John Atwater's Blog

Well said, another aspect is all of the media coverage, everybody is looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Sometimes, methinks the media coverage gives too many details and covers stories that aught best not be covered. 10,000 local kids probably saw this report, if this story made an impression on just one....well you see where I'm going here.

When I was a kid, we used to put a big knot in the end of a rope and douse it in kerosene. After that, we lit the knotted end afire and would swing it aroud our heads...sounds just like a jet engine. It was cool. Don't try that at home. We also had paper clip fights, potato cannons that we made ourselves out of tin cans, tennis ball launchers and wrist-rockets. We wood play in the woods and smash Christmas bulbs in the sewer outlet by the steam. We had SST racers, cox cars and planes and knew how to operate a model railroad train. We even had firecrackers and Estes rockets. We would run behind mosquito trucks spraying fog, risking life and limb while hoping not to be hit by a car, but that was for someone else to worry about, but I guess the DDT (or whatever chemical it was)they were spraying explains alot. We had speed racer and Ultra-man, the Stooges and the Flinstones, and after dinner it was back to the woods and that sewer pipe. That was where I saw my first naked woman staring back at me from inside the sewer pipe.I will never forget!!! Obviously, a magazine left behind by a much more sophisticated person then myself...but I digress. What happened to the good old days. We probably used to drive the (now) 75 y/o population nuts with our antics. Anyhow, where have we gone wrong to go from my upbringing to todays shoot 'em up schools?