Going... Going.... Gone!

I recently picked up a new hobby. I have started a N scale model train layout in our basement. The layout will include mountains, trees, and a small city called Blue Sulfur Springs. It gets is name from the Blue Sulfur Yellowstone type hot pot that I am going to include in the layout. It will be the new home for the RW railroad (most of you that follow my blog will be able to tell me what the RW stands for). In the process of getting this new hobby up and running, I purchased an Exxon gas station. The gas station is made of plastic and required assembly. I thought I had some model cement hanging around the house somewhere. And after searching from the upstairs to the dungeon, I was unable to find any in the house. So the quest started. I needed to find some model cement so I could put the newly purchased gas station together.


When I was growing up, I put a lot of plastic models together. They ranged from cars, airplanes, old galleon ships, to the starship Enterprise. Well, Ok, some of them may not of been childhood endeavors, but I was raised loving model building. I remember being able to go to the local grocery store and being able to buy model kits, paints and glue. Having remembered my childhood, I started looking for the model cement. I went to two different craft stores. Both of them told me that they no longer carry model building supplies or kits. I then went to Target and Walmart and found the same thing. The only place I could find that had model cement was the local Hobby store. Lucky for me, there are two of them in the Orem area. And to my surprise I found out that there is a new type of glue, because kids started huffing the old type. But lucky for me the store still carries the old type as well as the new type. So I purchased a new tube, of the old cement I remember, for $1.99 including tax.

I then put the Exxon gas station together and it is now ready for me to dub the first building in Blue Sulfur Springs. I also now have the glue needed to build the sawmill and the other small town buildings as I get them.

I then started thinking. Why was it so hard for me to find model glue, when 30 years ago it was in every grocery store. What has changed over the last 30 years to make the demand go down for model kits and building supplies?

I think that the lack of model supplies and kits shows a trend that our society is moving towards. Instead of the younger generation spending time building things, they are spending their time destroying things in a virtual world. If you were to ask a pre-teen boy now days what he likes to do with his spare time, what would his answer be? Would he want to build things with Legos, or put a model together? I think that he would prefer to play Modern Warfare, Assassins Creed or World of Warcraft and see how l33t he is and who he can pown. Our younger generation has turned into a generation of destroyers instead of builders. This mentality is especially evident by something that my 6 year old told me the other day. One of the neighborhood boys her age is now saying that he wants to grow up to be an assassin. He does not want to be a doctor, policeman, or the common my generation answers, but wants to be like the popular video game Assassins Creed. A video game that makes being an assassin a good thing, because they have a code of ethics or a creed they have to follow. Instead of saving lives and building society better, his dream is to become a l33t assassin. What does that have to say about our society?

Last night I was talking to some of our neighbors after the kids were pretending to be in bed. One of these neighbors is an educator for 26 years (I think that is how long). I asked her if she had seen a change in the mentality of kids over the last 26 years. She told me that over the last 26 years she has seen them go from being able to think and build things, to a generation that relies on their parents to build and think for them. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of very bright kids that still come up with innovative ideas and solutions to problems, but I would say the majority of them now have the mentality of just letting others supply them with what they need.

As a parent, our goal is to help our children go from a state of complete dependence to a state of independence. In previous generations the age that children achieved independence was at a very young age. At the age of 14 a girl could run a house hold, and a boy had started his training in a trade or vocation. A perfect example is George Washington. At age 17 George Washington was commissioned as the first Surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. At the age of 20, he was appointed as a Major in the Virginia militia. At 21, he was a Master mason in the Freemasons. The rest is history.

Instead of our society being a society of adults, that are independent, we are becoming a society of children that are completely dependent on others. Instead of hearing people say they can do things, we now hear people say that it is too hard for them to do it. Instead of a society that pulls themselves up with their boot straps, they want others to gently help them keep the status quo.  How many times have you heard of people not doing things because it would be to hard?  Getting an education is to hard.   Working for things before we by them is to hard.  The list goes on.

Ask yourself who should be responsible for the following for myself and my family?

Education
Food
Security
Health Care
Wealth

If you were to ask your grandparents or great-grandparents, they would ultimately tell you that THEY were responsible for these things. Ask someone of the upcoming generation and they would tell you the GOVERNEMNT, or someone else is responsible. There is no personal responsibility in the raising generation.

By the time we start actually raising adults and bringing society back to a level where people are responsible to themselves there will be such a debt burden on that generation that they will be under the yoke of it for generations to come.

It is time that Americans stop relying on others, and become more independent and responsible for their own actions and for their own futures. DON’T RELY ON SOMEONE ELSE TO MAKE YOUR FUTURE FOR YOU!

Just my two cents.

BTW, if you want to see the progress of my N Scale model train set, you can go to http://rwrailroad.blogspot.com/, it even has a 24/7 webcam. You can watch the city and land scape develop over time.