Now and Then

by Jean Martin

We were enjoying ourselves the other night at a festive gathering when the conversation turned to the question of what on earth would make parents afraid to let their children listen to a short talk about the value of staying in school, a talk delivered by the President of the United States, no less. The fear, as we understand it, is that these innocent children will be brainwashed into believing . . . something.

Now you will remember that these are the same children who will come home after the first day of school minus their jackets, after riding around the county because they missed their bus stop. The ones who will have absolutely no recollection of what the teacher said they needed to do with that paper in the backpack. Yet somehow they will have absorbed every word uttered by the President. And this will presumably render them incapable of independent thought from that day forward.

“Is this some new kind of crazy?” asked a young mother.

Well, no dear, it’s not. Those of us who are blessed, or cursed, with many years and long memories know better.

There was once in St. Johns a prominent businessman who — I am not making this up — would not accept dimes in change because the dimes bore the image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Really.

You remember FDR, don’t you? The president who said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?

This is not a new kind of crazy. It’s just the same old crazy we hoped might have disappeared forever.