Cap and Gown

This week and next will be cap and gown time for a lot of High School seniors.
Another generation is knocking at the world's front door and thinking they are going to set the place on fire as soon as they can get away from Mom and Dad. I graduated from High School 38 years ago thinking how dumb my parents were. I thought they were clueless, archaic and so not tuned into how things really were. Mom must have told me a thousand times to tuck my shirt tail in and Dad told me at least one thousand times to polish my shoes. That was pretty good information 38 years ago but how were they to know that today no one polishes their shoes because everyone wears sneakers and no one has tails to tuck in because everyone wears T-Shirts. I still don't know what was so important about polished shoes and tucked in tails. Maybe Mom and Dad were preparing me for the Vietnam War which I was about to be drafted into. Maybe they thought the Viet Cong were going to shoot every shirt tail hanging and scruffy shoe GI they saw. I didn't understand my parents and they sure didn't understand me but I did what I was told, polishing my shoes and tucking in my shirt tails. All the while thinking I was never going to be like them only to realize years later that I was just like them.
In the next few days there will be another group of high school seniors who will move their tassel from one side to the other just as I did 38 years ago. This years seniors are about to escape eighteen years of captivity and be unleashed upon the world. I can only think of one scarier thought! Next Fall there will be a new group of know it alls who already think how good life would be if only Mom and Dad were not around to regulate it.