I’ve been lucky. In all my life, I’ve never had to sit through a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book. My wife has never even read a Nicholas Sparks book. A husband can’t get much luckier than that.
As a book blogger, though, sometimes I have to try novels that I wouldn’t normally read. And so I tried reading Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I know it’s not good to be biased when reading a book, but at least I’m upfront about my feelings.
Every Breath, what a title, I thought. If you like cheesiness, then Every Breath is a great title for a book. It reminds me of that song by The Police in the 1980’s, “Every Breath You take.” A bunch of girls I knew in high school at the time thought the song was romantic. When I told them it sounded like a creepy guy peeping tom control freak, the girls told me to shut up. To be fair, I was pretty obnoxious in the way I said it.
But I was right. And normal guys like me get annoyed when we see other guys do really insincere cheesy stuff for women and then women fall for it. That’s what Nicholas Sparks books remind me of, the insincere cheesy guy who can get women to pay for everything. In this case, he writes cheesy books that women will pay for. At least he’s doing something to earn the money. Most insincere cheesy guys don’t actually work. I respect a guy who works. Unless you think writing isn’t really work.
Every Breath even starts off cheesy. The introduction is titled “Kindred Spirits.” I’m not kidding. The term kindred Spirits is almost as cheesy as soul mate which has always made me cringe. I’m not explaining what that “Kindred Spirit” introduction is about (every other book review will do that), but it’s cheesy. And it’s a technique that I’ve seen too many authors use lately. I’d rather an author just get to the story than set up a cheesy beginning, especially when the beginning is titled “Kindred Spirit.”
Speaking of cheesy, here’s the first sentence in “Kindred Spirit”:
There are stories that rise from mysterious, unknown places, and others that are discovered, a gift from someone else.
I was taught never to start a sentence with the words there or here, that any sentence that began with here or there would automatically be passive or weak. Nicholas Sparks didn’t just start a sentence with “There are…”; he started the entire book with it. This doesn’t mean the whole book is going to be passive or weak, but it’s not a good sign.
Maybe I’m being nit-picky. If so, complain to my former English teachers. As a student, I was not allowed to get away with beginning a sentence with “There are…” I made no money from my high school essays. Nicholas Sparks makes a ton of money from his books and should be held to a higher standard than some high school kid who’s just trying to get through a school day with decent grades.
I mean, I have flaws in my writing, but I don’t think my flaw is cheesiness.
Anyway, a little further in the opening:
I parked my truck near the pier and hiked down the beach, heading for Bird Island, an uninhabited coastal preserve. Locals had told me there was something I should see; perhaps, they’d even suggested, the site would end up in one of my novels.
That was the giveaway that this story probably isn’t true. Novelists usually ignore suggestions from non-writers. Or they take the idea without giving credit.
Not long after the flag came into view, I kept my eyes peeled. I was to look for a mailbox called Kindred Spirit. The mailbox- planted on a pole of aging driftwood near a saw grass-speckled dune- has been around since 1983 and belongs to no one and everyone.
Ugh. “…no one and everyone.” I hate it when an author can’t make up his/her mind.
I’d better stop there so that I don’t belabor the point. Even the names are cheesy. At least one name is cheesy. The first character who’s introduced is named Tru Walls. In real life, Tru Walls might be a cool name. In fiction, it sounds like an author is trying too hard. There is a lot of potential meaning and symbolism in a name like Tru Wall, but it lacks subtlety. And it’s kind of… cheesy.
Maybe I’m overusing the word cheesy, but cheesy is perfect for what I’ve read so far. Every Breath doesn’t seem to be a horrible book. I could read it almost effortlessly if I had to, except for the cheese. Sometimes I have a tough time with cheese.
*****
What do you think? Is this typical for a Nicholas Sparks book. Am I oversensitive to cheesy writing? Is this great writing and I’m too cynical?
He’s kind of a jerk. And that cat isn’t too nice either.
Writing at night is getting better results than I thought it would. At first, I believed that whatever I wrote would look like gibberish the next day. So far, though, there hasn’t been anything glaringly bad.
In the past, I stayed in bed staring at the ceiling or rolling around restlessly. Now that I get up and write for a few minutes, I’ve been able to get rid of that nervous energy, and I fall asleep quickly after about 30 minutes on the computer.
It’s tough to take footage at night, though. In this current video, the camera is set up at a bad angle, and I was too groggy to notice until I checked it the next morning. I ran video for about 20 minutes, and most of my rambling was nonsense. But I caught one moment worth keeping.
The late night writing videos are my favorites so far, I think. If you haven’t watched them, check them out. They’re short and to the point. And I usually talk about writing a little bit.
WARNING- The following essay has half-censored and uncensored profanity! Do NOT continue if easily offended!
When I was growing up back in the 1970’s, profanity would get bleeped out on television and the radio. I can’t remember the specific examples, but it was funny when you heard the bleeps in the middle of sentences. Even if you weren’t familiar with profanity, you could figure out what the words were. Back then, profanity was funny because it was rare, but bleeping was even funnier.
