Unless you're old enough to remember—-

–- a man walking alongside his horse-drawn cart shouting, fruits, vegetables; or the milkman replacing empty milk bottles with full ones; or the iceman carrying blocks of ice for stores and home iceboxes.

– -or the excitement of walking into a candy store with a penny, or maybe even a nickel; or nativity scenes in department stores and Christmas vacation for schools; or the golden days of radio: The FBI in Peace and War, or The Shadow, or for the truly brave, The Inner Sanctum.

–- or playing in the street (there were no playgrounds) until dark. Mothers weren't worried; there was no reason to be.

–- and I remember the celebration my grandparents had, like so many others, when they became citizens.

Don't have those memories; then those ramblings won't mean much to you.

But to those who have lived and recalled those days, they are silent shades of what once was, but is no more.

What changed? It was not just technology; it was the people. We aren't the same. Tens of millions from different countries, with different customs and values have swelled the population.

Ted Kennedy---the Chappaquiddick swimmer---and his Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 closed the door to Europeans and opened the floodgates to third-world entrees.

In 1940, there were 11 million foreign-born in the US. One lifetime later, in 2016 there was a record-breaking 44 million foreign-born. It was enough to change the US to a bi-lingual society.

Add to this the Supreme Court's rulings that de-Christianized and secularized the nation. A president who vowed to "fundamentally change America," and later boasted, "We are not a Christian nation."

And you have a different America.

However, there was hope. Someone took a stand against illegal immigration, ran for president, and won. That someone was Donald Trump. He won because of what he campaigned for: no more illegal immigrants.

But now this president in his State of the Union address  "generously offer[ed] a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants," the DACAs, or Deferred Amnesty For Childhood Aliens.

Let's do something that the president did not do; pull back the curtain to see how "1.8 million illegal immigrants, " will arrive like a tsunami, in a succession of waves, in this case, five.

(1)  First to land are the 1.8 million DACAs.

(2)  To this add their parents, 3.6 million.

(3)  When DACA was enacted in 2012, the average age of enrollees was 25, with 31 as the age limit. We'll assume that a third were married, add 600,000 wives.

(4)  We'll further assume that they had the average of two children per family, add 1.2 million children. That totals 7 million. But we're not done.

(5)  Add 4 million more who were approved and in the backlogged chain migration pipeline, for a grand total of 11 million migrants to the US population.

The previous seven amnesties legalized 5.7 million border jumpers. The irony is that the anti-amnesty president is on track to double all the previous amnesties.

And one more detail that the president's "generous" offer omitted: the cost. It would be in the tens of billions that taxpayers will be called upon to pay for the uninvited occupiers.

DACAs and other illegals are now a powerful political force that demand---not petition---but demand citizenship. That's a first. Influential political leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, champion their cause.

Democrat Minority House Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Minority Senate Leader Chuck Schumer are avid supporters of DACA. Schumer calls those who oppose DACA as "horrible" and "disgusting."

On the Republican side are Majority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.  Both want to "fix" DACA.

But there is a way to stop border sneakers cold; it's called, E-Verify.

E-Verify is a government website that allows businesses to determine if a potential employee is an illegal alien. If this program had teeth and was enforced with stiff fines for offenders plus rewards for reports leading to the convictions of violators, illegals would have no incentive to trespass the border and employers would not chance to hire them.

So, will a robustly enforced E-Verify put a screeching halt to illegal immigration? Not if the Democrats, or the establishment Republicans, or the president have anything to say about it. That's why nothing is said about E-Verify.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins, New Milford, PA

It has been 16 years ago I moved out here to Gibson, Pennsylvania. There were no neighbors for about a mile in any direction. I was informed by my employer, Sal from Armetta's, that we are the poorest county in the state. My country road in front of my home, according to Joe Pelveskie used to be so muddy that he had to pull cars out with his tractor. I was lucky to receive one or two channels from a TV antenna located in my attack roof. My phone was nearly two tin cans with a string in the middle.

As the years go by, others moved in; Cable TV gave the go ahead to install its cables since we have more homes now and it became lucrative. My wife and I feel blessed to be here in "God's Country." To our surprise the Creator give us a gift of "Fracking" money. We, and my neighbors as well started spending this money on farm equipment, lawnmowers, metal roofs and many indoor repairs. We actually started saving some money.

Wolf, Wolf, Wolf, he wants some of our profits. He is not satisfied that we spend our money in restaurants, going to baseball or football games. It's not enough for him. He wants to legally "steal" from us poor people that finally make it big. Any surcharge or new tax on Fracking would only give us less money. Some of my neighbors are millionaires. They donate to charities; they feed the poor.

So, why, why, why will he do this to us? Why, why, why would anyone re-elect him, time and time again.

Say Wolf, you have so much money you can give me some; isn't that what Socialism is all about? We are all to be equal.

Spread the word, Wolf has to go. We need a more compassionate leader.

Sincerely,

Larry Gary, Gibson, PA