Little House In The Suburbs

Articles

Michael F Russell

Little House In The Suburbs
Oct 18, 2003

What has happened to the American Spirit of adventure? A little more than a century ago we were heading west in wagon trains braving unknown elements such as hostile indians, ruthless gunmen, disease, starvation, and no decent toilet paper.

Now it’s the Chinese who are taking steps to explore space while we sue McDonalds for making us fat, sue airlines for making us unsafe, and sue our own parents for making us bad people.

Can you imagine if litigation lawyers were as predominant back then? We would have never have traveled farther than three miles past Plymouth Rock for fear that we might be held libel for the safety of others against native indians, snakes or even really sharp sticks.

We (Americans) used to be the front-runners on everything from cars, rockets, inventions, sports, to beer. Now, we sit back on our super sized behinds and watch the rest of the world go by on our flat screen TVs’ viewing it on five hundred plus channels.

When we fought a war the rest of the world was either with us (or shaking in their shoes) against us. Now we have countries like France berate us for every foreign policy decision we make while any mistake we might make is televised over the world on any channel you might want. (For a country that is centuries old they sure have a difficult time remembering things that just occurred over sixty years ago!)

Which brings me to my main point. My wife and I have just purchased a house in the country.

That’s right

. The country.

We are talking about outdoors stuff here. Stars at night, the solitary howl of a wolf or a bear. Bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. Oh, and dirt. Plenty of that as well. We are talking so isolated here that we don’t even have cable. That’s right. The Russell Family is going to rough it. Oh sure, we might have a satellite dish but just to make it rural, I’ll put in lots of static and maybe a set of rabbit ears on top of the set with some foil around it just to complete the picture.

And distances. Did I mention that the nearest grocery store is almost three miles away? The nearest ATM almost two miles away? And worse yet, the video rental place is a mind staggering three point five miles away.

We are talking ‘covered wagon’ time here people. I just can’t imagine what it was like when the pioneers had to travel miles and miles on horseback or in wagons just to find an ATM. (With the rate of inflation, I wonder if they complained about the one-cent charge that the bank would make just to withdraw funds?)

Ok, so we’re not exactly the type to head west in a covered wagon with me chewing dried horsemeat and yelling at a bunch of mules pulling a wagon with my family in the back.

First off, without air conditioning we would probably not have made it more than a couple of miles before our ‘Donner Party’ went looking for a Ramada. (By the way, where IS the cigarette lighter in a covered wagon anyway? How could we plug in our TV?)

But that does not stop me from admiring the men and women who did travel west. Who did settle this country and make it their own. We take so much for granted. And rarely ever think about the work that went into what we all assume was there without even thinking about the work that went into it.

All the conveniences that earlier generations didn’t even have, we now complain about.

“My microwave is too slow.”

“Dad, when are we going to get a riding lawnmower?”

“What do you mean I can’t have a DVD player in my room?”

“My TV only gets fifty-seven million channels.”

“My flying car doesn’t fly fast enough.”

I like to think that our inventive, hard-spun spirit of adventure is still with us. It’s just buried under several pounds of McDonalds fries and milkshakes. The events of 9/11 and all subsequent events showed us that when the going gets tough, we, as Americans could still get tougher.

I just wish that these things didn’t have to happen to remind ourselves that we are those sons and daughters of the pioneers.

Maybe if we got tougher first, the ‘going’ would be easier.

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About the author: Mike Russell is a Ninja/fighter pilot/ astronaut with x-ray vision who likes to make up stuff about the author when his wife isn’t looking. Email Michael F Russell: mikerussellus@yahoo.com

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