Think Local, Act Local

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/13/143538472/home-sweet-home-the-new-american-localism


Reading this article was a trip down memory lane to those happy days of college when I was struggling to agree with anyone I was stuck in Public Policy and Community Service classes.  They were (in my mind) way to liberal or simply lacking common sense.  I saw it that the world had to spin the way it was spinning.  We needed to protect our borders (by not allowing anyone in or if they were in making them speak English),  politically correctness was stupid (I don't care what you hyphenated name you want to be called) and we certainly needed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They did attack us after all. I was never politically incorrect, rude or that argumentative (I like to debate and argue) to people who did not believe as I did. I just did not agree with them. Boy what I missed out on. 

Those were the days...and when I say that it is not with much pride.  I have since become more moderate and even started to lean to the left..ever so slightly. (Who am I kidding? I'm more liberal now then I was conservative then)  I'm a late bloomer, what else is there to be said?  The one thing we could all agree on was the "Local" movement that was budding, and had been budding for awhile, amongst the main stream community.  We wrote paper after paper about how local was better, healthier, and simply good economics.  Now that movement is arriving en mass to the world and it is about time. We worked to get the movement off the ground around Emory, and to some degree laid the ground work for the Glade Spring revitalization program that is nearing completion.  Sadly I left allot of my work unfinished and never really followed through with much of it.  I still regret not working harder in college.  

By no means am I the champion of such a movement.  I still have my faults, and to some degree have even backslid, but I still love the feeling of the movement.  In college, and still today, I seek out unique things that are made where they are sold.  Christmas presents from my mom and sister came from Abingdon or Saltville.  I made my dad's presents more times then not.  Today presents come from Roanoke, Charlotte, or whatever little hamlet my fiance and I have traveled to see some historical sight or art museum.

To a degree though I have backslid and I am not sure it is all for the better.  Today I am as apt to go on Amazon and order something from out of state as I am to try and find the equvilent here in Rocky Mount or the areas around.  This is too bad.  All of this technology has gotten to me.  I am that late bloomer after all, and perhaps the "local" movement was a fluke.  Maybe I was was a head of the curve on it but behind on all the other stuff. I have always been a stick in the mud when it comes to things that I can get close to home or make.  I am afterall southern, Scotch and apparently Welsh so if I cannot get it close to home, cannot make it, then I should not need for it.