Now, as during the Viet Nam War, far, far more Americans are being killed by fellow Americans here at home than by our compounded foreign enemies abroad. It’s called homicide. But for the advances in emergency care our murder rates would be much greater than they are. (Those with multiple gunshot or stab wounds more often are saved). Don’t attribute to less murderous success less murderous intent.

Here is what my world was like: While we were only a few streets from the Chicago line we didn’t lock our front door except when on a rare vacation trip. Keys were usually left in the ignition. I don’t remember locking car doors.

I wasn’t in a single-grade room until sixth grade. In my two-grade rooms there were 40 to 48 pupils – yes, we were pupils. Except for one Downs Syndrome (then Mongoloid) classmate every one could read by second grade. When called upon one stood beside their desk and read aloud. There was no faking. (And a teacher could not later claim, “I didn’t know he couldn’t read.”)

Attendance was usually 100%. (Today 10% absence is not considered high.) The exceptions were for measles, mumps, chicken pox, and rarely scarlet fever. For all these the city put up quarantine signs on the front door. Nobody ever had the “flue” as that was still considered a fatal disease of WWI era. We used handkerchiefs, quite saturated if we had a cold (or flue); paper tissues were not yet in use.

My high school (later Hillary Clinton’s) had about 1700 students. There was no need for any “security.” I never knew of a single pregnancy among my classmates during my four years. No girl ever mysteriously disappeared from one of my classes. Not one. (There almost certainly had to have been some pregnancies, but the families must have moved.)

Remember, at that time abortion was a felony and there was no “pill.”

Among my 1700 high school classmates there was almost zero obesity. The heaviest guy on the football team was 220 and solid. Maybe cruel and not PC but anyone, say, 20 pounds overweight was considered a fatty. (Remember, at this time there were no low calorie options.) At that time we knew that getting fat meant you were eating too much. You did it to yourself.

Today cheating in school and deceiving parents is more the norm than the exception. Cheating and deceiving has been the theme of many oh so cutesy television series for decades.

I saw a commercial on TV tonight that makes a hero of a young man who gives his seat on public transportation to a frail woman. How embarrassing. Are we next going to award metals for not mugging?

Colleges are granting degrees to people today who are less educated than high school graduates of even 60 or 70 years ago. Such a waste.