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From Magic City Morning Star Doug Wrenn
OK, I get it. It's been hot lately, no argument there from me. A reliable source tells me that it is currently June. If that's true, that might well be the source of the problem, or at least the secondary part of the problem. I think meteorologists define a "heat wave" as something like three or more consecutive days of 90 + degree temperatures. We've now had about five such days, with a thankfully more promising forecast predicting cooler temperatures with less humidity in the following days. For all the hype we so often peddle and hear about Yankee tenacity, we New Englanders are really a bunch of wimps. Year round, we have the least amount of true catastrophic weather than anywhere else in the country, and the most moderate weather in all four seasons, yet we whine when we get an inch of snow, and we whine some more when we have to endure the probably two or three weeks at most of truly oppressive heat and humidity in the summer. I recall a news story some years back in which a local police department in Connecticut was beleaguered with snow-related emergencies. We got about three inches that day. That particular agency kept picking up ghost transmissions throughout the "storm" over its radio from an out of state police department. Somehow, the weather screwed up the atmosphere and scrambled radio transmissions. Somebody in the dispatch room was finally able to find out that the police department they were hearing over their radio was way out in North Dakota. One of the officers called that police department in North Dakota to report what happened. In the course of the conversation, the Connecticut cops relayed how we got 3 or 4 inches and all hell broke loose. Their brother officer in North Dakota said they got 2 or 3 feet and everybody was doing fine, as usual. Wimps! History reminds us of a time in which we once stoically endured much more, and with less whining. A client at work once remarked to me that he read the memoirs of Lewis and Clark, and was shocked at how a journal entry during agonizing and dangerous exposure to winter's elements one day simply read, "It was cold." OK, kids, the insurmountable crisis you almost endured is now over, so get back to school. Looking through the prism of the modern day parent and the quintessential trendy feminist (feminized Mr., or) Ms. Softee-Educrat, I look to our kids to foresee our future as a meteorologist looks to a computer to forecast the weather. (Actually, some of those guys should really just try looking out the window once in a while!) In my forecast, all I see is wimps, grossly unprepared for an increasingly hard and cruel world. For two consecutive days this past week, the educrats cut the wee ones loose a half-day early from school. Why? A blizzard, in June? No, a small heat wave in June. Go figure. Their excuse, veiled as a reason, was that most of the schools are not air-conditioned. The educrats who trained me in my formative years would smack my hand with a ruler for such using poor grammar, but this is still an appropriate time to simply challenge, "Yeah…so?" I claim to neither be a rocket scientist, nor a guy who fell off the back of the turnip truck just yesterday. Like most folks, I'm somewhere in the middle, but I do have a somewhat functioning brain and some modicum, or so I like to believe, of common sense. So, barring the possibly few children who sadly but legitimately have ailments of a respiratory nature or whatever, and thus truly cannot tolerate heat for any length of time, why have all the rest of their classmates been cut loose? Between summer, parent-teacher conferences, various weeks of vacation during the school year, snow days (whether there is snow falling or not), and a seemingly infinite quantity of holidays, celebrating every cause from organized labor to medicinal leeches, and everybody from Martin Luther King to Andrew Dice Clay, now the tender little darling angels need days off for heat in June as well? Where, or where do they actually get time to learn the "3 R's"? (1. "Reading" about necessary fundamentals, such as multi-culturism and global warming, which of course, must be why it's hot in June! 2. "Writing" about how Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus were really villains and not heroes, which was back when America was only just starting to be no damned good, and 3. Being "Ready" to correctly place a condom on a cucumber, despite the fact that neither of Heather's two Mommies needs or wants one!) Newsflash, folks, A/C has only been around for give or take, 50 or 60 years. My elementary school, which no longer stands, was a three-story walk-up with a brick frame, no air conditioning, masking tape on the yellowed shades, some missing floor tiles, a perpetual chalk-dust cloud in the air, that oddly enough, never bothered anyone, and steam pipes that clanged louder when the heat was turned on than most high school bands playing during football games. That architectural wonder was of circa 1920 or so. As I am only slightly younger than air conditioning, suffice to say that somehow I managed to survive, heat waves and all. As a matter of fact, not only were we kept in school for full days (9am-3pm) on such oppressively hot days, but then we went out to play ball in the street after school, and mind you, those were the days before every upright walking mammal, be it adult or child, never dared to leave home without the precious and obligatory "bottle of water." I don't know what ingenious, entrepreneurial, snake-oil selling whiz-bang ever dreamed up that gold mine of a scheme, but he must now be worth at least as much as the inventor of the pet rock. Yes, circus fans, P.T. Barnum was right, a sucker is born every minute, but he's never thirsty! And what about the family struggling to make ends meet, financially speaking? Air conditioning is a luxury. Some people don't even like it. Many homes to this day, for whatever reason are still not air-conditioned. So when we send poor, precious little Billy or Mary home, because we so dread the fact of our little baby-snookums possibly melting in school, what happens when they go home (early) and melt there instead? Then of course, I can't help but wonder, if our poor, suffering little cherubs are melting in 95 degree heat in Connecticut, what do kids in equally old and un-air conditioned schools in God-forsaken places like Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico do in the latter part of the school year where they have real heat that climbs significantly higher? Soon, it will really be summer, and then both kids and educrats (the world's highest paid part time workers) will soon be whining that they have to stay in school to make up days in the summer for hot days they took early off in the…hey, wait a minute ….spring? Today's kids, which I often refer to as "The Bubble Dwellers," because of the constant and shallow protective vacuum-like bubble that doting parents and neurotic educrats put them in today, are so overly protected that it is really scary. What happens when in adulthood, they run into a real crisis, and then discover that both their Prozac and their Ritalin bottle is empty and their shrink is away on vacation, up at Lake Whoseawhatchamacallie with his family for the weekend and can't be reached (No, not even by cell phone….GASP!)? That's right; not only will they have to somehow actually overcome their anxiety, but also focus long enough, and independently, to face and ideally resolve the authentic and reliably occasional life catastrophe du' jour. It was bad enough in winter. Schools now close for the day when there is only a forecast of snow, sometimes before the first flake even drops. (That is to say, "snowflakes," and not the liberal flakes so often found in various administrative positions of school districts!) Then the school buses provide literally driveway-to-driveway service, creating more of a traffic jam behind them than politicians of various ethnicities wearing green ties in New York's St. Patrick's Day Parade. In my day, when we didn't actually walk to school, 5 or 10 of us met at a street corner a few blocks down the street and the bus picked us all up in one sweep and maybe had a half dozen stops at most during the whole ride in. Also, in inclement weather, we had these nifty items called outdoor clothing, which ranged from boots to coats, to raincoats, to hats, to mittens, to scarves, etc.. Our parents often procured such items in these places called stores, which took cash, unlike the similar institutions now found in malls, in which you are considered akin to a leper if you don't pay with plastic. Back then, exterior clothing was actually for protection from the elements, and not a fashion statement to "the Jones's," and the images of animals were only on our lunch boxes, not our apparel. Now, even the curbside service is not enough. On cold days, there is Mr. Femi-Dad, or Ms. Wannabe-Soccer-Coach, sitting in an idling car with the heat cranked up, and National Public Radio spewing its monotone pabulum on the radio while parked at the end of the driveway, keeping little Junior snuggly warm until his big, yellow, personalized limo arrives, to the chagrin of many an aggravated driver behind, balancing the steering wheel between their legs while simultaneously holding a coffee mug and calling in on the cell phone, wincing and once again telling the boss that they are running late for work. Ironically, I've still only seen these suburban Soccer Moms or Femi-Dads idling their trendy European imports, mini-vans or SUVs, no hybrids yet, but that's OK. Love means making a carbon footprint for your child while still telling the rest of the world what they should be doing to be "greener." In my day, nannies need not apply, a latch-key might have been on the door to Dad's tool shed, and daycare didn't happen until age 5, and only from 9-3, Monday through Friday after that, and when it did, it was called "school." Yes, boil all that down and it means Mom was actually home. Back then, such was not only the norm, but it was also often called "motherhood." Parenting was still considered a full time job back then. So if, not when, I came home early, I better have had a good excuse, and I mean one worthy of a blue ribbon. Mom was the epitome of maternal love, which also meant that when warranted, she was no shrinking violet, either. Lines were clearly drawn back then, and things weren't "complex," that favorite and all-too-often abused buzzword that liberals use today when they seek to subvert facts that dare to stare them in the face. Dad's place was at work, Mom's place was at home, and my place was in school, and that meant all day most of the time. Now, parents both work and they "kennel" their little biological trophies during the week and only take them out on weekends for the adult version of "show & tell" to show off and brag about to friends and annoy neighboring patrons in restaurants who were