As one of the first Baby Boomers my life as a kid was mostly spent in the Fifties wanting to be Wally but being more like Beaver with my mom trying to be June Cleaver. How many of you even know what I’m talking about? Hey, if I call you Eddie Haskell that’s a compliment.
My life as a kid was about as normal as it gets. From about the first grade on I walked to school. After school I usually went to a playground, a park of friend’s house, having only to make it home by 6pm sharp for dinner, which we had together around a table every night. On weekends and during the Summer I would be given a bowl of Cheerios at 8am and then off I would go on my bike to return at 6pm sharp, though I must say that if some other mom fed me lunch I would call home and say I was fed. We would go miles on our bikes, spend days in the woods or jumping in rivers or lakes and no one ever called to ask WHERE ARE YOU?
Friday nights we would walk to the local movie theater and walk home well after 10pm at night, sometimes when it was below zero. On Sundays we would take the bus from the suburbs 10 miles downtown to see SciFi movies and buy MAD magazine. Snow storms were especially fun for at night we would go out to skidjit, which was hiding behind a snow bank until a slow moving car rolled by and then running after it to grab it’s rear bumper and boot skate behind it until it found pavement and sent us scraped up and rolling down the street with sprained ankles.
Why is it so different today? Are there more child molesters and kidnappers on the lose than back then? Looking that up I find that there is no difference. Then what could it be that keeps parents hovering over their kids these days? What is the real, tangible fear that is so different today than back then? GUNS. AN ONSLAUGHT OF GUNS. AND MACHINE GUNS. AND ANGRY MEN WITH HOME ARSENALS.
You know, like many of you I saw my share of violence growing up, the worst of it was a tire iron that did not have to be used. I never saw or even heard of anyone with a handgun until I was drafted. Which lead to the question so many refuse to address.
Looking back at all the anger, altercations and fights you have seen in your life, do you think even one of them would have been better served has their been a gun involved?