Mowing Down Personal Responsibility

“If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” – Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)

I thought of this quote when I read a letter to the editor of the paper in which my column (this blog) appears.  "Dude, you are so not immortal" 10/3/13  The writer took me to task for an earlier column in which I expressed incredulity and eventually anger over a Crescenta Valley High School student who purposefully walked in front of my moving car on the main drag in front of the school.

Briefly, the primary point of my column was not that the kid was simply careless or had absentmindedly wandered into traffic as he was distracted by friends or texting or simply a glitch in his teenage programming. I get that kids do that all the time. Oops. Been there, done that myself, in fact. But when that happens and they dodge death by mere millimeters – most typical kids will react with shock and make apologetic gestures at the driver. None of that happened this time. Nope, this clown’s condescending smirk and absolute refusal to acknowledge that my truck was within inches of his awesome self (how do you ignore a horn?) telegraphed that he knew exactly what he was doing and could not have cared less.

In her letter to the editor, however, the woman writing about my column was loath to judge the young man as being anything but “goofy and lovable.” And yet, she was quick to suggest that I was surely driving above the speed limit (I wasn’t). She also recommended that I attend anger management classes. To that I can only say – the fact that I was able to restrain myself from circling the block, hunting down the loveable chucklehead to pummel some sense into his bad self speaks to my obviously impressive ability to control my anger, thank you very much.

Speaking of impressive, I’m fascinated that the letter writer had the skill to discern what really happened without being a passenger in my car. After reading the letter to the editor, my immediate response was, well, now I know whose kid was hell bent on become a human hood ornament.

But then I began to wonder how it is that so many folks today are reluctant to judge the actions of people (especially teenagers and young adults) or make excuses for their behavior. Instead, they point the finger of blame at other people, situations, supposed inequalities, injustice, economic conditions, and on and on and on. It seems to be a national epidemic.

Take, for example, the recent syndicated column by veteran reporter, John Stossel. In the column, “Longing to Be A Victim” Stossel recounts that Vice President, Joe Biden’s niece was arrested last month for throwing a punch at a cop. Although major media reports had detailed the woman’s well-known addiction to alcohol and pills, even this wasn’t given as the reason for her attempt to deck the cop. Nope. Rather than take responsibility (or even acknowledge that her substance abuse played a part in the incident), the niece excused her actions saying she is a victim of the “pressure she faces” because her uncle is vice president. Poor baby. I’ll be she’s really just a goofy and loveable gal.

Another quote I like is from Ann Frank, who said, “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.”

What worries me is that too many parents (and adults in general) refuse to take responsibility for correcting and guiding upcoming generations. When excuses are automatically made for our kids’ behaviors, or if responsibility is deflected to others, how will they learn responsibility?

Even the new Federal mandate that “kids” can stay on their parents’ health insurance policies (those who still have a policy, that is) until age 26 is part of a troubling trend. News flash: if you’re 26, or 21 or even 18, you’re not a kid. Sorry.

I certainly don’t want to turn one encounter with a jerky kid into an indictment on society. But seriously, if we can’t even agree to call the act of purposely walking in front of a car a dangerously stupid thing to do, we’ve got big trouble.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Swept Away By Imagination

 Growing up in La Crescenta, one of my most vivid memories is of a huge, smoke-belching monster that would crawl along the gutter of the sleepy street where I lived. The glow from its sickly yellow, predatory eyes would slice through the pre-dawn mist and darkness on my street. If I remember correctly, this chilling encounter happened at least once every couple of weeks. When the monster came those mornings, I would lie in bed at our family’s home on Harmony Place, just a few driveways away from Two-Strike Park, with the covers pulled up over my head. My bedroom faced the street, so I could all-too-clearly hear the thing approaching, prowling up the street towards my house – a low, muffled growl, rattling my bedroom windows as it came closer and closer.

Beneath the menacing rumble, there was also a continuous sound of hissing that conjured images of a huge cauldron roiling with snakes and vipers and other angry, nasty things.

If it was particularly foggy morning, and if I could build up the courage to leave the safety of my blankets and draw back the curtains – our street would take on an eerie yellow glow that announced the coming of the creature before it actually rounded the corner and roared up our street. The jaundiced light would cast frightening shadows that moved across the walls and ceiling of my room as the beast passed by.

