“Them that’s got shall get. Them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible said and it still is news…”
I remember trick or treating many years ago when my friends and I came to a house where no one was home. We were about to leave and head for the next house when we noticed a large bowl on the stoop filled with candy and a note on it that read, “Please take one.”
Wow, we thought, that’s not only nice but very trusting also. Back in those days candy bars were really candy bars, not the little pieces of bite sized goop that they are now, and Halloween was the only time we kids could get our hands on real candy because parents did not buy kids candy, sweets, chips or any other kind of sugary snacks unless they had a reason like it was your birthday…or it was your birthday again….so leaving a giant bowl of candy out for anyone to haul away in what would have been the biggest heist of the century (for kids) was taking quite a chance.
But even though we were just kids we understood the sentiment, thoughtfulness, implications and expectations of all that candy left at an empty house with a note on Halloween…and we each took one and were happy to go on our way…as did everyone else in the neighborhood on that all Hallows Eve.
“You can help yourself…But don’t take too much…”
Is that sentiment still alive in today’s world? I would like to think so. I know that it still is for many…especially in light of some of the disasters that have befallen the East coast in the last few months… but when I look around at financial and banking institutions, Wall street, many large corporations and even our own leaders in Congress I am beginning to think that in many respects we may have turned the corner as of late, and anyone who takes just their fair share out of that big bowl of candy these days and leaves some for everyone else would be left for a chump….while some enterprising citizen who absconded with the entire contents of that bowl and set up shop selling them on a corner somewhere would be hailed as a forward thinking entrepreneur.
I hope I’m wrong and it’s just my advanced age talking.
What do you think? Would that bowl of candy still be safe in your neighborhood?
“God bless the child that’s got his own…”
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