The Mrs worked downtown at the antique store today which gave me time to get a few things done around the house like taking a nap, eating lunch, shopping for that next cell phone, and so on. Despite all those physically exhausting activities, I ended the day feeling tired and, before I knew it, 5:00 came around and it was time to pick her up from her work.
I usually take the side roads downtown on the weekends because McKinney has become quite the getaway location for the weekend shopping trips and people, sadly, forget how to drive when they’re looking for parking places. McKinney has also become a haven for photographers to take outdoor senior pictures, wedding shots, or just portrait shots using the alleys, which are all lined with old bricks and stone, so one needs to watch where they’re going.
As I was driving down a well-traveled alley around the corner from the Mrs store, I was forced to wait for a group of students to finish taking their iPhone photos of themselves against one of those popular brick walls. These were no ordinarily dressed students either. They were dressed like they were heading to a high-class dinner party or prom.
At first, I was surprised that the students were already having Prom (something I later found wasn’t the case) but then was taken totally back by the way the girls were dressed, or to be more precise, not dressed. The father nature in me reared its head and my mind was flooded with thoughts of giving their dad’s a good talking too for letting their girls go out on a date dressed like that.
Over dinner, the Mrs and I discussed the students and how they were dressed remembering how our prom dresses looked in the… well, a long time ago. The first thought that came to both of us was how people would have reacted if a girl had dressed that way back then; they would have been quickly covered up and escorted home. Of course, if a girl dressed the way they used to now, with the poofy shoulders and gowns, they would probably be laughed out of the prom today.
Time changes things; that’s a certainty. The realization that it’s changing so quickly around us is sometimes difficult to deal with. I understand more than ever how my grandparents must have felt and how easy it could have been to stay stuck in a time that has passed long ago.
We must fight the urge to give up and disengage from the world around us. Or, to become critical of the world around us always comparing it to the past. We must continue to look forward no matter how old we are. But, looking forward doesn’t mean that we lose our moral values or hide from them because they seem old-fashioned. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every generation will be challenged to keep moral standards and will need to know where ‘the line’ is to be drawn.
In what seems to be an age of ‘anything goes’, now more than ever, young people need the wisdom gained from the mistakes we’ve made in the past and our guidance to help them from making the same mistakes again. Looking forward, while having a clear view of what’s behind, will help us all stay the course. It's ok to be a little old-fashioned too. Someday, those young people will be right where we are and will probably be thinking the same thing I thought today when they run across a group of young people all dressed up for a date…
Love always,
Brad