silly enough to think that they were going to pay their hard-earned money for a relaxing dinner in an actually peaceful atmosphere. Then when the little part-time trophy is old enough, he or she graduates from the kiddy-kennel, hopefully dodging both whooping and kennel cough, and moves on to actual school. Then the temperature climbs to 95 degrees, and it's decision time. As Ms. & Mr. Mom are both still working, who handles Junior, who now has no place to go at 12:30 during this heat-related crisis? That pretty much means that either Mom or Dad may have to suddenly get "sick" for the afternoon at work, or perhaps whip out the plastic and quickly locate an emergency kiddy-care at a local kiddy-kennel, or maybe just place a call to Grandma and Grandpa to fill their assigned obligation. Hey, too bad! You keep sporting that insidious bumper sticker on your car: "Ask us about our grandchildren," which might realistically happen about as readily as somebody actually asking to see slides from your last vacation, which was a bus trip to the Jersey shore in October. Let them earn that bumper sticker. So, Grandma and Grandpa have to drop what their doing, jump into the station wagon and speed a whopping 15 mph with the left turn signal on for the next 35 miles until they can finally arrive to baby-sit Junior on this gorgeous June day. And the kid will still stay in and play video games. (Hey, didn't you hear? It's hot outside!) Yes, folks, these are what are affectionately referred to as the "Golden Years." Sorry, Grandma and Grandpa, but your dinner plans will have to be postponed. No early bird specials for loving grandparents with obnoxious bumper stickers on hot days. After all, little Billy or Mary might not survive the whole day with only one bottle of water in hand. Everyone knows the other hand is for the cell phone. (Now you know why God gave us two hands!) Tom Brokaw called the era of Grandma and Grandpa "The Greatest Generation." It was. However, Tom Brokaw neglected to size up this current batch of less-than-grand-youngin's as "The Wimp Generation." I guess that is because Tom Brokaw is a gentleman. I and I guess am not. Somewhere, in the middle of the long range bordered by inexcusable child neglect and/or child abuse, and the nauseating and ironically even detrimental never-ending coddling of our kids today is the seemingly obsolete notion of no frills, common sense parenting. Dig up its remains, and you'll likely find some dinosaur bones buried next to it. Even the very renowned advocate of parental permissiveness, Dr. Spock, later recanted his earlier writings with presumably equal measures of honesty and chagrin. Movie critic, author, and columnist Michael Medved has cited some of the typical and nonsensical scenarios we commonly find today in movies in sit-coms, such as men being portrayed as bumbling and helpless stooges to their dominant and all-knowing wives, but also, kids being natural geniuses who inevitably save the day, trumping both befuddled parents. In the June 9th issue of the Weekly Standard, Joseph Epstein wrote a classic piece about what he appropriately called the "Kindergarchy," in which our current obsession with every waking moment and conceivable detail with kids is the sole axis on which the earth now revolves. My mother, a walking encyclopedia of clichés has always sagely warned, "Everything in moderation." That means with emotion, too. Love is a noble act until it smothers common sense, and then it is little more than Tomfoolery with a warm, infectious smile and an empty, dim-witted gaze. If you doubt me, just try speaking up against expensive fiscal waste in your school district's budget at the next public meeting and you'll get a little taste of what I mean. (By the way, do you have health insurance?) Laugh now, but the signs of wimpdom are becoming more rampant as little Billy and Mary grow up. Now, business consultants advise bosses to give their workers much more praise, whether they deserve it or not. Yes, self-esteem has grown up. All those precious, delicate little incessantly kissed tushes have now exited the classrooms and replanted themselves into cubicles. The next generation of "Dilberts" has arrived, bubbles, water bottles, cell phones, and all. Don't forget to dress down for "casual Friday," unless of course, it's too hot out. Then you can all just have the day off with pay and make it a long weekend. Really, it's OK. Your boss won't mind. He might even compliment you, especially if you take the initiative and exert the energy to shut off the lights before you leave. Good job! You're going places! You are management material! Thank you for being such a vital part of our team! Hey, take Monday off, too. You deserve it! Your star is rising, baby! Harry Truman once said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." That figures. The only part of unrevised American history our kids learn in school, and it has to be that quote. Rest assured, Osama bin Laden and his ilk around the world are not just planning. They're also watching, and taking notes. Bin Laden, as well as Chinese Communist officials, have previously commented and strategized based on their perceived softness of America and American resolve. May God help us all, when, not if, the inevitable "bubble" some day bursts. Indeed, as the educrats keep telling us, our kids are our future. Meanwhile, don't forget your water bottle. We still have July and August to somehow endure. Doug Wrenn © Copyright 2002-2008 by Magic City Morning Star |