Tim Wildmon
AFA president
September 1995 – For the first time in a long time our entire family got away for a vacation the first week in August. (When are we going to get there, Dad?) My dad, mom, brother, sister, my other sister, her husband and two-year-old, and my gang, which consists of Alison, me, and our three model children 7, 6, and 22 months. Twelve people, two cars and a van. No pets. We loaded up and drove from Tupelo to the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri. (When are we going to get there, Dad?) at the invitation of some longtime friends who own a place there. It was a wonderful and relaxing few days.
When I was a kid I couldn’t for the life of me understand why my parents were basically old fogies when it came to vacations. I mean, they actually wanted to rest and relax. When the four of us kids went out to the beach Mom and Dad just wanted to watch from a chair by the pool or stay in the hotel room and read. How boring, I used to think. (When are we going to get there, Dad?) Reading is for school, not vacation, I thought. And like true American parents, they also threatened to turn around and go home every two hours or so – whenever an uprising in the station wagon would occur. However, you start catching onto the bluff after eight hours of driving and four empty threats. “Dad’s not going to turn around and go home now,” I used to think to myself. But I didn’t dare say it.
Well, now being on the other end of things, I know why they were less excited about the sights and sounds of a particular vacation destination (When are we going to get there, Dad?) and more excited about the lounge chairs or the view from the deck or what steak house to eat at that night.
When our family of five finally arrived at the Lake of the Ozarks, Alison and I got unloaded, put our arms around the kids and told our hosts we would be out of our cabin in a couple of hours to join them. Since we were tired from the
drive, first we wanted to take a nap. When the host said “fine” and left us alone, my daughter – with her younger brother nodding “that’s right” – said, “Nap!! Are you kiddin’ us, Dad?! We drove all this way, we’re finally here, we’ve got the lake in our front yard and you and Mom want to nap?! This is great!” While they talked, they were shedding their clothes down to their bathing suits which they had worn underneath since they got dressed earlier in the morning. Ready for the sun and fun.
“Yeah, I thought since we’ve been driving for so long we might lie down and rest a while,” I said as I flashed back to my childhood. The concept – once very unreasonable and fun-killing when my parents presented it – seemed totally reasonable now. (Just a point of fact, we didn’t drive all the way, I did.)
One strong addiction from which I suffer is that I’m a news junkie. I have to know what’s going on in the world even if I’m 15 minutes from the nearest newspaper – as was the case on vacation. I used some excuse each day to get Alison to drive into town with me to pick up a USA Today. Now, I like the hammock, the jet ski, the water, the food, the games, the children as much as anyone. But I have to have my newspaper, or by late afternoon I start getting the shakes. You coffee addicts know what I’m talking about here.
Wednesday afternoon I was scanning the front page and saw the cover story: “Rise in cheating called response to fall in values.” The story talked of high profile cases of cheating and how Americans were reacting to them. Like the actor Hugh Grant cheating on his girlfriend with a prostitute. Like Miss Virginia being defrocked because she lied on her resumé and was found out. Like baseball greats Duke Snider and Willie McCovey pleading guilty to tax evasion on income from autograph signings. Those were just the eye catchers. Listed were some other statistics.
➤ The IRS penalized 4,789 last year for tax fraud, 70% of college students admit to cheating, and more and more married women say they’ve been unfaithful.
➤ A recent review of medical students’ fellowship applications found that 29-35% lied about their research, presentations and articles.
➤ In a 1995 poll for the book American Heroes: Their Lives, Their Values, Their Beliefs, 46% of teens felt lying is OK sometimes; only 31% of adults agreed.
For years my dad and other Christian leaders have been saying that if our society continued down the road of moral relativism and away from Christian morality this kind of “fall in values” would continue to escalate and eventually – if not checked – ruin our civilization from within. (When are we going to get there, Dad?)
Well, here we have more evidence of the truth of that claim than I thought. Right here on the front page of USA Today. Funny how even on vacation, I was reminded of the importance of what AFA stands for.
“Listen to this,” I told one family member trying to rest on the couch. I read a line or two and stopped, remembering we were all on vacation to get a break from the bad news. But I was reminded of how important my work at AFA would be when we returned home.
When are we going to get there, Dad? 
