From where I'm sitting up here I can see jetplanes and turboprops coming in for a landing overhead. Looking left there is a neighborhood park, with fruit trees branching out and tufts of un-mowed, dew-shot silver grass. Further down the hill a freeway runs through the valley, with a hundred cars going east or west every minute of every day.
I wonder if our grandchildren, when they've maybe had a taste of adulthood themselves, will even believe us about this kind of thing. Could we all afford to fly coast-to-coast for any reason, or no reason at all? Did we have so many resources to waste that we could build something like Las Vegas, with its manufactured tropical groves and vast fountains evaporating in the desert sun? Why did the government let everybody drive their own car, when that is so amazingly dangerous and wasteful? If they ask me, I'm sure my answer will be one more tedious story about how we all lived like kings at the turn of the century, and their young eyes will glaze over as young eyes tend to do...
They say that the coming generation will be the ever to have worse chances at prosperity than their parents. They say we had better start saving while there's something to save, 'cause our petty recessions haven't taught us the first thing about the meaning of the word lean. Deny it if you want (and I hope that you are right), but we've got the view from the top, kicking back in the penthouse suite of Western civilization. They say it's all downhill from here.
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