, or the great ferris wheel of Earl's Court in London, built in 1895, or the Empire State Building in New York City, built in 1931; with these and other such landmarks of height built all over the world, at the top people with eyes can see for miles around. Now, I have been to all three, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Ferris Wheel, and the Empire State Building, but I have never been to the top because I do not like heights. I have traveled the globe many times by plane, at much greater height, but I had no other choice if I were to go on these long trips than to fly.

I had a choice about going to the top of these tall structures and I chose not to go because I have a morbid fear of heights (acrophobia). I remember so well helping my father put the roof on a barn, up a long ladder. I was scared to death, but I did not let him know because I did not want him to think he had raised a sissy.

Viewing intersecting streets, roads, crossroads, both in an urban and rural setting, you realize that most activity occurs at the crossroads. Across America, across any country of the world, always without fail, at the crossroads you find all human activity...stores, schoolhouses, church houses, garages (and before that, a blacksmith's), meeting halls for fraternal and other groups. It is easy to pinpoint a location in a city where each street has a name, but in the countryside each crossroads had a name, usually for some family who owned most of the land around the area.

More vitality was given to the crossroads if a train track came through (or later, an airport). If enough businesses and residencies grew up around the intersection, eventually it became a town. Early American towns and cities were built on waterways, rivers and bays. Before trains and trucks it was ships who provided commerce and methods of travel. The loading wharf was the center of civic activity. It is only when you study political geography that you realize pragmatic economics, how industry and agro-business grew and built this great system of free enterprise called America.

50% of all people living in the hinterlands, farm areas, have moved into the cities. Even in foreign countries such as India, cities such as Bombay and Calcutta are choked with an onslaught of people moving from the countryside. In my many travels through India, I never ceased to be amazed at the shantytowns, the poverty of the great cities. But they all made it eventually, moving up the chain in prosperity as others climbed up the ladder behind them. In India you still have rickshaws. One rickshaws runner, an old man, told me that he made a good living taking people like me from place to place. He said, “somedays I don't make much, somedays nothing, but then someone like you comes along and pays me along with a tip.” This is commerce, people willing to work. It still goes on in India and China as it once did in America.

We have forgotten the distinction between private character and public character. Character is what you do when no one is looking. To date, neither government, your neighbors, or your friends watch what you do in your own home. We have rapidly lost the work ethic because we have so many who just want to sit at home and do nothing...live off of the taxes of others because they do not know the joy of accomplishment, the passion and honor of labor.

Same with so many activities at the crossroads...the store, where young clerks cannot make the simplest change without a calculator. Same at the schoolhouse, always built at the center of traffic, and “child-raising activity”. You are forced to send your children to schools, forced to pay the taxes to support the schools, what redress do you have if your children do not learn anything at the school?

Same at the church house, having lost the essence of worship, the tares having taken over the church. The human propensity is towards sin not away from sin. (Philippians 2:15) You are unable to tell (their dress, their language, their commitment) the difference in those at the church house, from those at the clubhouse (private social clubs, country clubs, fraternal organizations).

Mid-twentieth century, every crossroads community, every town of any size, set aside athletic/sports fields. At first, families and onlookers would just stand around outside of the field itself. Then, some enterprising community member built stands where they could sit, then came stadiums, arenas. Larger public areas became lavish golf courses, soccer fields, etc.

The nexus for athletes, businessmen, politicians, pastors: preparation and encouragement at home and at school. Each crossroads community, as it grew into a village, town or city, could justifiably take pride in it's development, its streets, sidewalks, traffic lights, public places (parks, assembly halls, libraries although until this minute, the largest minority of the population, the disabled, are not able to participate in these areas even though they pay their taxes to support such), likewise any municipality could take pride in sons and daughters raised there, becoming outstanding in some area of endeavor.

Each municipality, each division of landmass, assuredly wanted its best to represent them anywhere and everywhere, most certainly in government. How did we reach the place in which we find ourselves: corruption in government, the greed of business, hypocrisy in religion, failure in education. Somewhere, somehow, everyone started taking shortcuts. I found in my own town, with prolific traffic, if you do not know the shortcuts you do not get many places very fast!

Dietrich Bonhoffer, Lutheran preacher, hanged naked by the Nazis toward the end of WWII, said, “it is a righteous man that lives for the next generation.” In all our doing, we forgot to drain the swamp to give our communities necessary cleansing.

One of my neighbors, a 95 year-old man, sent for me. the newspaper at his death determined him to be a founder of the community, persistently wanting “the best for everyone”. I remember so well him saying to me, “it is too late for me, but I wish I had given myself, my time, my wealth in sustaining your ideals, your conservatism in faith and actions, these are the only things which will restore the country to the greatness which it once had.”