Another story from the rural areas

       Recently a young man, in his twenties, visited with me, in my sixties.

            This post is just a report of what he said.

            He still honors his grandfather, his mother's father, as best he can, and he does well at that, in my opinion as I listened. I honor his grandfather, too, in my own way, of course. His grandfather died about five years ago, by the way.

            He more than ever thinks harder times are coming. By that I think I heard ideas like being cold and hungry in the cold season, and warm and hungry in the warm season. None of this is rocket science. Others before have gone through this process before WWI and WWII, for example.

            The common point I listened to was being hungry.

            Now for me where I live in rural east Tennessee, I have enough land and seeds to probably survive, or so I hope. As for this young person, maybe not, like trust, faith, and confidence is lacking for him right now. He sounded adrift.

            And in reading the tea leaves, I can guess we will have a couple of growing seasons that will be pretty tough, or so I think. That idea includes protecting what we have. Thank goodness for all my training I have had in my past. That includes Scout training and military training. And I think of myself as a crummy gardener, but I can do it if I have to.

            So back to this young man.

            The obvious answer is leadership.

            And that is a big word, too. But to make it sound simple, just be yourself; hard, cold, and realistic, if need be. Even answer questions with questions, an obvious technique. And let nature sort it out. Said another way, use your brains, and education, to the best of your ability.

            Along the way ideas like morals, and standards, and oaths, count, too, like a lot. Heck even all of us can put on more clothes if we get cold. And so I preached to this young man, in my own way, of course. Again, mostly I think I listened.

            At least that is what I tried to do with this young man, like mention these ideas. After all, the future is our young, not our old, like me.