Harhumph

I’m a girl who likes a little adventure in life.  I definitely get tired of the S.O.S. routine.

So anyway, I had to run to the store today, so I set out to scope out a place to go parking.  Yeah, I may be 40, but I ain’t dead.

Rather disturbed to find all my favorite old haunts are now off limits.

Gates, No Trespassing signs, Posted signs…everywhere.

No wonder today’s kids are giving each other oral sex on school desks & taking Mom’s & Dad’s cough medicine for fun.  They no longer have anywhere to do the “normal” teenaged stuff.  Everything is off-limits except the stuff that should be.

Now, I’m not all for letting kids run around like wild wildebeests, sexing each other up.  Or for letting kids turn into drunken sots.  However, teens being teens & being human, are going to do things we don’t want them to, namely sex and/or drinking.

“If you raise them right, they won’t ___fill in the blank with your personal choice___”.

Bullshit.

I was raised in a Christian home, with rules, curfews, responsibilities & enough birds n’ bees talks to wear Oprah’s voice out.  While alcohol was rarely consumed, it wasn’t a taboo oh-my-God-drinking-is-so-wrong thing.  It was drilled into my head that sex was for “after marriage with someone you loved”.

I was a GOOD kid.  I made straight A’s, worked my little job, paid my little bills, went to church.  I said “No ma’am” & “Yes sir”, respected my elders, and did kind things for folks.

And I drank & had sex on occasion.

I never threw rocks at windows, felt the need to steal things, or to have sex at school.  I didn’t shoplift, steal cars, rob old ladies, carry a gun to school with intent of blowing away teachers or fellow students (we COULD carry guns, as long as they were in the gun rack in the back window of the truck- we even BUILT guns at school).  I never told a teacher to “fuck off” or hit my parents.  I never did drugs- legal prescriptions, OTC, or illegal.

There are a few things that most (NOT ALL) kids are gonna do.  You take those things away, they’re gonna find OTHER things to do or at least other places to do them.

Me & my friends hung out at the Little League field during off season.  10 or 12 of us would share a bottle of Jack Daniels or a 12 pack of beer, there was always someone making out.  We didn’t get drunk, none of us got pregnant or ended up with an STD.  We had our little fun, we didn’t need to do anything more extreme.

We cut some ruts in the parking area of the Little League field once learning to do reverse bootlegs & state patrol turn arounds.  None of us felt right about having done it, so that Saturday we all showed up with shovels to fill the ruts back in.

The cops never were called on us.  We never got expelled or suspended from school.  We didn’t trash our hang outs, hell, we rarely left anything there to say we had even been there.

What happened between 1987 and now?

To make it “safer”, we’ve taken away the parking spots.  We’ve campaigned against everything “normal”.  And what’s happened?  They’ve moved on to bigger & “better” things.  Sex in classrooms?  Not in my day.  Stealing grandma’s social security check to buy drugs?  Not in my day.

I’m not suggesting building a bonfire & encouraging kids to screw like drunken monkeys at Woodstock.

Maybe though- we should try to instill a bit of respectful feelings in them- for themselves, those around them & property.  Teach them to be responsible for their actions.

Maybe then they’d quit looking for freakier ways to have fun?

And maybe when I get the urge to go parking, there will be some place to do it! 😀