Youngsters Could Use a Helping of Respect

Youngsters Could Use a Helping of Respect

By Dot Jackson
The Charlotte Observer, April 13, 1982

In this space we quoted the other day from the Cliffside memoir of Marc Dedmond, who wrote so appealingly about his small-town childhood. He remembered the dark moments along with the bright. He remembered a little boy crippling the town clock by pelting it with a green peach. He remembered defying a “No Spitting” sign, and setting off cherry-bombs outside the movie house.

In sum though, it was a journal of such innocence and happiness I was moved to note, at its close, “I wonder what the next generations will remember?”

Well, the mail has brought a nice note from Maria Moss, of Gaffney, S.C., with this wry observation:

“You can stop wondering what the next generation will remember,” she says. “It will be pretty much the same that Marc Dedmond’s generation remembered.” And she sends along a clip to make the point.

It is a story about the damage wrought in Chapel Hill by basketball-victory madness a couple of weeks back. Buildings and vehicles were broken into, stolen from and vandalized; damages to one grocery store could total $30,000-$40,000, the story said.

Maria is right, of course; each generation treasures the memory of a taste or so of bad apple.

But I fear there is a difference, in Marc Dedmond’s “then” and this victory-night sort of “now.” And a trend toward worse things. The difference is victims. Generations gone would have gotten their britches warned memorable for theft, for instance. And theft was such a heinous thing that somebody would have told.

Now, it is rather the fashion, a sort of rite of passage in circles that do not need for anything material, to make off with the belongings of others and get by with it.

A QUESTION OF RIGHTS

Certainly, such adventures are not limited to the well-to-do; people who do need things will sometimes shoplift and burgle, too. In this case, it is no lark but a demonstration of “human rights over property rights.” Which confuses me: is it not a basic human right to hold in some security such property (like hubcaps and bicycles) as one can honestly acquire?

In Marc Dedmond’s young world, one bad little boy was trying to see if he could hit the town clock with a peach. Other bad little boys were trying to see if they could hit the streetlights with a rubber band and a paper clip. Success brought its own terror of being Caught.

Fear of God or Papa, or plain old decency, would have stayed most little hands from popping out somebody’s car window to help one’s self to the stereo.

I can’t imagine a kid who had worked and paid for this own jalopy vandalizing a car belonging to a stranger. I can’t imagine that a kid who has helped build a house, or helped keep one in repair, would knock out a window and mess up some poor soul’s domicile. Values, in a way, are worked for.

Few of Marc’s village peers probably ever dreamed of snatching an old lady’s pocketbook, much less act upon such thoughts. They had grannies right at hand who loved them. I cannot remember — ever — the things happening to old folks, at the hands of the young, that are growing statistics now.

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

A group of women I was with a couple of days ago were talking about the county’s greenways project. Some of them live along affected creeks and they don’t like it. Years ago, when the concept of public parkways along streams first came up, it was a nice idea, one said. But times have changed.

“You just don’t want strangers so close to your back door,” she said. “So many things are happening.” Indeed.

We think of mischief and mayhem as largely urban problems, and largely they are. There are less-populated places, where we walk alone as free as birds and still don’t lock our doors.

But the blight, and watchfulness, are spreading.

My friend Gary Carden, the storyteller, was here just now from his home town of Sylva. He told a story of dismay. A neighbor lady had gone right recently to a nursing home, and in a very short time the house was broken into and vandalized.

And then, “There was a little old place down the hill there that I’d always loved,” Gary said. Always wanted that place. Old man and his two sisters lived there. Had the prettiest garden, every year; grew everything they ate. Had a little old coal grate that was all their heat. And kerosene lamps; never had electricity.

“Well, they got so they couldn’t look out for themselves and had to go to a home. I was down there the other day. Somebody had chopped down the front door with an ax and dragged out the mattresses and cut ’em open, lookin’ for money. There was papers and pictures, old tintypes and things scattered all over the yard. Receipts for a burial policy where they’d paid 40 cents a week…”

We could use a revival of innocence, I think. A good dose of respect for property. And reverence for life.

Reprinted with permission from The Charlotte Observer. Copyright owned by The Charlotte Observer.