When I was young, I was free

by Welda Mckinley Grider

Sit next to me grandchild, while no one is listening, and let me tell you about America and when I was young and we were free.

We could speak freely in those days, before we said speech should be censored in the name of Allah.

We could speak against the government in town meetings before we allowed the leaders their agendas that no longer allowed public input in the land of soon-not-to-be-free.

We had the Constitution that protected us from the government, but that was before we asked the government to protect us from each other, to protect us from ourselves and then we gave animals the right to be protected from us.

With all that protection, we found we were protected from everything but the government. Then we were no longer free.

We threw out "all men are created equal" and instead the Senators made laws that did not pertain to them in this land of soon to be not free.

Those roads that you ask me about? The ones we call the King's High-way?

Those were highways and you could go anywhere you pleased in the days before we had "corridors" to keep track of, first the wildlife, and then the people.

Now we must ask the government to travel in the name of Homeland Security.

We used to have National Parks where you could come and see the wildlife ... ah yes, in the time of the free.

Now they are "wilderness areas" and "wildlife habitat" and only the government can enjoy what we used to call God's Creation, and now we call Mother Earth.

Yes, we all had automobiles to travel the highways. When I was young, and when I was free, you could buy automobiles.

Now Al Gore and the environmentalists in the government are the only ones who are allowed to travel in automobiles.

You can easily control the people if they are not allowed to travel, so we learned when we were no longer free.

When I was young and free, I lived in a house on the hill.

In those days you could work for your living. You owned that house, but now only those who work for the government can live in houses outside the corridors.

The government in the name of the "public" now owns all the land and all the houses.

It was our fault; in the name of "zoning" and "smart growth," we said we have the right limit your ownership in the land of the free.

The "rights of the public" became more important than the "right of the individual" and the land of the free became not-so-free.

When we allowed the government to rewrite history, and we deemed the holocaust untrue, then we could believe those who disappeared were just relocated.

Tomorrow, child, I go on that "Old Folks Trip" that all of us do.

The IRS will come in the name of Health Care and take me to a "better place."

We used to have guns, child, back in the day. Be-fore we believed a country with no guns was a safer place to be.

I still have mine that escaped notice. Tomorrow when they come to take me on my last ride, they will have a surprise.

We let the country become not-so-free for the good of you and me but this old woman will go will go on to Glory where God resides and the hell with Allah and land that is no longer free.

Welda McKinley Grider is native to and ranches in Lincoln County.