Bucky Covington sings his song – A different world.

So the other day I was listening to the radio and hear a song by a guy who was on American Idol. I was not holding that against him and I liked the song. His name is Bucky Covington and the song was “A Different World”. I also know that he could not have written it, he is not old enough. After a bit of time on Google and I found that Mark Nesler, Jennifer Hanson & Tony Martin were the ones who wrote it. I suppose the real credit belongs with them but without the front man singing it I may never have heard it. This song describes the way anyone older than probably 35-40 was most likely raised. Before our social conscience was raised. Social conscience raised huh? I am not even sure what that means but I hear the words from time to time.

I love the way the song starts out, it has Bucky crooning about being born to mothers who smoked and drank. He continues the story with rhyming that our cribs were covered in lead-based paint and we had no childproof lids or seatbelts. He explains that we rode bikes with no helmets and ends the verse with the kicker, still here we are, still here we are. Of course we are still here. Are there as many of us that are still here now that we have all those safety features surrounding ourselves, probably not but. This seems to me another example that has me wondering how in the world have we, the human race, made it this far in our evolutionary arc. Is smoking and drinking bad for ya, yes of course. Will smoking and drinking cause problems for the babies of the mothers who partake, probably. But so what? We seem to have allowed our worries about our well being and safety to trump our own common sense – everything in moderation.

I know, you are asking was Mr. Oatmeal the victim of some accident that could have been prevented with the proper safety equipment. No, I have not. I am attempting to point out how far we have taken our obsession with safety. We can not even spank our kids anymore, in Bucky’s song he tells of getting Daddy’s belt when we misbehaved. I was spanked by my Mom and Dad at home, in the store, in the restaurant and even in Church. Yep, my Mom spanked me in Church, she did not bother to take me to some anteroom, she spanked me right there, in front of God and everyone. I had my butt spanked by baby sitters, bus drivers, teachers, vice-principals and principals and countless others. Ya know what, each time I bet I deserved it. Now-a-days we are indignant at the very thought that someone may discipline their children in a way that will actually prevent the behavior. Are there cases of abusiveness, I am sure there are but was that the norm when our parents were spanking us, probably not. And we wonder why we see stories of children committing horrific crimes, they may not be related but - maybe they are.

Bucky continues his song singing about the fact they had three channels on TV that we had to get up to change. I remember being the remote control for my parents, switching between those three channels. There were shows like Andy Griffith and Perry Mason. I am sure there was crap on TV then as well but I never saw it. I never saw it because my parents would not allow it and we did what they told us to do, because we were afraid of them. Kids should have a healthy fear of parents and other adults. I was 12 years old before I realized there were more than three channels, when my Mom remarried and we moved to Mansfield and had cable for the first time. 13 channels of programming to watch, we were in hog heaven. That is also when we found that there was crap on TV. The song then talks about no video games and no satellite, I suppose it was the mid 70’s when we got our first video game, pong. I am not even sure I knew what a satellite was during that time, let alone understanding that TV programming could be coming from them. That verse in the song ends with him crooning on about all we had were friends and they were outside, playing outside. When we were kids we got home from school and changed out clothes and Mom sent us outside, with our friends, to play. At least until it got dark. Now-a-day kids sit at their computer playing games and surfing the web. We thought that there was crap on TV, the web can be a cesspool of crap. There is the greatest wealth of information every assembled as well but there is still crap there. How did we ever survive without the conveniences available today.

Like the song says, school always started the same everyday, the pledge of allegiance then someone would pray. Like we could expose our children to that now. We seem to forget that we have a freedom of religion not from it. If you are not a Christian, you simply do not have to pray along with the prayer. It seems to me anyway. He continues with not every kid made the team when they tried, we got disappointed but that was all right, we turned out all right. Not everyone is the same, fuzzy grading systems and filling our kids heads with crap about it is just as important to try as it is to succeed. How in the hell does that prepare children for the real world. I struggle with that with young employees where I work, some are good, some are not, and the ones who are not good are let go. Most times completely shocked that just doing their best is just not good enough and does not meet my expectations. We are hurting our kids by doing that crap, here in the real world there are winners and there are losers. Does it suck, sure but so does much of life – it is a bitch and then you die. Not preparing them for the reality of our world is incompetence on the part of parents. I wax philosophical with righteous indignation and I do not even have children, BUT I will be one of the people hiring them and if they are unable to get it done, I will be the one firing them as well.

In the next verse Bucky sings about not having bottled water and that we’d drink from a garden hose and that every Sunday all the stores were closed. Not just a different time, it was a different world, it was a different life. Bottled water – that is one that I have NEVER understood. I know at first it was touted as being spring water or artesian well water or some other such nonsense, we now know most of it comes from the tap and it might be filtered and put in bottles and in some cases just put into bottles. Stupid! Plus when the bottles have a half life of about a billion years it seems ridiculous to me that we support that industry. Bottled water, that may very well be the reason for civilized societies fall back into being hunter gatherers, literally the cause of our worlds failure. I remember stores being closed on Sundays and Thursday afternoons as well. Now the Super Gigantic Walmart is open 24-7-365, just so you can get a tee shirt, dog food and pool toys at ANY time you may think you need them. Hell our Home Depot was, at one time, a twenty four hour store. Like if my water heater goes out at 3am I am going to jump up and go get a new one and install it - right. These stores are contributing to our own idiocy, they are catering to us, the general public and I for one am increasingly embarrassed to be a part of it.

We will never go back to the days of old, our economy would collapse. Oh wait a minute that is what happened with going like we have been lately, sorry for the confusion. When I win the lotto I will not have a cell phone, computer or television. At least that is my plan, if you have that much money why do you need any of that – we could go outside and play, with our friends, and what a fun time that would be!