"GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!"
When I was playing sports, I remember winning two games in one season with goal-line stands. In another one, my team came from behind by two-touchdowns in the last 2 minutes and 3 touchdowns in the last 3 minutes.
I remember being 8-0 (hadn’t had a close game all year) as a sophmore playing another 8-0 team. Their QB was future UCLA bruin Rick Bayshore. We led the entire game, I believe, until they scored on a trap play with 56 seconds left. Our biggest problem was that we had 70 yards to go and a 1st string QB who couldn’t throw. We only had 23 players (17 the first day) yet we played in a Big Boy” CIF league in Orange County, CA.
No problem for us. We just put in the 2nd string QB who hadn’t played one play outside of mopping up a couple of times. On third down, all receivers ran ‘up’ routes. I remember well watching Chris spiral arch perfectly hitting Mitch in stride with the defender a couple of steps behind. Even though several of my teams would win titles and an 18-game winning streak in college, it was the only time a team of mine would finish undefeated and untied.
And growing up in Southern California in the 60’s and 70’s made it worse. USC seemed to always be playing for the national championship in football and baseball while UCLA dominated college basketball for over a decade. Throw in all the minor sports the two schools were winning and a kid grows up thinking you and/or your team are just seeded into the semi-finals of every tournament.
This created in me (and my friends) an unbounded optimism.
Unfortunately, it is now exhausted after reading today’s headlines. Our country has completely lost its way:
“GA police shut down girl’s lemonade stand”
“Concord Could Fine Students For Cutting Class”
“Foreclosure Freeze Proposed”
“Fan Who Caught Jeter’s 3,000th Hit May Owe IRS Thousands”
“Front Yard Gardener Faces New Charges”
“Dem Congresswoman Brings Obama’s Race Into Debt Ceiling Fight”
“California companies fleeing the Golden State”
“Judge jails rape victim for contempt; victim put in cell next to attacker…”
And the latest:
“Grief counseling for Muggles mourning final ‘Harry Potter’ film”
What has happened to our once great country? A people of ‘can do’ and ‘damn the torpedos and full speed ahead’? Of “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”?
Forget my father’s generation (he was born in 1922) who grew up knowing nothing but The Great Depression; fighting WWII in early adulthood; and then ‘going to college’ and onto finding a job realizing a decade’s worth of men were all getting there at the same time.
No, these men…this entire generation, had it so much easier than the poor little darlings of today’s generation X, or Y, or whatever they are called. Today’s youths and young adults don’t have any NEW Harry Potter movies or books to entertain them. Pray tell, how will they cope tell? Thank God for grief counselors!
Actually, lookng above at what I just wrote, this generation must be ‘Z’, right?
Aptly named…’Z’ denoting the last letter of the alphabet, the last generation…
which is completely unprepared for continuing America’s freedom.
God help us during the coming storm.
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Surviving California $$$$ 
This is an inappropriate set of consquences to a inappropriate group of people. You don’t take people just to fine them a bunch of money they don’t necessarily have. Parents can know where their children are if they would stay at home to educate and take care of them themselves. If the entire community really cared about these children, the consequence would be community service with the parent(s) by the child(rens) side(s). Children do belong in an educational environment but NOT an institutionalized one. The (school) districts appreciate taxpayer money and the guy or gal at the top get the most pay. The teachers miss out on much family time with their own children and for little pay. That is, the end result of suffocating our classrooms with an overabundance of students and not enough teachers. I agree with the city for taking a leadership role and I do respect their efforts. What I have NO respect for is how they target a person’s wallet. This is a very disgusting display describing a lack of true compassion and desire to better our children who need a better role model in this city. Not a good example for more difficult and troubled cities.