Maybe there is hope for traditional values

I had a shocking experience today. I was at a mall around lunch time when it filled up with high school students. Suddenly, I was surrounded by maybe 30 adolescent males. What practically threw me off my feet was that they were, without exception, clean cut, neatly dressed (no gang banger clothing, no unseemly expanses of flesh), and very well mannered. Add to that the suburban qualities of clear skin and straight teeth, and you can imagine how taken aback I was. To see Hollywood tell it, America’s youth are drug addled, disheveled, riddled with attitude and, usually, somewhat dirty. These teens, however, looked like something out of a 1950s advertisement for good living. It made me have hope for the future. (And made me wish, almost, that I could be a teen now, instead of an urban teen in the raggy, shaggy, oh-so-ugly 1970s).