Once upon a time, we felt safe living here in the good old US of A.
Youngsters under the age of 50 find it difficult to believe that not so long ago  –  the late 50s and early 60s to be exact – you could leave your home unlocked for an indefinite period of time and return with everything in tact. They also believe it is a make believe story that you could leave the keys in your car overnight and it would still be in your driveway the next morning.
I know this to be true because I lived it.
The front door on the home I grew up in did not have a lock on it that worked until I was well into high school, maybe college. My dad would put a chair in front of it at night just in case a high wind or storm passed through during the night that might blow it open. He eventually installed a latch lock.
The backdoor screen had a hook latch. Any stick or pencil could easily flip it up if you accidentally “locked” yourself out.  The backdoor opened with what we called a “skeleton” key. They were a universal lock and would fit almost any back door in the neighborhood.  They also could be bought at any  “dime store”  if you lost your key.
Sounds like a thief’s paradise doesn’t it?
When I was growing up crime was something we read about in the Memphis newspapers or watched on the evening news.  A lawn mower theft was front-page news in the “Mayberry Days.”
I never thought I would live to see the day that crime was almost as rampant in a little village like Helena as it is in a city like Memphis.  Oh sure there’s more of it in the “Bluff City” because there are more people. But the crime rate in a town of less than 15,000 is ridiculously high.
The crime and safety problem is not confined to Helena and Phillips County. It has become a nationwide epidemic. We now live in the generation of don’t trust anyone, not even your neighbor. What a shame.
Today’s young people will never know what they missed. They missed the joy of being able to play outside in their own yard without the fear of sex predators.  They will never know the joy of visiting a neighbor’s home unannounced. Most of all they will never understand the true meaning of trust.
Even to a six-year-old boy a Western story of bad hombres taking over an entire town was fiction. With all of the “good guys” galore surely nothing like that could possibly happen. Fiction suddenly became a harsh reality on Sept. 11, 2001. When those Twin Towers fell it almost seems that America began to bend at the knees,
Suddenly, we were looking over our shoulder and worrying about when the next attack might come.
The latest salmonella outbreak also shows that we are suddenly very vulnerable from within. It is beyond my grasp to imagine that a company seeking to make a profit would actually release known contaminated food into this country’s food supply.
Somewhere along the line we seemed to have lost the worth of the individual. It is a pity.
I know that we cannot bring back the “good old days” and in many respects I would not want to return. However, if we do not bring back the basic values that made those days so good, Helena, Phillips County, Arkansas or America will never be able to right the ship.