I don’t know how it is where you live, but around here, every local town has a community group on Facebook. While these groups can be a good source of information, they are also hotbeds for gossip and complaints. I find such conversations entertaining. (I also wonder if public schools have stopped teaching English.)
Yesterday, a woman took to the Bryan community page to whine, gripe, and complain about three teen boys on bicycles who gave her the middle finger as she drove by. She hoped that a big man would teach them a lesson by beating them up. Yikes! Talk about overkill.
Other offended commenters added their complaints about being flipped off to the discussion, concluding that modern youths are more disrespectful than they were back in the day; that they never would have given a stranger the middle finger. I tend to roll my eyes when boomers delusively talk about how good life was in the “good old days.” The 60s and 70s were different, to be sure, but better than today? I have my doubts. Teenagers have always been disrespectful. It is part of their rite of passage. Three boys, under the age of sixteen, flipping off someone as they drive by? Not an issue. Older man beating them up for doing so? That’s a felony.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
But, but good people never get the finger, or mooned, or…wait a minute. Sure, I might have muttered (or yelled) stupid little boys or some such. Getting the finger from strangers? Who cares?