to being the age that I am.
Among the best it seems to me is that we were the last generation of kids in America to be allowed a childhood. Still often raised by mothers at home and a culture that felt the need to protect us from its darkness we could be kids in the best sense of the word. Scraped knees, no helmets, with the opportunity to create as much imagination as possible on a city block, we could have some time just learning how to be with people, like puppies tugging at each other on the kitchen floor.
I don’t think kids have nearly any of that in these days. From the time they’re born they seem to be corporatized, homogenized, sexualized, and beat into a shape considered to be appropriate to their masters in school, in marketing, and government. No one seems to want actual kids anymore, just clones on which to project their fantasies, accessories in the never ending life of acquisition. Not a stepford child? We have pills for that.
If I had a gift to give the children of this day it would be an afternoon with friends on the bank of the Wisconsin river, fishing with worms we picked after the rain stopped the night before. If we got bullheads they’d go home for mulch and bragging rights lasted until the next time we went fishing. Not a single x box or whatever they call it now in sight, no teachers wiggling a condom in our face, and no one being an adult before their time, just real kids trying to figure things out as the water moved south through town.
The Beautiful Path 