What’s Happening to America?
E. Gordon Mooneyhan’s "What’s Happening to America?," is a personal reflection on a fading era of hands-on learning, individual responsibility, and resilience. With stories from his youth—building radios and learning through trial and error—he laments a modern culture where risk is avoided, accountability is lost, and even harmless projects are met with fear. A powerful commentary on how “participation trophy” thinking is replacing the self-reliant spirit that once defined America.
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E. Gordon Mooneyhan
6/24/20253 min read
This isn’t a rhetorical question; there’s an air of seriousness in it. I’m 68 and the country I grew up in seems to have pulled a Lamont Cranston. The America I know and love isn’t here anymore—or maybe the more correct statement is that it’s here, but it is rapidly disappearing, getting swallowed up in a political correctness and a mentality of “I’m not responsible if I hurt myself.”
About three or four years ago, a non-profit group I was involved with was planning a fundraiser. We were wondering about activities to keep youngsters engaged and occupied. I had found a batch of 9-volt Tesla Coil kits for sale on eBay and suggested that we buy a dozen or so, and we could help the kids assemble them. When I suggested that they could do the soldering, there were objections about them potentially getting burnt. Okay, so one of their parents could either do the soldering or else supervise their child. Nope, can’t do that. What if the parent got burnt? Long story short, even with countering all the objections, you would think that I was suggesting that I was teaching the kids how to build thermonuclear bombs.
I’m 68. What has gone wrong with the country in the past six decades?
For my seventh birthday, my parents bought me a Heathkit® project board. It was a piece of hardboard with about 35 or 40 electrical components stenciled on it, a bag with the components, screws, and springs. You fastened the components to the right places with the screws holding the component and springs on the board, and there was also assorted lengths of wire which you used to connect the components in different ways to make various projects, along with a book that had the projects. That was fun.
For Christmas when I was 8 years old, I received a Heathkit® shortwave receiver kit. Dad worked at General Electric in Columbia at the time and brought home a handful of used electrical components for me to practice soldering on before turning my attention to the kit. I guess it took about a month of evenings for me to get the kit assembled. But the feeling when first plugged in the radio and heard the Voice of America and the BBC on a radio I had built; it was a feeling I really can’t describe. And I only suffered one injury in building the radio when I burnt the tip of my left index finger on the soldering iron. To the best of my knowledge, that event did not turn me into a serial killer or some psychopath. It did teach a lesson to keep an eye on the solder and don’t let your finger get too close to the iron.
Heathkit® was a great company. I know many ham radio operators whose first station was built from those kits. And a surprising number of those kits are still around. I still have my SW-717. I suspect the electrolytic capacitors would need to be replaced, but that and a good cleaning of the inside would probably have it running like new.
And ham radio kits weren’t the only thing they produced. TV kits, both color and black and white, organs, computers, garage door openers, and the list went on and on. You really could do it yourself with the kits from Benton Harbor, Michigan.
But today??? Heaven forbids little Johnny burns his finger with a soldering iron. It’s obviously the fault of the manufacturer of the soldering iron; little Johnny doesn’t bear any responsibility for this. Maybe that’s the problem. Since we’re in the age of “Participation trophies,” maybe personal responsibility is now a thing of the past.
