Pete Seeger died this past week. Much has been written about this great American icon, hero, champion, but I wish to use this sad occasion to celebrate youth – the next generation.
Us old folks are constantly condemning our youth. They’re fat. They’re lazy. They have no manners. They cannot see beyond their smartphones. They text instead of talking. They spend too much time in front of a screen. These damn kids today.
Pete Seeger died this past week. Guess who I heard this news from. A fourteen year old on the bus I took to work this morning (I am living and working in Vermont this winter). While talking to his friends about music he mentioned how sad he was that Pete Seeger died. I turned around in surprise. “Pete Seeger died?!” “Yeah,” the kid responded. Another kid asked who Pete Seeger was and this kid began talking about Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and how they were influential folk musicians from the 60’s and that Pete Seeger had become devoted to protecting the Hudson River. They all started talking about how sad it was to be losing all these great folk and popular icons from the 60’s. They talked about Led Zeppelin winning a Grammy.
This is the same group of kids from which a young woman offered me her seat just the day before, making me feel prematurely old.
When I was a kid, our generation was fat, lazy, had no manners, talked too much on the telephone (the kind you had to actually dial) instead of face to face, and spent far too much time in front of a pre-cable TV watching the Flintstones and Wild, Wild West. We smoked pot. We were hopeless. And now we throw stones from our glass houses high on the hill.
Kids today are extraordinary. They have knowledge and insight at their age I wish I had at any age. They are caring and compassionate. I am extremely proud of the young men and women at Mt. Abram High School for the care and compassion they show for each other, their community, and the World.
We have students at Mt. Abram High making great art, music, and cinema. We have students constantly pushing themselves to succeed and excel in athletics and academics. We have student entrepreneurs. We are blessed to have students active in their communities – volunteering with Special Olympics, Camp Summit, Kingfield Recreation, and the Sugarloaf Marathon to list just a few. We have students attending school board meetings and taking active roles in education. We have students becoming Maine Guides, continuing the long tradition started by our own Fly Rod Crosby. We have students doing incredible work at Foster Tech – cooking, building, welding, nursing, and creating a great future for themselves.
This is a fantastic group of young men and women. They are accomplishing great things. And they exist in all of our communities.
Pete Seeger never gave up on them. I urge you not to as well. So, get off the couch and get to know, really know, some young people around you. Yes, they may be listening to music you do not like. Yes, they may dress funny, or in a manner in which you do not approve, but take a look at your high school year book and get over it.
Marc Edwards
Strong
Thank you, Marc. I hear people all the time grousing about today’s young people. Selective memories, I think. Young people by nature are energetic, passionate and sometimes reckless – anyone who thinks (s)he wasn’t has probably got some memory loss. When I was a young person coming of age in Farmington in the 60’s, we did all sorts of stupid things. We weren’t always respectful of our elders (who bemoaned young people), we smoked pot (hell, we thought we invented it), we definitely dressed funny. We hated it when the older generation told us they grew up respecting their elders and knew how to dress, on and on. “Kids today…” In their minds they never did anything their parents wouldn’t approve of. I didn’t know any of those kids (now adults), I guess. O.F.D.
If you dont understand it,,you must destroy it?
That’s an acceptable approach.
Gotta love the “truly diverse” people like Pete,,
He tried to showed us all a different way.
Thanks Pete !!
what a wonderful reminder that todays youth is tomorrows leaders… and yes they do have something we can learn from them already! Thanks for the reminder Marc!
As long as our children have older people who will look at them openly and encourage them, talk with them honorably and treat them equally, we’ll all do fine. Good words Marc!
I soooo agree!!! I am often telling others that while my teen-aged son & his friends have faults, it is because they are still learning to be adults. Also by the looks of the stories in this paper, some adults still have some learning to do.
Kids these days are the same as any other generation…their toys are just different ;)
Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
– Socrates
Right on Marc. Hey, check out a facebook page deciated to naming a bridge spanning the Hudson River after good ol’ Pete.
https://www.facebook.com/PeteSeegerMemorialBridge
yes the kids of today are good and I am proud of them.And they have MANY opportunities that we never had,for which I am thankful.
But speak for yourself,I was not fat ,lazy or rude and never smoked pot,etc…I was a kind,compassionate child & teenager and I still am as an adult.
Nice to see many positive comments here. Surprising actually, given what can take place in these open, anonymous forums. Thank you for your responses, very enlightening. I hope Pete get’s his bridge.
Socrates was perhaps the world’s first curmudgeon as well as a great thinker/philosopher. Cheers – Marc
Yeah, Marc, it’s easy to get positive comments when they block any negative ones, like reminding folks that Seeger was a Communist. Guess that’s fashionable now!