Page 16 - The Crown 2015-2017

69. I’m talking about 1969.

70. We knew that life was hard. Death was real. Money will leave you and
friends will deceive you.

71. We did not commit suicide. Our friends did not define who we were.

72. You did not dress like everybody else. You wore what you had and asked
for what you could not get.

73. Now it is 2010. We have clothes. We have fine cars. We had beautiful
houses to live in.

74. Our children are given new cars that they wreck their first year of
ownership.

75. They wear colorful clothes and high heels. Look good on the outside.
But, many of them are empty on the inside because they long for love
and attention from their parents. They want a home instead of a house.

76. Many are about to graduate from and high school and still lack direction.
Ask one what you want to major in, the response is I don’t know.

77. Our parents would tell you in a minute, you will be this or that and love
it. You stayed focused and graduated.

78. You came home with a diploma in your hand and not a baby on you side.

79. We played mommy and daddy. You did not become one until after you
graduated from college and left home and got married.

80. It is 2010. It is the best of times and the worst of times.

81. We are sitting in the back of the classrooms, failing state mandated tests
at an all time high, dropping out of school, dropping out of life and
disrespecting our parents.

82. Our youth have the best of everything. But we learned in the ‘60s that
things don’t make you an intelligent, “Clothes don’t make the man.”

83. It’s values, morals, determination, self-worth. Service to others.

84. As a tree is bent, so shall it grow. We must bend the young minds toward
academic success, social development, intellectual discourse.

85. Top Teens of American prepared us for life. Girl Scouts prepared us for
life.

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