World wants to know

Who are the real Americans? Our friends and allies around the world want to know. What has happened to the shining city on a hill that rescued the world from the would-be conquerors Hitler and Stalin? We were flat on our backs after the Great Depression. Most of us were poor, but we did not think so.

I remember the war years: In Huttig, everybody had big gardens, My brother Mike and I fed the chickens, collected the eggs, slopped the hogs, and weeded the garden. The nearest Safeway was in El Dorado, 30 miles away. Twice a month, we would drive to Safeway and usually see a movie at the Rialto. We would catch up on the war news and see a comedy before watching the movie.

On Sunday morning, we went to Sunday School and church at the First Methodist Church in Huttig. Mother taught my Sunday School class. That night we went to the evening service. On Wednesday night there would be a song service.

We moved to El Dorado after the war was over in the summer of 1946. Our new house did not have a garden or a chicken pen, no room for pigs, or rabbits, or goats. Pop bought a 1948 Mercury, and every Sunday afternoon, we would go for a drive in the new car. Nobody had a TV set. They would not become commonplace until the 1950s. We did get a new record player and radio, though — and a party-line telephone, where the operator said, “Number please.”

It was our faith in God and the teachings of Jesus that led our communal life. Godless communism was the new enemy. We were the architects of the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Declaration of Human Rights (1948). We stopped the spread of communism in Korea. We were the leaders of the free world.

What has happened to us? The world wants to know.

RUUD DuVALL

Fayetteville