Today, bleeping is annoying. With so much profanity all around us, bleeping it out seems pointless.
Instead of bleeps, written language uses keyboard signs to half-censor profanity, and that seems equally pointless. For example, there’s a recent bestselling book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. First of all, if the publishers didn’t give a f*ck, they wouldn’t have half-censored the f*ck. That shows the publishers are either hypocrites or liars because somebody in the publishing chain (author/publisher/booksellers) gives a f*ck. If you want to learn how not to give a f*ck, then you shouldn’t take advice from somebody who gives a f*ck.
I would have respected that book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck if the title had been The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Frack. That would have been funnier. Maybe there is no shock value in the word frack, but it would have been more interesting because you don’t hear it used as often.
This isn’t the only book that uses a vulgar expression in the book title. I use this book as an example only because I saw it displayed in a family-friendly department store next to the toy section. To be fair, books were next to toys, but I thought it was an odd choice of book to display. Maybe this store is secretly trying to corrupt our children. (you can show that you really don’t give a f*ck by displaying this book next to the toy section).
Everybody knows what f*ck is referring to. It isn’t really protecting anybody’s innocence. I choose to half-censor profanity in my blog sometimes because it seems like an acceptable expectation and I’m polite, but it really is pointless. If I worried about children reading my stuff, I simply wouldn’t use profanity.
I don’t use a lot of profanity in my writing anyway. The exceptions are my stories, when characters use it in dialogue. I’ll also write posts about why vulgar words are considered vulgar. It’s tough not to use profanity when you write about the etymology of profanity, so I go all out in that situation.
The most common way to half-censor profanity is to put the * in place of the vowel in a vulgar word. I’ll use sh*t as the example now because it’s a standard vulgar expression. Everybody who believes in vulgarity thinks sh*t is a vulgar word, but it isn’t the worst, and it isn’t misogynist or sexist or racist. It’s just sh*t.
If a word is vulgar, it means that only “lower class” people should say it. People in the United States don’t care about the class system as much as people from some other countries. At least, we’re not supposed to. A lot of our families moved here to get away from permanent class systems. Still, even if we’re not stuck in a certain class, we aspire to make ourselves better. And using appropriate language is one way to demonstrate that you’re not low class or classless.
Even if you use vulgar language, it’s helpful to be able NOT to use it in certain places where having high standards of behavior is expected (like church, some professions, etc). I wasn’t allowed to use profanity at all until I was 18. That was a good rule because I was forced to control my language and everybody around me thought I was polite. I’ve been able to succeed in my profession because of self-control. People without self-control in my profession flame out very quickly.
When I talk, sometimes I’ll say “shucks” instead of “Sh*t.” You can’t really say “Sh*t” with the asterisk in it. I wouldn’t know how to pronounce “Sh*t” with the asterisk, so I say “Shucks” instead. Some people equate shucks with sh*t, but I don’t. Shucks is acceptable. I’ve never heard anybody ask, “Does the bear shucks in the woods?”
The dictionary says shucks means “small disappointment.” There’s nothing in the definition about defecation or body waste. Shucks is clean. So if anybody wonders if the bear shucks in the woods, of course it does; I’m sure there are many times the bear has been mildly disappointed in the woods.
And if the bear catches you during that mildly disappointing moment, it’ll tear probably the sh*t out of you.
Do aspiring authors really have to read On Writing by Stephen King?
Getting rid of books isn’t easy. Decades ago, I enjoyed walking into my home and being greeted by thousands of yellowing dusty books. Then one day it became clutter.
Since then, I’ve gotten rid of most of the book collection. I’m keeping a small percentage, though. A few books hold valuable memories. Some hold monetary value (and I don’t need to sell them yet). And some I know I’m going to read again.
In the video below, I talk about why I think On Writing by Stephen King is a book worth keeping. Hopefully, it’s a video worth watching.
And if you haven’t watched my recent videos, try them out. I keep them to around three minutes now. I don’t cut and splice footage much anymore (unless there’s a technical issue where I have to). I do the videos in one take, which means you can see some mistakes too.
Mistakes. What’s the point of a video if the audience can’t see mistakes?
(image via wikimedia)
When I was dating, making the first move was always difficult. I wasn’t smooth or super attractive or wealthy or of high social status, so I had to work patiently to attract the women I was interested in.
I couldn’t just yawn and stretch my arm so that it rested on my date’s shoulder. I had to be more subtle. I’d lean in just a little to see if my date retreated or maintained her position or leaned in too. I learned early to move slowly. I had tried a smooth talker tactic when I was in high school, and it had backfired in front of a bunch of people. Public humiliation is a great teacher.
I’ll write about that awkward moment sometime, but I’m not ready yet.
I wasn’t even going to try a first move with Jenny because the date had gone poorly. She had chosen a restaurant that her ex-boyfriend managed. The food made my nose runny. I had made a joke that she misinterpreted. She covered up her cleavage with a large sweater and had asked to go home early. That was it, I thought. I was disappointed, but at least there was no uncertainty. Then when I had parked my car outside her apartment, she asked, “Do you want to come inside?”
