A.G.-
We are both blessed to have sensible wives.
The tradition of lamenting the devolution of subsequent generations continues. Whether it is the young family next door enjoying their expensive new patio with loud music from early morning daily to as late as midnight on the now more frequent party nights, or the members at the club who are "working from home" during the pandemic and can't seem to find their ball marks or sand their divots (thank God or the government that not raking bunkers is the socially conscious thing, because they only minded taking care of the course casually when it was expected etiquette), it would seem that things are going to hell in a handbasket.
But in reality we- our generation- are achieving what we set out to do back in our days, the 60s and 70s. We wanted to "do our thing", "make love not war", "if it feels good, do it", "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with", or, in summary, the belief that tradition, convention, rules, etc. are for suckers, in effect, "rules for dummies".
Somehow we forgot to set aside childish things when we became adults, temper our idealism with learning and understanding borne by experience. We resented our parents for what we deemed as strict midnight curfews, expecting us to go to school and study (and for some of us to work while doing so), for keeping our hair somewhat short and minding our personal hygiene.
We tried to become friends to our kids at the expense of parenting, attempted to give them everything we thought we were denied growing up, and now we wonder why our Millie kids behave in such irresponsible ways. Perhaps they paid close attention and, not falling far from the tree, are now giving us an un-welcomed reflection of ourselves.
Though I am prone to the "glass is half-empty" POV, I am choosing to look past the current messes (none of which are particularly unique). In one of his less partisan commentaries, Dick Daley noted that our highly imperfect political system is self-correcting, the pendulum swinging too far to one side eventually swinging back. I suspect that following the election, concerns about C-19, racial and economic equality, diversity and immigration, security, etc. will return to more normal levels.
In the meantime, my travel will be limited, social distancing will continue, neighbors tolerated, personal attention to course maintenance (sanding, fixing ball marks, picking up trash) doubled, and my visceral reaction to inane political commentary suppressed as much as possible. We are blessed to live in such interesting times. Hopefully we can look a bit more introspectively, conquer our own biases, and perhaps learn a bit from them.