Advent of Youth
Nov
30
Written by:
11/30/2011 5:19 PM
Tne Beachcomber knows where its sympathy lies.
For the first week of Advent the Beachcomber sympathizes with the plight of parents whose children don’t want to talk about drug highs any more than about puberty. On the same page the high school turns to off-island award-winning “Challenge Day” to direct opprobrium at bullies. Okay, how about the plight of youth in a bedroom community that loses an average of two hours of family time to the daily commute? Art tours? A magnet for the younger set. Elves collecting for charity? They bring out the finest in us.
Islanders remind me of the rabbits in Watership Down where the farmer lets them eat his carrots, and the rabbits pretend not to notice when aunt Florence and brother Elvis disappear. Us Islanders commute to survive, while pretending not to notice that the commute also is destroying their children.