Kids these day. Am I right? Or am I right?
I do a decent amount of walking. I’m not nominating myself as a “Forrest Gump of the year” candidate or anything like that. I’m simply too lazy to work out, so I figure walking instead of driving is as good as it’s gonna get for someone with my low-bar physical fitness ambitions. Anywho, while criss-crossing the greater Nampa-Caldwell metroplex on foot, I’ve noticed an emerging breed of youth. Perhaps it’s not a new breed as much as an adaptation? or a phenomena? Or perhaps it reflects the nature of the parents more than the kids? I’m not sure.
I’m referring to the increasing number of kids zooming around town on motorized scooters and bicycles. I’m conflicted on the whole matter. On the one hand, it’s great to see kids outside at all. Besides that, these kids are being independent. They’re going places and doing things without the immediate and visible tether of a parent. That seems like a good thing to my crusty-old perspective. Let kids be kids and save all your jittering about how they’ll be clipped by traffic or snatched off the streets by sex traffickers or exposed to drag queens. There was more danger fifty years ago than there is today, and I’ll stand by that baseless statement come facts or reason.
On the other hand, is it too much to ask these kids to peddle pedal? I mean, I’m fifty-years-old and I can still use my feet to get me from place to place. Back in my day, I used my ten-speed to pedal two miles along a farm road without shoulders in order to satisfy my afternoon craving for a DP and a Mrs. Baird’s cherry fried pie from Chase’s Grocery on a weekly basis. I had to pedal further if I wanted to visit my closest friend. Kids these days can zip to the Stinker Station for their Red Bull/Ghost/Monster/C4/Bang/Rock Star fix without even breaking a sweat. How can we expect them to freak-out all that excessive caffeine and sugar if they don’t lift anything more than a finger on their way home? We’re basically putting the gun in their hand! We’re begging them to pull out a can of spray paint and go nuts. We’re practically forcing them into a life of hoodlumry. Or at the very least, obesity and high blood pressure.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a season in life for assisted-pedaling. That’s a season I might be rapidly approaching. We’ll see. But if an able-bodied ten-year-old starts off with assisted-pedaling, where do they go from there? A Segway? Then what? Telekinetic bubble? (Actually, that would be pretty cool.) Everyone knows you start with a hammer before you graduate to a nail gun. You gotta learn to work your legs before you earn the privilege of letting them shrivel.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just sour grapes over the fact I’m still schlepping around like some sort of bipedal Neanderthal when these whippersnappers are cutting donuts around me on their fancy mopeds. Meh. I suppose time will tell. Or, more likely, nothing will change, and I’ll forget about all this in a few weeks.
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