Joyce Krawiec serves in the North Carolina Senate. She represents Davie County and Forsyth County, NC. Christian, wife, mother, small business owner, and conservative.
It was wonderful to head back to church this week. It was different. There was social distancing and it was difficult not to hug the folks that I hadn’t seen in a while. It was great to see them nonetheless. Live worship is just better for me than virtual services. It’s a little piece of normalcy that’s very much welcomed back.
The court stepped in and told Governor Cooper that he was wrong in closing churches. A brave group of pastors sued the Governor over treating churches differently than other businesses. The court agreed and churches were allowed to reopen.
Restaurants and hair salons can finally open with restrictions. I hope this means we are finally emerging from the worst aspects of the Coronavirus.
A constituent sent me some information about pandemics occurring every 100 years. Around 1720 it was the Plague that claimed 100,000 lives. 1820 ushered in Cholera with another 100,000 deaths recorded. In 1920 the very deadly Spanish flu emerged and cost 100 million lives. Now in 2020, we have Coronavirus and so far 380,000 people have lost their lives.
Of course, there have been other pandemics between these centuries as well. And these events occurred over a period of several years. I did find the information interesting though.
This started me thinking about how different things are today compared to the past.
Is it possible to travel back in time? This weekend I fired up my iPad and found myself in Winston-Salem circa 1973. I re-lived the demolition of the historic Robert E. Lee Hotel and toured the “new” Justice Center downtown. Vintage Volkswagen Beetles and big body gas guzzlers drove into the distance. Old memories flooded back with the faint scent of curing tobacco. Six years later my family and I would arrive in Kernersville and spend our lives here. Suddenly a loading symbol popped up and an advertisement played. YouTube coldly threw me right back to 2020. I guess that time travel still needs some work. I enjoyed the trip though.
As a time traveler I know that life is better today than it was in 1973. This was a terrible time in our history because the wounds from racism and discrimination were still wide open. The Triad was less than fifteen years removed from the Greensboro and Winston-Salem Sit-Ins. Six years later we would experience the fallout from the deadly Greensboro Massacre. A very sad time in our community’s past.
In 1973 a high school diploma was the key to a successful future in the middle class. A student could leave high school and go directly into the workforce. Hard work and a bit of luck were all they needed to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.
Today that is not the case. Young people now are expected to have degrees to make it in today’s world.
Many of these students are rewarded with crippling and unjustified expenses. A year’s tuition at Wake Forest University in 1973 cost about $12,000 in today’s dollars. Today it costs $54,430. An education should never cost more than a house.
Globalization has also proved costly. The United States emerged from competition with the USSR in the 70’s and 80’s only to ship our jobs, expertise, and supply chains to other foreign competitors. Remember those middle class jobs that could be had with a high school diploma? Most factories now sit idle. A state-run media outlet in China recently hinted at pharmaceutical export controls on medicine that is manufactured overseas. Why did we ever stop producing medical supplies, including medicines, in the United States? Why did we stop manufacturing anything?
We have problems in this country, but we’re still blessed to live in the greatest country in the world. There is no problem so big that American ingenuity can’t fix. God is in control and He rewards those who take initiative. He protected the students who stood at lunch counters and the leaders who took on the USSR. I implore anyone reading to research and help to get the cost of high education down and bring our jobs back. Urge young people in your life to reconsider taking on mountains of debt. If you own a business, look for ways to bring America’s supply chain back home. Today is a wonderful time to be alive, but tomorrow will be brighter.
You can find the video that Senator Krawiec referenced in the article on YouTube. The title of the video is “1973 Winston-Salem Promotional Film: Winston-Salem- Same Town, New City.” It was uploaded by user airpiedmont.
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Joyce Krawiec serves in the North Carolina Senate. She represents Davie County and Forsyth County, NC. Christian, wife, mother, small business owner, and conservative.