Mewling Mollycoddled Milquetoast Miscreants

We've all laughingly heard the tales from our parents... or grandparents on how they would travel to get to school. Walking 5 miles, up hill... both directions... in rain, snow, sleet... whatever... carrying their books and their bucket of coal for the stove to keep the class warm. Yeah... we would hear those stories and chuckle up our sleeves a little bit even.... OK.. so here's MY story.

Back in 1973 during the first Arab Oil Embargo, gasoline went from 35 cents per gallon... to an ECONOMY CRIPPLING 50 cents per gallon. As a result of this, the school I was attending, Jefferson Township H.S. in Northern NJ severely truncated school bus routes. So instead of just walking up to the corner about 1/2 a block from my house, I would have to walk all the way up the entire length of Schwarz Boulevard on Prospect Point to get to the bus stop. A distance of exactly one mile.

Pursuant to the insanity that was the gas shortages, etc., President Richard Nixon signed into law the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act of 1973 that December. It went into effect on the 6th of January 1974. As a result, walking the one mile to the bus stop would now occur in the PITCH BLACK MORNING. Often times, it was 12 degrees... howling wind... and DARK. This is what life WAS then. You dealt with it. Yes, it certainly seemingly sucked but that's the way it was. Hell, it built character and made you ever so grateful to finally get on a warm bus... or back to a warm house in the afternoon. It's what you DID dammit as you HAD NO CHOICE. If you were lucky, it wasn't raining... or snowing or hailing or whatever. There was no shelter at the bus stop either. You stood there on the corner. Outside in whatever elements Mother Nature chose to foist upon you.

Flash forward to this year..... gasoline at $2.50 per gallon.... I drive to work of course... and I absolutel DREAD getting stuck behind any school buses these days. Why? THEY STOP AT EVERY DAMN DRIVEWAY. EVERY STINKING ONE. And what is at each of these stops? Why.... Mommy or Daddy in their big, ugly, stupid SUV or mini-van or whatever... engine idling away burning up that obscenely expensive gasoline... with the precious little snowflake(s) sitting in the back seat awaiting the arrival of the bus!!!!! THEY DROVE THEM... from the house to the end of the driveway even!!!!!! In some cases a distance of LESS THAN 50 FEET!!!!!

Absolutely... and utterly DESPICABLE, DEPLORABLE and REPREHENSIBLE!!!!!! These parents should have some sense BEATEN into them if necessary. Foisting upon this world a generation of consummately pampered WHINERS.

With any luck... and actually, with a good deal of certainty, I will be DEAD... when this generation of spoiled little brats sits down and tells their grandchildren... "Why, when I was YOUR age, we used to sit in mommy's mini van and play video games while we waited for the school bus...."

I CAN'T STAND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!