It's not a criticism, it's an observation.
Running Away
Mike Cox

When I was fourteen, I ran away from home. My plan was to live in the woods until I was 21 then get a job and start my adult life. After a couple of hours, I shifted to plan B.

I hid near Bruce Leach's house waiting for his mother to leave. He was older than I so I figured he would have a good alternate plan. As it turned out, Bruce married more times than the Gabor sisters, so I was on thin ice relying on his decision making skills.

When the blue Chevy drove away, I knocked on the door. Bruce had been in the car, and his mother answered the door. She shamed me into going home barely three hours after I bolted for a life of freedom. The reason I left was hair.

Most of the guys I grew up with were forced into short hair. Flattop, butch, sidewalls, all involved a no nonsense barber our dads' age with a pair of clippers.

Then the Beatles came along, and we all wanted longer hair. Not as long as what is considered conservative today but longer than was accepted then. Most adults thought we were going to ruin civilization. I'm not sure what Lib Coleman's dad thought when he walked in on us as Lib put pink rollers in my long locks, but there was disgust in his face.

Today's kids want to wear their pants below their butts. They are trying to emulate their heroes; incarcerated criminals. The Beatles and the Dave Carl Five, who influenced 60s' hair styles, were cool. Anyone

who watches Cops

knows most criminals are really stupid, yet young men idolize them to the point of dressing like them.

Everyone else realizes how stupid it looks. Besides, if you have to run, your pants will fall to your ankles. Yet, like backward baseball caps, half mast drawers refuse to go out of style.

A town in Louisiana is making sagging pants illegal. It would make more sense to determine what young guys find so appealing about convicts, but the folks in charge are more concerned with image than problem solving.

We always target the wrong things. Kids want to be cool and want their peers to accept them as such. They don't care what adults think and will never consider adults, especially their parents, cool, no matter what happens.

We live in a permissive society. Police departments are overworked. Lawyers know every trick in the book. Anyone stupid enough to get himself incarcerated should be a laughing stock, not a hero. Yet kids find street cred and excitement in those people. Why?

Parents no more understand their kids these days than our parents understood us. Yet our role models were constructive. Rebellious, yes, but constructive. Today's role models are dimwits who rebel. They have no redeeming social value.

I can't for the life of me figure why anyone would walk around looking like that, but they do. Instead of passing laws trying to make them conform to our standards, we need to figure why theirs are so low.