Educating the young on May Day

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

Yes, I know I am nearly 76 years old and of the “get off my grass” age. But somehow, we have got to get across to the younger generations that work is honorable.  

On a recent visit to my daughter’s family in Golden, Colorado, my oldest grandson (age 17) was telling me he was looking forward to the day when the government gives everyone a minimum salary.  

I didn’t know where to start to explain to him this is not going to work. It doesn’t help that his parents are at least mildly socialists.

In three generations, the Thompsons have been lifted from poverty by capitalism. My dad started working in coal mines when he was 12. My mother graduated from high school and got a job in a shoe factory in Portsmouth at 10 cents an hour in 1933. They did OK. 

I’ve done OK. I was the first grandchild of my Grandmother Thompson to graduate from college. My daughter had done OK. She got her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Texas. We got here via capitalism.

Now her son wants to slack off. He is plenty smart enough and is getting ready to apply to college. He’s thinking about Colorado Mesa in Grand Junction.   

But all things considered, he would rather be fishing. And he doesn’t even clean and eat them. He is a catch-and- release sort of guy. He has done pretty well playing basketball in high school and he is tall enough, but he told me that there would be too much work in college if he tried out for basketball.

Then, yesterday, May 1, we have had a ton of his peers and older people all around the country taking the day off.  

For a 100 years, May 1 has been the international holiday of socialists and communists. We have newly minted socialists’ mayors in Seattle and New York City. I am sure they will continue to drive these cities into the ground. Portland, Oregon has already suffered this fate.  

In the 1990s when I visited Portland, I would have called it “park-like.” Visiting it two or three years ago, I would characterize it as a dump lacking only EPA safeguards to ensure its drainage doesn’t leach into the soil. In other words, a dump out of regulatory compliance.

Then there is the woke crowd. They haven’t gone away yet. Ann Arbor, Michigan has just announced they are going to remove their 500-plus “Neighborhood Watch” signs. They want to be more inclusive.  

Inclusive of what? Burglars?

But the government is going to get the last laugh on this one. The government will soon have enough cameras and AI that we won’t be able to do anything without government monitoring.  

Welcome to 1984. 

Get off my grass.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.