Have you seen these these hoodlums today... with their belly button rings and fast cars? Every time I look around, they’re twiddling their thumbs on these whatchyamajiggers and laughing out loud.
These kids don't even speak English anymore, with their FYG's and PNCs. If you got something to say, just say it for the good Lord's sake.
They never make eye contact, especially with their elders. When we walk by, these dagnabbitin' kids need to put down their machines, look up, and recognize our presence.
When I was a kid, when everything was in black and white and everyone parted their hair good with grease, we knew how to treat people. And fer fun, we jumped rope and rolled hoops with sticks.
We always knew who our enemies were. It was easy— people who didn't look like us and the Commies. It wasn't some kinda xena-phobia, for Christ’s sake. We weren't scared of nuthin'.
Back then it was always 72 degrees outside, even on Fourth of July, and our fireworks, by God's good grace, were invented by Americans.
When people ran for President, we could pronounce their names and dagnabit, if our dads wanted brownies for dinner, our moms would put on their heals and pearls, and get to work.
Our grass was always green and you didn't have to file lawsuits to get your neighbor to pull up his black socks and chop his lawn. It was the thing to do, and if you wanted too, you could stick a pipe in your mouth and whistle Dixie while you were doing it.
We spent our summers playin’ jacks and petting rocks - we didn't care about trees in Africa. Hell, we didn't even know where the Amazon was. Where do they get this nonsense?
Things were just simpler back then, I'll tell you what. If you didn't want certain people drinking out of the same drinking fountain as you, all you had to do was put up a sign and they knew they better stay away or our daddies might whip 'em or hang 'em. And if you got mad at somebody, you didn't need permission from China to drop a bomb on 'em. Just hoot, holler, and bombs away, Amen! Their women, their children, their rats...nuttin' but dust in the wind.
I swear on the good book if I hear one more kid say one more daggum thing about that Potter, and all his witchcraft and evil, I'm gonna do what his momma should do and bend 'em over and whip 'em myself. And when I'm done, I'm gonna take his blastin' computing thing and throw it in the river.
In school, if we wanted to know 4+4, we did it in our own heads. We didn't need some blasted machine to do it for us. And if we didn't know 4+4, our teachers would slap us in the knuckles with their ruler. You're daggum right we would know 4+4 after that, and if we didn't, well we knew there was a big white-headed man down the hall with an even bigger stick for us. We knew what was good for us back then.
And I'll tell you what else— if our radio was broke and we picked up the phone, sure, we would have to wait for our neighbors to free the line, but when that broad on the other end patched me through, that man at RCA spoke the same kinda' words that were coming out of my mouth. We knew what each other was sayin'.
Now if a kid's Uhtarie-majigger breaks, he cries and kicks and screams until they can get some dingbat from Japan on the phone that you can't even understand from a whole in the wall.
These here kids need some straightening up. If I was in charge, I’d make them write sentences, and I mean with a lead pencil and paper too, not those typewriting things they use now.
The girls would wear matching skirts to their ankles and nobody but their mommas would know if they had an "innie" or an "outie." Just think of all the problems we could fix today if every boy at school wore the same color shirts and knickers.
Why, for two red cents I'd line these boys up and by the corn's high knee they'd be the most rootenous tootenous lads around.
Instead of all those Mexicans, Chinamen, and Syrians takin' over our country with their cherry laws, they'd be scootin' from our boys faster than a redskin from a pastor.
You're darn right things were better back then. This country has gone to hell in a hand-basket and it's gonna take some of grandma's switches to get these disrespectin' little whippersnappers back in line.
I'm breakin' a switch off right now. Who's with me?
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The previous is a satire inspired by emails and comments I’ve received over the years as a former school board member, as well as the following quote from the ancient Greek Philosopher, Socrates:
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
