Well, Marie, since we've lived here, for almost three years, we've seen more and more of this city going to the Millennials. Before the Pandemic hit, we stopped at a local McDonalds where a group of Seniors was drinking coffee. The subject of how this city has changed came up and wife and I got a mouthful of "disgust" from these "long-time living here" Seniors about what has happened to their "use to be" descent city. I actually heard one Senior lady say, "Los Angeles type kids have taken over and it's almost unbearable to live here now".
I had no trouble joining the VFW, just showed my DD 214 and everything was fine. I only joined because they had the best restaurant in the little village in which I lived. I no longer belong to any clubs or organizations, don't worry about fitting in, and people can take me as I am or leave me alone, as they wish. My wife, however, is a big socializer and I get many associations through her. Most of the people I associate with are the spouses of her friends.
Cody I know it is happening everywhere and thanks to WOKE fools it will only get worse so guess we will roll with the flow. Guess they don't mind seeing their kids shot, or imprisoned. Use to be where you could run to the woods to avoid the crime and decadence but I think what your saying is tolerate what should be tolerated and try to fight what is intolerable?
I joined the Lion's Club while I was in Los Fresnos because I needed to network with people who could help raise funds for the EMS Service that I was the director of but, to be honest, I had a hard time staying awake during meetings. I liked their fundraisers more than I did the meetings.
We joined the lions Club down here and they wanted to put us to work but we were too busy for another job. I'd rather pay higher membership fees than work for them. We did enjoy the social get togethers at the club though, we didn't get involved just being around people was fun and hubby got to play music.
Reading the posts reminded of me of the town / city I was born/ raised in about fitting in It had a population of around 40.000 due to being a mining town where mainly sliver lead and zinc was mined for goodness knows how many years. The population has now dropped to about 15.000 due to all the mines closing about 20 years ago. The town is very isolated with the closest large city being 500 kms away which Adelaide SA . There is another area in Victoria about 300 km away with scattered towns / areas but that’s it . In its hey day BH would reluctantly welcome newbies to work in the mines , however once they had sufficient work force for the mines no way could you get a job in-the town unless you were born there, married women were NOT permitted to work and any work you secured needed a union card to start work. when I first started work in about 1960 I had to produce a birth certificate to prove I was born there ..it was then I found out my “father’ wasn’t my father at all he was my stepfather cause of my last name on the exact birth certificate I still have ( it’s looking fairy yellow now days) My family on my mothers side worked the copper mines where I live in SA and moved to where I was raised when the work ran out here, as did hundreds of others seeking work to support their families . When many in my age group started dating you had to be carful you wasn’t dating someone related to you
My mother had a similar experience, but was never specific as to what the issue was. She was born around 1925, and when she passed and we were going through the usual documents, we came across two different odd-style birth certificates (almost looked like waxy prints from microfiche.) I'm living in the heart of the first colony (Virginia), and most folks around here know that if they go back far enough, they are likely related in one way or another (despite obvious physical dissimilarities), regardless of what the documents may say. For the most part, in this community it draws them together...and it goes back far enough that there's no real concern over being too closely related at this point. (I once read that geneticists determined that there is enough genetic diversity between 1st cousins that there is no concern.) But with the out-of-wedlock birth rate and the lack of mobility in some communities in the states, this is becoming an ever-growing concern these days...and folks don't always have the means to find out the facts. Nor is it talked about much.
My family are Cornish/ Irish way way back according to my DNA however my fathers mother came from Germany I barely knew my fathers family so was surprised when German ancestry showed up in my DNA so I dug deeper and found grandparents details as well as my fathers date of birth / place ect , he died at 42 from being shot / killed I met him 6 moths before his death . He was 19 when I was born, however my mother and father were married when he was 17 mother 20
So tragic about your father. Mine left (but there was no divorce) around 1966 or so, and he died in 1975 at the age of 55. We may have had this conversation before. My mother was 100% English. My father's parents were German immigrants. My roots here are shallow. I joined a church whose congregation began in the 1700s. Patrick Henry signed the founder's license to perform marriages. We would have Homecoming attended by the founder's descendants, who traced their lineage back to the 1600s. I never met any of my grandparents, so it was fascinating to be around these people. (This is not unusual here for folks to trace their ancestry back to the nation's founding.) Sadly, when the matriarch of the family died, the glue that held them together no longer existed, so their attendance after that was sparse.