Somehow, all of the parents on Harmony Place would know which mornings the creature was expected to appear, and would move their cars from off the street the night before so the snarling thing could pass by unimpeded in the early morning hours. If a car inadvertently got left on the street overnight, you could see a wet, slobbery trail left behind where the monster had to swerve around the obstacle. Creepy.

Okay, by now you’ve probably figured out that my monster was actually the county’s lumbering, diesel-drinking street sweeper. But even long after I “matured” beyond imagining that the street sweeper was a living, malevolent creature – I continued to tell myself that it was a mechanical contraption hell-bent on my destruction, its all-consuming purpose being to lure me outside and drag me under the massive, whirling brushes of death mounted behind its front wheels.

I haven’t seen a street sweeper on the avenues and boulevards of the Crescenta Valley in a long time. I’m told they still occasionally make their rounds through the Foothills and every once in a long while, if I have to go somewhere very early in the morning, I will drive past the wide, wet, telltale trail of one of the illusive creatures. But as for actually seeing one? Not much chance of that happening. We live at the end of a private driveway that’s so far off the street, even trick-or-treaters rarely find our doorstep, not to mention those clean cut young men in crisp white shirts and ties who roam the neighborhood in pious pairs. I do miss the trick-or-treaters.

But even if I wouldn’t ever see a street sweeper pass our house, I would hear it. And the kid who still lives inside my head would instantly recognize that low gear rumble and snake-like hiss of whirling brushes. I have no doubt the sound would wake me from even the deepest sleep and send me to the window searching for a yellow glow in the darkness, coming closer and closer.

Unfortunately, these days it isn’t imaginary monsters growling past my house that make me want to pull the covers over my head. It’s the frightening reality of things like mandatory, government-run health care and a punitive, petulant President who would gladly spend gobs more money to keep Americans away from national treasures than it ever cost to let us in. Scary stuff, indeed. But nothing a good street-sweeping of Washington, D.C. can’t fix.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Everyone Knows It’s Windy (Especially in So Cal)

Is it just me, or has anyone else had the song, “Windy” blowing around in their head lately? I realize I’m dating myself (something I do all too often, unfortunately), but that song by the sixties group, “The Association” was at the top of the pop charts when I was in elementary school. Today, every time the wind blows – which it’s been doing a lot the past couple of weeks – I start singing the lyrics to myself; “Who’s peeking out from under the stairway / Calling the name that’s lighter than air / Who’s bending down to give me a rainbow / Everyone knows it’s Windy!”

(If you’re wondering who The Association was, well, let’s just say it was a six man vocal group and that pop music back then had very little in common with Miley Cyrus or her soft-porn contemporaries. The group was popular when tight harmonies were considered much more important than tight ... but, I diverge.)

I don’t know if any members of The Association were inspired by our nefarious Southern California winds, but as native, I can attest that fierce, desert-hot winds are not unusual in our little corner of So Cal paradise.

Many years ago, in fact, when our youngest boys were students in Monte Vista elementary school, one of their classmates – a tiny wisp of a girl – was actually blown off the sidewalk in front of school, lifted off her feet and slammed back down into a nearby hedge. Thankfully, she was only shaken up and not physically hurt by the impromptu Mary Poppins impersonation, but we joked with our boys that from then on, they would have to put rocks in their classmate’s pockets or get on either side to hold her down whenever the wind kicked up.

I actually like it when the winds kick up as long as we don’t lose power for longer than a few hours, and of course, as long as trees don’t crush homes and cars, or feed out-of-control wildfires, or ... well, okay ... I’ll admit they can be very destructive and are often an extreme hardship on all of us So Cal residents. That said, to my thinking even a week of Santa Ana winds is better than boring Southern California heat, haze and stillness. Yawn.

It might be odd, but one of the items on my bucket list is to have the experience of hunkering down somewhere relatively safe in the midst of a hurricane or tornado. Not kidding. To be surrounded by the full fury of weather would be an awesome thing. Now, I would never become an obsessed storm chaser, but I watch news stories about people huddled together in boarded-up buildings, reading or playing games by candlelight while rain and wind pummel their shelter and I think, yeah, that would be cool.

My wife, on the other hand, hates the wind because of the super-low humidity it usually brings with it. During Santa Ana events, we break out the 50-gallon drum of Lubriderm or some other moisturizer bought by the pallet-full at Costco. Dry skin is not her friend.

