Letter to the editor

We are constantly being advised not to look back, not to look behind us and always look forward. We are told that it's the future that counts and the past is history, so forget about it and surge forward in pursuit of our dreams and our fortunes. Well, I'd like to call a time out here and reflect for a moment on a time, brief though it was, when the American dream was a reality for more people than it is to-day. I'm referring to the period immediately following the end of the second world war when hundreds of thousands of young American veterans were returning to civilian life and trying to jump start a new life. It took a while for them to find jobs, places to live and get ready to raise families. For those of us who quit school to enlist in the military, there was the GI bill which was a government sponsored program that allowed us to go back and finish school and even to progress to a higher lever of learning if we were qualified, at no cost to us. Affordable housing was made available to most of us where the monthly mortgage on a basic two bedroom house
seldom exceeded the amount of one week's pay. I bought a three bedroom ranch style home with monthly payments of less than one hundred dollars. All I needed was a $500.00 down payment and even that was not always required. Of course, having a job was a necessity, but again, government aid was available to veterans in adding income to low paying jobs to allow them to qualify for basic homes. It was a good time for young Americans, the hot war was over and the cold war had not yet begun. America had emerged from the war as a super power and was about to dazzle the world with its
resolve and determination to be the greatest and freeist nation on the planet. Yes, it was a heady time for me and others like me and though we didn't have the technology we have to-day, such as television, the internet, and other gadgets of mental mass destruction, we were blessed to have lived back then, in that great time gone by.

George Morin
Auburn, Ga.