Changing Times

Buster and I were walking past the high school today just around the time class was about to start. Hundreds of kids were getting off of city buses, parking their cars, being dropped off by over-protective parents and the odd few were actually walking to school. How the kids get to school is the subject of another blog.

I always smile when I see these kids going about their, oh so important lives, laughing and yelling obscenities at the top of their voices. Good times. Right now there is nothing more important for them than to have a good time. There will be plenty of time in the near future for them to worry about jobs, car payments, love, children and how to fix that leaky faucet. It is a wonderful time for them, but there are a lot that can’t see the joy that surrounds them.

I remember my high school days fondly, and I suppose there are a few things I would do a little differently knowing what I know now. For the most part however, life has progressed pretty smoothly with only minor bumps and detours along the way. When we were walking this morning, I wondered just how much I had changed over the years. I don’t think I have, but when I look at my friends from those days and how they have changed, I have to assume I also have morphed into a different creature.

Some people from those days who were free thinking, liberal minded hippies are now staunch conservative thinkers. They worry more about where the money is coming from instead of how to feed the people and find places to live for the homeless. Perhaps they are right, and I just haven’t grown into an adult yet. I actually thought that my generation would change the world. We did in a way, but the changes seem to be superficial and we just replaced one group of fat cats with another, hipper group of fat cats.

I wish that I could talk to teen aged Ken to see what it was that he really believed in. Did he really believe or was he just trying to fit in? Probably a little of both. I guess what I really would like to know is if that young guy would approve of the man that he becomes. There are some dreams that slipped through the cracks, but on the whole he had a happy life and now has three wonderful grand children that make the world glow with youthful energy.

I just hope that those near and dear to me can say the same when they put more than a few years on their lives.