All Children are Born Innocent

There's no pride in prejudice.

All Children Are Born Innocent
No Pride in Prejudice

In recent times, childhood innocence has taken a beating. If children are born into prejudice and raised that way, they learn intolerance. I hope that isn’t too strong, but sometimes, we have to be upfront when we feel strongly about something like social injustice and being intolerant of humanities’ differences.

Of course, this is only my opinion and you know what they say, “Opinions are like ... uh ... noses. Everyone has one.”

The small Ohio town where I grew up looked a lot like the one in the movie, “Back To The Future”. We also had a quaint little Main Street centered around a town square with a similar picturesque white-domed brick courthouse. It even had a clock up in the dome, like the one in the movie.

We had a ten-pin bowling alley, a library, a pool hall, a couple of movie theaters with 25-cent Saturday afternoon matinees, the pizza shop and A&W Root Beer Stand for dates, and a drive-in movie -- but that was off limits to most of us until we were at least engaged …

We also spent a great deal of time cruising Main Street to see everyone else that was cruising Main Street. Later, everyone ended up at Wayne’s Freeze, an ice cream and sandwich shop at the end of 15th Street. We just called it, “The Freeze”, as in, “See you at The Freeze later!”

Other than the senior citizen trailer park down by the river, there wasn’t a north or south side of the tracks in my hometown —maybe because the town was so small.

What we did have was an area just east of town where the rowdies lived. They were the tough kids, the ones who got in trouble with the law. They were used as an example by our parents and anyone in authority. “You’d better be good or you’ll end up like a rowdy —in jail!”

For most of us, that was enough to mend our ways. Those kids were the town toughies, the bullies in school who beat you up for your lunch money, and the only ones we were warned to stay away from.

What is shameful is when the color of a person’s skin, their sexual preference, how rich or poor they are, or their religious beliefs, become more significant than the rowdies for children to stay away from in town?

Sometimes I think the whole world has gone nuts. And it’s even worse today. Parents have other worries to contend with —child predators and school shooters. They’re like spiders, creeping, watching, looking for children to hurt.

It’s depressing, when you see prejudice-born-intolerance causing even more hurt and resentment on our city streets.

I wish we could go back to a simpler, more gentle time when the only people we told our children and grandchildren to stay away from were the town's rowdies. I would love that.

As kids, we always felt safe. We stayed out until the streetlights came on to send us home. These days, kids have to be home way, way, way before the streetlights come on ...

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