I remember this conversation because we didn't often talk of such deep subjects.

She was disillusioned by all the crime, drugs, problems with children and so on that we seem to be facing in today's world. She said that she thought that if things didn't change, our society would collapse from all of the corruption and lack of moral concern of our citizens.

I guess I was a little surprised by her statements and then I realized that she was too young to remember the society we had when I grew up in America.

I told her that our society had already collapsed and that we were in the period of time following the collapse of the American society.

I can remember when if you lived in California and there was a murder in New York, it was front page news even out here in California. We now have about 25,000 murders a year.

You could leave your keys in the car when you went into the store and the car would actually be there when you came back out, even if you were gone all afternoon.

You could go on vacation and never lock up your house. You didn't lock up your house because one of your neighbors might need something before you got back.

When a Hobo came up to the door looking for food, you could invite him in for a meal and when he left you were still alive and not molested in anyway.

You could walk down the street and no one would come up and demand money from you or threaten you.

You could go for a walk anywhere at anytime of the day or night.

When you were a kid and did something wrong you knew that your neighbors would tell your Mom and Dad and they would believe the neighbor over you. Yep, that's right, we had both Moms and Dads living in the same house and actually liking it. Dad made the money and Mom raised the kids. The kids actually didn't even kill each other, take drugs, run away or any other abnormal behavior that you see today.

Girls didn't kiss on the first date and they actually stayed pure until they were married. We didn't have them running out and killing their babies, getting aids or any other diseases. 

As an adult you could even talk to one of these young people without it becoming a shouting match or being treated like you were an old fool that didn't know what he was talking about. When a young person talked to an adult, there was never a smirk on their faces. Young people at that time (that's us) respected older people because we knew that they must have learned something throughout the years they were alive.

When a child talked back to an adult, the parents of the child would actually scold the child and tell him/her not to talk to an adult like that. They taught them to have respect.

There was no porn on street corner or in the local mini mart. Of course, there was no mini mart either.

Men didn't use vulgar language in the presence of a woman, and a woman never used that kind of language. This was the time when women didn't mind being called a lady and men didn't mind being called a gentleman. 

Society?

Our society is gone. It was replaced with a vulgar lifestyle that doesn't even resemble a civilized society. Just try driving to work tomorrow and think back on how nice it was to go for a drive 40 years ago.