Past to Present: A Stitch in Time

By Joan Davis

This is a book that must be read by everyone. The young and the old. Parents, Preachers and teachers. It explains how and why the lives of our youths has changed so dramatically. The change in their way of dressing, the change in their behavior, their character, and their lack of concern for their education. The fact that making a dollar selling drugs, joining a gang, or committing murder means more to them than self respect, or respecting their parents, or any other adult.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449072094

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

A Change in Time

Chapter 2

Child Abuse Law

Chapter 3

Television and Youth

Chapter 4

Children of the Night

Chapter 5

Caught up

Chapter 6

The Addiction

Chapter 7

Past to Present

The Barn

Chapter 8

The Transition

Chapter 9

Past to Present

A New Beginning

Summary

Part 2.

My Poetry

Serenity

Fear

No More Tears

Yesterday

Alone in the world

Don’t Moan For Me

I’m Just a Dealer

The Kingpin of Drugs

(Crack Cocaine)

About the author

Foreword

The stories in this book are only a few of my expressions and experiences, presented to anyone who has ever fallen prey to an addiction, whether it’s food, drugs, alcohol, or any stimulant in life that has become a source of control. Obstacles appears in our lives every day. With that we need to look deep within ourselves to find the willpower needed to deal with our dilemmas. The virtue is not always in the winning; it in the trying. If at first you don’t succeed, you try and try again. Getting up is the flip side of falling down. After getting up, you should analyze your thoughts without mind-altering substances, and you will see life more clearly, and the world will look much brighter. I should know, because the world is still getting brighter for me eleven years later.

Joan J. Davis

Chapter 1

A Change in Time

YEARS HAVE GONE BY, AND a lot of time has passed since the summer of 1960, a time when things were simple and living was easy. The large Cokes were fifteen cents, a large Baby Ruth candy bar was ten cents, and butter cookies were two for a penny. Those really were the good old days.

Back then parents never had to worry when their children went outside to play with other children, because there was always at least one parent watching to make sure they stayed out of trouble, and if they didn’t behave, they would get a spanking and be sent home. Parents had that right back then, but not today, in these times with today’s children. (Try spanking someone else’s child today, and see what happens!) It’s not clear how our parents got the news of our misbehaving so quickly, but they did. They must have communicated by drums, because we did not have telephones or cell phones back then. I remember just moments after getting home, we got spanked again. We were children; therefore we stayed in a child’s place. We never got angry or talked back to the other parents.

Our town was such a safe little town to grow up in. As children, we liked playing outside after dark, and our parents were never afraid for us. Our mothers sat on the porch and did whatever it was that mothers did to pass the time. And they would let us play until we were tired. They would then bathe us and put us to bed. Oftentimes the doors were even left unlocked, and we still felt safe.

Children who grew up in the sixties were taught to have respect for their elders. We knew when to say yes, ma’am and yes, sir, and talking back was nothing a child would do back then. We were too afraid of our parents; if you did talk back, you would get slapped in the mouth.

Growing up with other children was fun, but you didn’t always agree on things, which would sometimes lead to fights. The fights were fair fights, and there were never any knives or guns carried at home or to school. When a fight was over, the principal would call the parent to take the child home for the rest of the day. It was never a call to tell a parent that his child was dead or in the hospital, which is what happens at most schools today.

The sixties was an era to grow up naturally, to be nurtured, and to be a child for as long as you wanted to. It was not a time for growing up too fast. It was a time to enjoy each phase in your life. It was a time for the group called the Beatles, the Volkswagen Beetle, and the song Mustang Sally. It was a time when school dances ended at nine and we had to be home by ten. I remember going to a school dance, and there was this thing my father would do, especially if I was going with a boy. He would give me a dollar and a dime, and he would say, The dollar is to get in the dance, and the dime is to call me if he can’t bring you back home. It was embarrassing, but it showed me my dad wanted me to be safe.

I remember when it was safe to walk to the corner store any time of the night without being mugged, beaten up, or killed for a measly twenty or thirty dollars. It was also a much safer time to work in the 7-Eleven stores and not have some young boys come in and rob the store, and after getting the money, shoot the clerk, just for the joy of it. I don’t remember that ever happening in the sixties, but it has happened since then, more times than I care to comment about.

I’ve always been told that time changes all things, but it was never said how drastic things would change. The young people are so disrespectful, not only to older people, but to their peers as well. It takes very little to set things off, and there they are shooting, crippling, and maiming each other.

I’m not quite sure when the fun stopped and the fudging started with our young people, but I believe it was sometime around the 1980s, right about the time drugs started to become popular with the younger crowd. The idea of going to a basketball or a football game for some children was like walking into a land of uncertainty, not knowing what to expect—not knowing if you would leave there dead or alive. That’s because some boys for one reason or another would have a shootout and end up hurting an innocent bystander. When it was all over, the paper would state that it was drug related.

Some parents have gotten so tired of what’s happening at the schools that they’ve taken their children out of public school, especially since the shooting at Columbine High School. It seems to have started a trend, because shortly after that, there was one school shooting after another, and more children lost their lives. It’s not just the shootings at the high schools; there are children bringing knives to middle schools and elementary schools. I don’t know what has happened to our younger generation, or even if there’s any help for them. The very thought of more drugs, more violence, and more children killing children makes the world a very sad place to live in. I guess the only real thing left to do is to pray. Maybe God can stop the violence. I cannot help but wonder if prayers will be enough, because there are some children who are destined for trouble; they look for it, and sometimes they find it waiting for them, and it stops them in their tracks.

Many things have changed here in our town. The laws are stiffer, the roads have gotten wider, the hospital has grown to a beautiful medical center. They’ve even built a new prison. Where there were only one or two funeral homes, now there’s at least a dozen. All of these improvements are to accommodate all the increase in violence. There used to be an occasional sound of sirens in the air, perhaps on a Friday or Saturday night, but lately a siren can be heard every five or ten minutes. Those aren’t false alarms; things are really happening that often. I can remember when gunshots were heard mostly at New Year’s Eve or the Fourth of July, but today is different: you awake to the sound of bullets riddling the night and wonder if a bullet will come through your window, or you hope that your child or another loved one is not a victim of gunfire.

All the violence that’s happening today is not just among children; it’s also grown folks killing each other. A husband killed his wife because she left him, or a man killed his girlfriend because she wanted to quit the relationship and then turned the gun on himself. And let’s not forget the man that killed his entire family because he didn’t want to live anymore. Yes! Sumter has definitely changed. There are more drugs being sold on the streets and more dealers to watch out for. And the chance of being robbed has increased 100 percent. Children are dropping out of school more every day just to sell drugs. Education is not as important to them as it is to make a quick sale for that quick dollar.

There has been some form of drugs as far back as I can remember. There was alcohol, marijuana, and even cocaine, but nothing has turned the world upside down as much as crack cocaine. What is it about this drug that has caused so much turmoil, not only here in Sumter, but all over the world? It has caused families to turn on each other and steal from one another. Children have killed their parents for money just to get this drug. There are girls and women doing whatever they have to, to gain access to crack cocaine. I’m not just whistling Dixie; these are facts that I got from actual drug dealers that I’ve interviewed.

They said that it’s a money/power thing that keeps them in control, and if they ever got busted, they would start all over again, doing the same thing, because that’s what they like doing. They also said that it was "like a rush high, just watching all the people buying this dope; it’s like the Wizard of Oz with everybody coming and going,