Thank You, Heene Family, for Taking Me in Your Flying Saucer, Back to the Good Old America of Hobbyists

As Heene family's silvery flying saucer glided through the skies above the hills and valleys of Colorado, I was, at least for some moments, transported to a not so distant part of our history. A land of hobbies and hobbyists.

Of course, I couldn't linger much in those beautiful memories because as a father myself, I was constantly being reminded about the missing little boy.

Those days, almost every family in USA had a hobby or research project.

And this was fueled by such magazines as Popular Mechanics and later Popular Electronics.

Not to speak of such stores like Radio Shack which catered exclusively to hobbyists.

No, not the Radio Shack of today that had to change with the times to keep itself afloat. Most of their hobby racks are gone because people's times are hijacked by the idiot box.

At that time Radio Shack was still a family concern operating out of New England.

One of my friends from Far East told me how he was shocked to see an old Radio Shack catalog in the attic as his family were demolishing their ancestral home.
It belonged to one of his uncles who in his younger days assembled a valve radio using Radio Shack parts.

He wondered how his uncle contacted Radio Shack over thousands of miles of oceans, first for the catalog and then for the parts. Those days it took weeks and even months for the mail to arrive in his land by ship from far away USA.

As Heene family's flying saucer soared into the skies and made those maneuvers, I too longed for those halcyon days, NOT disturbed and NOT vitiated by the present day media and their reality show hoopla.

Parents and children engaged in their pursuit of knowledge, with justifiable pride. Almost every American family had something to engage in, so the jealousy factor was not there. Nobody felt threatened by somebody else's projects or success.

Nobody needed to play a loser and had no time for it. The nation was progressing at a fast pace due to the innovative attitude of its people.

Everybody waited for their copy of Popular Mechanics to arrive, genuinely thirsting for knowledge and to embark on their next project. No, it had nothing to do with the gossipy business of broadcast media. It was pure unadulterated family happiness and togetherness.

It was the genuine motivation typical of a nation that thirsted for more and more knowledge and more and more innovations. It had no time for jealousy or hate.

And there was no broadcast media to pervert a family's genuine daily pursuits with phony reality show offers that stole the kids' childhood to make millions for the media moguls.

Unfortunately, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese and that threw us into a muddle from which we have not yet fully recovered.

The USA that returned from the world wars was one infested with jealousy, hate, suspicion and anti-family ideas.

Bankers who wanted to make fast money out of educational loans made sure that we won't live as families, because nobody would have taken their loans. Even when taken family would have returned the loans earlier much to the chagrin of the bankers.

Professionals who took those loans also made sure that our families will be broken up, so that they can pay up those loans.

I have no guilt or shame in saying sometimes,

"I wish Japanese never attacked Pearl Harbor."

Any way, history cannot be changed and has to be accepted. But that doesn't mean that we continue the mistakes imposed on us by history.

Once again, from the bottom of my hearts,

"Thank you, Heene family, for taking me back to those good old days!"