I will admit, however, that I don’t like the way the wind strips every pine tree in La Crescenta of needles and deposits them like a four-inch thick blanket of compost all over our yard. Just as there is truth in the old So Cal saw that you should wash your car if you want it to rain; it also seems to be true that if you want to summon a near-hurricane wind event, spend a weekend cleaning every last pine needle and fallen leaf from your lawns and planters and cram them all into the “green” waste bin (the bin that for some inexplicable reason is actually black). Guaranteed, the wind will kick up within a day or two at most.

My dogs also don’t like the wind. There is hardly a more pathetic sight than an 85-pound, bear-of-a-dog laying on the kitchen floor with his snout resting on the bottom of the doggy door frame, the flap pushed out just enough so the brave beast can peek into the yard. The big goofy fur ball wants desperately to go out and play, but as soon as a gust of wind blows noisily through the trees, he comes barreling back through the door like he’s being chased by a pack of vicious badgers. Makes me so proud.

And with that, I’ll put down the keyboard and pick up my gloves and rake. After all, there are about 35 million pine needles out there calling my name. But first, I’m gonna download a certain song onto my iPod. No, not “Windy” ... another song from the same era; “Blowin’ In the Wind.” 

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Dude, You Are So Not Immortal

I don’t know your name and can only make a logical guess at your age given that you are a Crescenta Valley High student. (I've taken to calling you the "Tall Teen Twerp" lately.) But your smug face and stupidly reckless actions will be hard to forget. You are tall, with an average build and longish, blondish hair that you probably love to flip away from your eyes with great disdain at anyone without your level of awesomeness.

You probably didn’t give a second thought to our little encounter two weeks ago, so I’ll refresh your memory. That Tuesday, on a typically beautiful late Southern California summer afternoon, long after most of your classmates at CV High had left the campus, you and maybe seven or eight of your friends were on the sidewalk in front of school, just above the auditorium. As I drove down Ramsdell Avenue (in front of school), I noticed your group walking, laughing – happy to be finished with classes for the day, heading towards hump-day.

Almost at the same moment as your group was about to step off the sidewalk and onto Ramsdell (nowhere near a crosswalk, of course) you all noticed my vehicle heading towards you. Everybody stopped in their tracks and didn’t step off the curb. Except you. You saw me coming. There was no way you didn’t. Your friends all yelled at you to stop. But you kept walking without a hitch in your swagger. And so, dripping with cool and staring straight ahead, you walked across the street and directly in front of my oncoming 11,800-pound pickup truck.

I thought of so many things within the milliseconds that followed. That you were an idiot, of course, but also that you were somebody’s son. Maybe someone’s brother. As my right foot stomped on the brake and I straight-armed the horn button, my staccato thoughts continued – that this was likely going to be really bad, was going to ruin your school year at the very least and holy crow what will happen to my insurance rates and how ironic will it be to see a news story about this tragedy in the same paper that publishes this column and I hope his friends will back me up that he walked right in front of me and what could this chucklehead be thinking playing chicken with an oncoming truck?!?

Thankfully, I was somehow able to stop before bouncing you off my hood and changing both of our worlds forever. But here’s the thing, even coming within inches of getting hit – even with my horn blaring at you for a full minute at least – even with your friends screaming from the sidewalk and me yelling things out my open window that I would never want my pastor to hear – even then; you didn’t flinch, didn’t slow down, didn’t so much as glance my way.

Your “I’m so badass I can’t possibly be hit” smirk didn’t falter. You weren’t listening to music; no cords dangled from your ears. Most likely, you were listening to some inner narcissistic soundtrack that continuously affirms your greatness. In your mind, you walk on water, I’m sure.

Maybe your friends or a teacher who saw what almost happened that day ripped you a new one after I drove on. I hope so. But I’m pretty sure you would ignore them as easily as you ignored my blaring horn and screeching tires. (Was it just your dumb luck or mine that I’d had new tires installed literally the day before? I wonder.)

Enjoy this season while it lasts, buddy. There’s a big (way bigger than you), hard reality waiting for you beyond the insular bubble of high school life. The next time you pull some stunt like that, the person behind the wheel may not be paying such close attention to his or her surroundings. Or he may be changing the music on the stereo. Or, God forbid, doing something even more potentially lethal, like texting as he careens towards your foolish, arrogant little self.
Dude, it’s going to take many years for you to grow up and learn that you’re not nearly as invincible (or cool) as you think. I only hope you stay alive long enough for that to happen.

I’ll see you ‘round town.