I’ve never been one to buy into the nonsense of how some generations of our youth show less potential than any others. While monikers of “The Greatest Generation” are appropriate to describe the realities one generation faced, it was not a matter of choice but fate.
Do we assume that the generation who fought against the British and overwhelming odds would have failed facing a similar fate to WWII? Or those who fought in the bitter cold of Korea or the steaming jungles of Vietnam, or the desert of Iraq and Afghanistan would not have risen to the occasion of December 7,1941?
I say each generation rises to the level of need facing it. It is one of the things we Americans do. Each generation faces different challenges in whatever way necessary to continue this great experiment.
But I fear we may have bred the first generation that may fail to live up to precedent.
What brought me to this conclusion? A conversation overheard in a grocery store between what appeared to be a 10 or 11-year-old boy and his grandmother.
The were standing in the Nirvana aisle, you know, the one with all the delicacies, Twinkies, Pop Tarts, and other miracles of the modern world.
The young man was trying to persuade his grandmother to buy a box of delights. All perfectly normal and a sign of a healthy young person. But it was the argument he used that caught my ear and gave me shudders about our future.
Holding the box up for examination, he said, “Right here, it says sugar-free!”
My first reaction was to slap him as I feared he might be hypoxic from lack of oxygen. Then I thought I must have misheard him. But he repeated the point, in a calm and emotionless manner, that there was NO SUGAR in the product.
NO SUGAR! Echoed in my brain. I glanced around to see if anyone—perhaps a Russian spy which I suspect may be everywhere here in Arizona—overheard the boy and was rushing to relay the news of our weakness to our adversaries.
I walked away, stunned by the experience. Let’s hope this sugar-free generation is not put to the test. We won’t stand a chance.
And the bigger question is, Why do sugar-free Twinkies even exist? Forget banning books about sex and statues with exposed genitalia, here is a real threat.
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