Miss Lettie has something to say to the young ones.
Honey, the world your parents knew, the one I knew, that's a ghost.
But that does not mean everything is lost.
It just means the soil is ripe for replanting.
And right now, it is your turn to decide what grows.
I see so many of you stepping back from the grand scale life being sold to you. You are not lazy. You are rowing a boat that is badly out of alignment.
Here is what I would tell my own grandkids:
Start simple. Put the phones down. Gather a few good friends for a potluck and a game night. Cards, DND, board games, whatever you all do these days, just make it analog. Make it a weekly tradition. Use that time to really talk. Discuss each other's strengths and weaknesses. Be honest.
Remember: one can put a thousand to flight, but two can put ten thousand.
You are going to need a tribe with different gifts.
A natural mediator. Disputes happen, and that's good. Middle ground is sturdy and you should work towards that.
Someone willing to get into local politics, not aiming for Congress, but starting at the school board, city council, or even dog catcher level. Learn the rules so you can help shape them.
A numbers person who is naturally frugal, the one who will guard the group's money like it is their own.
Someone who understands insurance and co-ops, because co-ops are not just for food, ya know.
The tinkerer who can fix cars, analog ones preferably, not those new chip-filled contraptions. Never throw away an old washer or dryer, all of them can be fixed.
And yes, someone who knows about environmental cleanup and brownfields, because one day your group is going to look at an old factory in a small town and see possibility. It will need cleaning up.
Start learning now.
Pool resources. Share an apartment or house. Split the bills. Keep the potlucks and game nights going as your weekly strategy sessions.
As your group grows, you can do more. Five people with an insurance co-op cannot fix a roof. But a small town can. Go Amish with it. Every weekend after a storm, roofs get replaced. And that car wreck? Well, Tim does not drive so great, so maybe we only get him an old beater and we all chip in.
Today's system is not working for you. You know it. I know it. But nothing is stopping you from building your own.
All those small towns that got left behind over the last hundred years?
They are waiting.
That old dream of living on a street where your kids grow up alongside their friends, riding bikes, making traditions, building stories together? That dream never died. It has just been dormant.
It is called having a tribe. And a tribe is simply people who choose to build a life together.
If you do not get out of your room right now and start gathering yours, you are going to end up broke and alone instead of living in a community with traditions and stories and younguns of your own riding their bikes up and down the street.
Get to it.
Get a more detail version here. Or read it in "gamer" there.
The Archivist of Bayou Elsewhere
The Archivist of Bayou Elsewhere
