My Ranger Gave The Last Full Measure of Devotion

[TxOTRRanger]

Thats what I am seeing up here too, my sisters Son is in his second year of college and still does not have a DL
WTF where did we go so wrong

From where I stand I don't believe that ya'll did go wrong. IMHO, look how messed up that the world has gotten. I was interested driving after watching Dad and Grandpa in their vehicles. That and watching my favorite TV shows, which included some cool car, truck, or van from the 80s.

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[Grandaccess]

When I was Two my dad sat me on the fender while he was tuning the six pack on the Chevelle, there was always a carb on the kitchen table being rebuilt LOL
Dropping a 327 in a Morris Minor, thats where I get my Crazy from

 

[AzScorpion]

Thats what I am seeing up here too, my sisters Son is in his second year of college and still does not have a DL
WTF where did we go so wrong

It's not that you or I failed its that society is so different now. Look at how many don't even want to work and if they do they're wanting/demanding top pay right from the start. There's no "climbing the ladder" anymore they want it all right now!

I couldn't wait to get my license and drive so I started working at 15 washing dishes to save up for a car. I was a nasty job especially around the holidays because they were so busy (was a local Italian restaurant) and between Thanksgiving and New Year's I was lucky to leave before 2am smelling and covered in food. But I was happy to have a job and loved getting that paycheck and bought a '70 Challenger that had to be towed to the house. I worked on it for almost a year but it was satisfying to get it running, something kids today will never understand. But we grew up in the generation where if we wanted something we had to work our ass off for it and you'd better not complain or you'd get that look.

All this for $2.75/hr and we never thought twice about it. There were times I was so mad at my parents and thought they were the meanest people alive. But looking at kids today I now realize they probably saved my life and am blessed to have them!

 

[LaBalbe]

It's not that you or I failed its that society is so different now. Look at how many don't even want to work and if they do they're wanting/demanding top pay right from the start. There's no "climbing the ladder" anymore they want it all right now!

I couldn't wait to get my license and drive so I started working at 15 washing dishes to save up for a car. I was a nasty job especially around the holidays because they were so busy (was a local Italian restaurant) and between Thanksgiving and New Year's I was lucky to leave before 2am smelling and covered in food. But I was happy to have a job and loved getting that paycheck and bought a '70 Challenger that had to be towed to the house. I worked on it for almost a year but it was satisfying to get it running, something kids today will never understand. But we grew up in the generation where if we wanted something we had to work our ass off for it and you'd better not complain or you'd get that look.

All this for $2.75/hr and we never thought twice about it. There were times I was so mad at my parents and thought they were the meanest people alive. But looking at kids today I now realize they probably saved my life and am blessed to have them!

The instant gratification and entitlement are definitely major problems in society today, and TBH it doesn't much matter what generation someone is from; today's entitled children were raised that way by entitled parents who in turn... It was always there, it's just so much worse and more public these days with social media.

Having said that, there's also a lot less of those starter jobs out there. Youth (15-24) unemployment (in Canada, at least) is at one of its highest rates in decades and it's not just because they don't want to work. Traditional first-jobs such as store cashier have all but been replaced by self-checkout kiosks (some stores don't even offer human cashiers as an option anymore) and online shopping, and when you go to a Tim Horton's (especially in the cities, maybe less so in more rural areas), it's no longer staffed by teens, it's staffed by adults barely scraping together a living who are hanging on to those jobs because they can't find work elsewhere.

You also can't discount the ripple effect from the baby boom. I have a teen now, and the jobs are definitely scarce. It's no coincidence that the last time youth unemployment was this high was in the mid-90's, when I was a teen, and I'm the child of baby boomers. That population spike keeps coming back at a somewhat regular interval because when all is said and done, people typically have children during a handful of particular years.

Add to the population spike the fact that technology and automation have meant that the same amount of work can be done by less people, and it's not rocket science to figure out that unemployment is going to be a major issue for the foreseeable future.

And yes, this is an overly simplified take on the problem, I concede that in advance, but that doesn't make it inaccurate.

 

[WhyNot21]

I couldn't wait to get my license and drive so I started working at 15 washing dishes to save up for a car. I was a nasty job especially around the holidays because they were so busy (was a local Italian restaurant) and between Thanksgiving and New Year's I was lucky to leave before 2am smelling and covered in food. But I was happy to have a job and loved getting that paycheck and bought a '70 Challenger that had to be towed to the house. I worked on it for almost a year but it was satisfying to get it running, something kids today will never understand. But we grew up in the generation where if we wanted something we had to work our ass off for it and you'd better not complain or you'd get that look.

All this for $2.75/hr and we never thought twice about it.

Similar story here, except I was only making $2.35/hr washing dishes at Baker's Square. I was able to buy my first car at 15, a few months before I could legally drive it (1969 Buick Wildcat).

