Atterbury Dodd
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,061
- Location
- The South
Youth Have much to learn
To the editor:
This is mainly to older, responsible folk. Remember working alongside your parents growing a garden to put food on the table? Remember the WW II Victory Gardens? Nearly everyone had one. If there was a plot of ground that could be planted, somebody had a garden on it.
Many people believe this coming year will call for such efforts once again for some to eat well. Stone County has been blessed with many folk who have weathered hard times before... survived and flourished. We owe them so much. Those folk are now getting too old to work much in a garden, but they still have the “know how.” They still know the importance of fresh vegetables!
There are many vacant lots around town that require mowing. Perhaps owners of such lots would allow responsible adults to supervise youth in making these lots into gardens, thereby cutting their expense of mowing and providing an opportunity for our youth to experience what we older folk did.
Some youth in our town may not have two parents like we did. Some have two parents, but both must work to feed the family. In many cases, youth are left to fend for themselves. Many are given money and told to get a pizza and hang out with their friends after school. Such wasted energy and resources! Such fertile ground for mischief!
This is where we are failing many of our youth. They do hang out without supervision, never learning the value of work, producing nothing, and not seeing the fruits of their labor as we did with our parents in the “olden times.” We quickly learned from our parents that the more you learn and do, the more you are able to learn and do. We built character on our accomplishments! We put seed in the ground and helped make it produce food to put on our table. We saw the fruits of our labor. We learned we could produce: we could accomplish. We developed confidence. We became determined. We grew physically and mentally strong. Few were fat because we worked hard and ate the vegetables we grew ourselves. We had no pizza... and thank God, we won World War II!
Many went on to become pillars of our community, building a better community for us, acquiring some wealth and giving a helping hand to some less fortunate. Many youth today have no concept of how this little town got telephones, electricity, paved streets, sidewalks, running water, a sewer system, excellent schools, a park system second to none, how our tourist industry was developed, how our manufacturing and farming industry came into being... perhaps they think it all just “evolved.” No! We owe seniors so much for their hard work and sacrifice!
To the editor:
This is mainly to older, responsible folk. Remember working alongside your parents growing a garden to put food on the table? Remember the WW II Victory Gardens? Nearly everyone had one. If there was a plot of ground that could be planted, somebody had a garden on it.
Many people believe this coming year will call for such efforts once again for some to eat well. Stone County has been blessed with many folk who have weathered hard times before... survived and flourished. We owe them so much. Those folk are now getting too old to work much in a garden, but they still have the “know how.” They still know the importance of fresh vegetables!
There are many vacant lots around town that require mowing. Perhaps owners of such lots would allow responsible adults to supervise youth in making these lots into gardens, thereby cutting their expense of mowing and providing an opportunity for our youth to experience what we older folk did.
Some youth in our town may not have two parents like we did. Some have two parents, but both must work to feed the family. In many cases, youth are left to fend for themselves. Many are given money and told to get a pizza and hang out with their friends after school. Such wasted energy and resources! Such fertile ground for mischief!
This is where we are failing many of our youth. They do hang out without supervision, never learning the value of work, producing nothing, and not seeing the fruits of their labor as we did with our parents in the “olden times.” We quickly learned from our parents that the more you learn and do, the more you are able to learn and do. We built character on our accomplishments! We put seed in the ground and helped make it produce food to put on our table. We saw the fruits of our labor. We learned we could produce: we could accomplish. We developed confidence. We became determined. We grew physically and mentally strong. Few were fat because we worked hard and ate the vegetables we grew ourselves. We had no pizza... and thank God, we won World War II!
Many went on to become pillars of our community, building a better community for us, acquiring some wealth and giving a helping hand to some less fortunate. Many youth today have no concept of how this little town got telephones, electricity, paved streets, sidewalks, running water, a sewer system, excellent schools, a park system second to none, how our tourist industry was developed, how our manufacturing and farming industry came into being... perhaps they think it all just “evolved.” No! We owe seniors so much for their hard work and sacrifice!
