Dear Jim,
I´m writing to you on the patio at Starbucks. I´m looking south into gray and white clouds of this hazy day. It feels good – cool but not cold. I have my sunglasses and sun hat on for the glare and my tear-open hand warmers in my pack if I need them.
Sis II and our Irish brother-in-law gave me two $25 gift cards to Starbucks. I did not want to carry home presents.
So here I am. On the bus ride over, the driver had Christmas music blasting form a really good stereo. It made me laugh. At first I thought it was one of the riders.
It felt good, but you would not have liked it. It was jazz played to Christmas standards. I wonder if anyone will call in to complain. She could get in trouble. It was way too loud.
I got here at 11:30. I was expecting to read a NYT or a Bee that somebody left lying around, but there were none in the discard rack and none on the ´to buy´ rack. They must have been very busy.
That´s okay. I got my news last night.
I was listening to Mexican music on YouTube, then to songs I have had on my tablet since I got it. I was too tired to read, so I listened to an interview I heard before.
It was about feminism and the sexual revolution. A conservative host was interviewing a conservative writer.
The writer was criticizing old school conservatives who think that the sexual revolution caused men to be promiscuous and caused men to be deadbeat dads. The old school conservatives say that men need to man up and to stop taking advantage of women.
The writer said that prior to the sexual revolution, companies were forced to pay men enough money to raise a family. Business did not like the idea, but there was nothing it could do.
As traditional jobs for men disappeared and women went into the labor force, business benefited from lower wages due to job competition, and the government benefited from more people paying taxes.
Men started earning less money. They did not have the money to get married. They were not taken seriously by women who wanted to marry.
The writer was trying to answer the question raised by old school conservatives, ¨What is wrong with today´s men?¨ He mentioned all the men who don´t work or who work part time. He mentioned that men are not industrious like they were in dad´s generation and his dad´s generation.
He wasn´t talking about the deadbeat dads of our generation, but about the guys five to ten years younger than I am who grew up on low wages and could not expect a job geared toward men like dad and our grandfathers could. The new economy was hurting men while women adapted well to the service and tech economy.
These guys were laughed at by women. He said a lot of women didn´t want to stoop so low as to marry a poor man, but pursued the Alpha males who did not need or want them. While the average man was getting less sex than he he was when he was a married man 50 years ago, the Alpha males, the rich guys, were getting a lot of it.
The poor unwed man did not have kids. A lot of successful women did not want kids. But at 40 things changed. If a man had become successful, he was full of confidence at 40. Men are attractive in their forties.
But a woman at 40 isn´t attractive anymore. Men their age who had a job did not want anything to do with the stuck-up cunts who shined them on when they were young.
He talked about monogamy – how monogamy is central to Western Civilization. He said monogamy provides a husband for every woman and a wife for every man. He said monogamy is dead and we need to restore it.
He didn´t just speak theoretically. He said most men should be married. I agree. It gives men something valuable to do.
It´s funny. None of the presidential candidates talked about re-establishing monogamy or paying higher wages so couples could get married in their early twenties.
It´s a beautiful day. Still cloudy. A great day for wandering around town with your future spouse – holding hands, looking to the clouds and the specks of blue between them as your dream about your kids.
Love,
Dave
Copyright © 2021 by David Vaszko
The Writings of David Vaszko 