 

[TxOTRRanger]

It's not that you or I failed its that society is so different now. Look at how many don't even want to work and if they do they're wanting/demanding top pay right from the start. There's no "climbing the ladder" anymore they want it all right now!

I couldn't wait to get my license and drive so I started working at 15 washing dishes to save up for a car. I was a nasty job especially around the holidays because they were so busy (was a local Italian restaurant) and between Thanksgiving and New Year's I was lucky to leave before 2am smelling and covered in food. But I was happy to have a job and loved getting that paycheck and bought a '70 Challenger that had to be towed to the house. I worked on it for almost a year but it was satisfying to get it running, something kids today will never understand. But we grew up in the generation where if we wanted something we had to work our ass off for it and you'd better not complain or you'd get that look.

All this for $2.75/hr and we never thought twice about it. There were times I was so mad at my parents and thought they were the meanest people alive. But looking at kids today I now realize they probably saved my life and am blessed to have them!

My first job was working on the family farm for $7 an hour. Feeding the cattle, hauling hay and helping tear down and rebuilding fences.

 

[Ranger_Pawl]

Thats what I am seeing up here too, my sisters Son is in his second year of college and still does not have a DL
WTF where did we go so wrong

I think it's not so much what we did wrong, it's just that childhood has changed. In my youth we rode bikes, made gocarts, played sports and did physical things that made the transition to driving easier. More recent generations do less physical things with the abundance of technology at their disposal, and some aren't ready to jump into driving. Also, IMO the roads are more intimidating now than several generations ago.

 

[got3fords]

My first job was working on the family farm for $7 an hour. Feeding the cattle, hauling hay and helping tear down and rebuilding fences.

Damn, that's good money for a first job. Mine was $3.25/hr at a grocery store. Minimum wage at the time.

 

[Ranger Mel]

I think I was picking rock on a farm for less than $3 an hour when I was 16. Now that job sucked!!

 

[Dr_Strangelove]

Since this thread is off the rails anyway, ( ) in defense of America's youth, there's a group of high school age boys working together much like the meme above to restore an old British racing green Triumph in my neighborhood. They're kicking butt.

Not all hope is lost

 

[TxOTRRanger]

Damn, that's good money for a first job. Mine was $3.25/hr at a grocery store. Minimum wage at the time.

That would have been after my Grandpa passed away in 1998. My belief is, is that was Grandmas way of letting me know that I was basically going to have to teach myself how to drive Grandpas old high geared 5 speed manual transmission farm truck and the old 4240 John Deere tractor. I also believe that her way of giving me chance to see how a real world job would be like. BTW, I have posted images of both vehicles in the Pic whore Club if ya'll haven't seen them yet.

 

[Trustable]

I am glad your ranger protected you guys! It did its job and a mangled mess of plastic, steel, and rubber is a lot less important than your safety.

I work with several people in urban Atlanta that have kids just approaching driving age and it seems that most are not interested in driving as long as Uber can take them where they want to go. Who know’s, that may be cheaper and safer in the long run, but seems strange to me. I like cars and driving and the freedom it brings.

I live in the middle of nowhere and some of my neighbor's kids have no interest in driving, its insane to me as someone in the same generation as them. When I turned 14 I practically begged my parents to let me do drivers ed so I could drive to work and school myself.

There is no uber, lyft, or even taxis around here. I got stranded one time when I went to the city of 50k+ people because i assumed could get an uber/lyft after I dropped my truck off for some work last year, boy was I wrong. Was a fun mile walk in a rain until I gave up, walked into an aldi's, and called one of my neighbors to see if they could get me. Woulda been a 12 mile walk if they couldnt LOL.

 

[Fawnbuster]

My son is 16 and has only been driving for a couple of weeks. He was out with his mom on a road that I told them he wasn't ready for yet. She yelled at him to slow down in a reducing radius curve on a country road. He did what any inexperienced driver would do. They flew off the road, hit a tree a glancing blow and rolled down an embankment. He's terribly upset, but physically fine. She's got some impressive scrapes & bruises and is sore. They could just as easily have died.

I really enjoyed my Ranger and thought I would keep it around for my retirement, this is much preferable to the alternative. I will try to post pictures in the morning.

Glad your family is going to be ok!!

 

[TJC]

When I was Two my dad sat me on the fender while he was tuning the six pack on the Chevelle, there was always a carb on the kitchen table being rebuilt LOL
Dropping a 327 in a Morris Minor, thats where I get my Crazy from

You sit in the back seat to drive it !?! Remember the 289 V8 Alpine Tigers? How about the intro to Get Smart. He drove one!

 

[LaBalbe]

You sit in the back seat to drive it !?! Remember the 289 V8 Alpine Tigers? How about the intro to Get Smart. He drove one!

You mean like this?

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