It's All About You...

When I was a kid, my mother had the look. Adults of my generation and before know what I'm talking about. The look said, "When I get you home..." and any reasonably imaginative child could fill in the rest. And it was always horrific.

My parents divorced when I was five. The custody arrangements gave my father visitation on Wednesday nights and weekends. When they separated, my mother moved us to an apartment complex in Sioux City, and my father moved back home with his mother in Le Mars, twenty-five miles away. I have no idea if that arrangement was to be temporary, but my father lived with my grandmother until her death nearly eight years later.

The transfer of the kids happened at one of three places. The first was Sunshine Grocery Store, which was near where my father worked. The second was at a little diner in Leeds, which was a "suburb" of Sioux City. At either of those two places my mother fed my sister and me: loose-meat sandwiches at the grocery store, scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes at the diner.

However, the third place was closest to our apartment. Bellas Hess was sort of a Target of it's day. We met there if a major purchase needed to be discussed. I remember shopping for furniture, tires, and school clothes there. That was my favorite place for the exchange because it took my father the longest to get there, which meant my sister and I ran wild up and down the aisles.

Until we got the look.

If that happened, we knew it would be three whole days before our mother could exact retribution. She knew it too, and most of the time she'd forget. So, in the meantime if we misbehaved we got sent to the car. That was a fate worse than death because it meant that one of us was sitting outside while the other was enjoying the wonders of Bellas Hess. I only remember being sent to the car once or twice. It was enough to keep me in line.

I thought of those days as I read this article about how society seems to have less tolerance for children. I won't say that I grew up in an era where children were seen and not heard, but it's a notion I think that's worth reconsidering. In that notion children learn that there are other people in the world who may not be enchanted by their noise. Other people have feelings, needs, wants, and desires and while it may not be possible to satisfy all of those, social reticence demonstrated a respect for other people.

But it's no wonder we have children who scream into cell phones and look bored out train windows. They've been reared in an environment in which they believe the world owes them entertainment. Creativity, intellectual pursuits, or introspection seem to be foreign concepts.

Today I rode down to Lakeview to help set up the fundraiser rummage sale for the Chorus. I donated four hours and it was four hours of the most gruelling, back-breaking work I've ever done. I unloaded three huge moving trucks of furniture and literally a ton of donated clothes. The ride home took every ounce of strength. As I was pedalling, I came upon a blond woman, pedaling along and chatting on her cell phone, oblivious to the fact that she was weaving all around the path and barely moving. As I finally got past her I heard her say, "Are you on your bike too?"

Cell phones are evil. It is my belief that any conversation on a cell phone that lasts longer than sixty seconds must contain the phrase, "Inform the president of imminent nuclear chaos," or you're simply polluting the airwaves.

And yet, in a society where each and every person believes that he or she is entitled to not only all that they have, but all that they want to have; where it is virtually impossible to establish eye contact in a grocery aisle; where little Tiffany is bored by her six-hundred-dollar electronic trinket; a casual pedal through a gorgeous park on one of the most perfect days God ever sent to Earth could only be made perfect by hollering into a pink, jewelled cell phone to ask if the person at the other end was also riding his bike.

I gave the woman the look.