“Sure,” I said. Despite everything that had gone wrong earlier, I wasn’t stupid enough to say no. I thought maybe she just felt safer with a guy walking her up to her door, and I was a pretty safe guy.
We didn’t talk much as we walked to her apartment. The apartment complex was surrounded by a bunch of other complexes spread out for several blocks. It was meant for young professionals, but there were some large families stuffed in there too. I lived in a similar complex, and it was an interesting mix of loud parties and loud family arguing.
“Do you like living around here?” I asked as we went into her apartment.
“I’d like something quieter,” she said, leading me inside. She had already shown me around a few hours earlier, so I was familiar with the layout. “I’m thinking about getting a house.”
A single person buying his/her own house? I hadn’t even thought about that. I could buy my own house, I thought, instead of wasting money on an apartment. Why didn’t I think of things like that?
“Pick something to watch,” she said as she walked into the short hallway to her bedroom. “I’ll be right out.”
I flipped through the television channels. I avoided music stations (back then, music channels played music) because she liked country and I liked everything except country. I found a baseball playoff game and thought it might be a good choice. We’d met at a football watch party in a bar, after all. I didn’t want to be presumptuous by sitting on her couch, so I picked her small recliner.
Her apartment was well furnished. Mine still looked like I was a college student, with old furniture and too many random books all over the place. My own apartment smelled like an antique store and was probably a fire hazard. If I’d had a house, I’d have more space to put the books.
Jenny came out in a white t-shirt with a local bar’s logo and tight shorts. From my perspective, that was better than the baggy sweater and jeans. And she smelled good too. As soon as she entered the living room, I’d caught the scent, whatever it was.
“Why are you sitting there?” she said as she took the middle position of her couch.
“This is a comfortable recliner,” I said. I didn’t want to seem too eager.
“This is a comfortable couch,” she said.
“You don’t mind sharing the couch?” I said.
“That’s the point of having a couch.”
I liked her logic, so I sat next to her, placing my right elbow on the armrest but leaving my left arm to my side. I wasn’t going for the shoulder move yet, but I liked my chances.
She scooted closer to me so that our sides touched. “Do you care who wins?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. Then I remembered the baseball game on television. “No! I mean, I don’t care about the game but I like baseball, but we can change it if you want.”
“I like baseball, but it’s boring,” she said.
She leaned away from me and slid her legs onto my lap so that tips of her socks touched the armrest. There was no place to put my left arm/hand without something touching her bare leg. As far as first moves went, this one wasn’t subtle.
“You look comfortable,” I said. “You about to take a nap?”
“There are a couple ways to keep me awake.”
That freaked me out a little bit. I wasn’t expecting things to move this quickly. I was relieved that I didn’t have to make that risky first move, but I felt like we were skipping a few steps in the process. I believed in steps. There was a reason steps existed, even if she was attractive with great cleavage and her legs draped on my lap.
I never planned for things to get intense on a first date. It can happen, but I didn’t plan on it. Women I dated weren’t the type to get intense on a first date. I think the earliest for me had been a third date, and even that had been too early (once I looked back upon it). I mean, I didn’t think a couple had to get married first, but there should be some trust established first. As much as I was fascinated by Jenny’s cleavage, I wasn’t sure I trusted her yet.
And that meant I was about to do something really awkward.
*****
To be continued in Awkward Moments in Dating: The Bailout!
And can start reading Awkward Moments in Dating right here.
(image via wikimedia)
When I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, I get up and try writing a little bit. It seems to work better than staying in bed.
Maybe my brain needs to work things out more. If I remain in bed, I might stay awake for an hour or two. I get fidgety, roll around, and it doesn’t do much good. Writing seems to make me tired more quickly.
The writing that I get done in the middle of the night isn’t always the best. What looks great at 2:00 in the morning can look like junk when I check it later in the day.
Still, when I record myself writing in the middle of the night, I get some interesting footage. What happened below would never have occurred during the day.
IMPORTANT UPDATE!
The accompanying video has been temporarily removed.
Now that I think about it, the video kind of sucked. I think I’ll just permanently remove it.
Whenever there’s a book list, this one’s on it.
It’s no surprise that To Kill a Mockingbird is the most loved novel in the United States, according to the Great American Read results. Even people who think To Kill a Mockingbird is overrated knew that it would win. The only question was what novel or book series would come in second (and third…).
And that’s where the poll gets controversial! And shocking! And any other hyperbolic adjective you can think of.
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon came in second! What? I mean, I’ve heard of the series and I knew there were a bunch of books and I knew that fans of the books were devoted, but this still blindsided me. When The Great American Read was first announced, I thought that James Patterson fans would flood the vote. I was wrong. I apologize for that. Instead, it was Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander fans.
2nd most beloved book/series of all time? I mean, if you’re going to flood a vote, don’t overdo it. Don’t beat out the Harry Potter books. As long as you don’t beat the Harry Potter books, nobody will care.
The Harry Potter series was #3, and under most circumstances that would have been cool. I usually think no book under 20 years old should be put on these kinds of lists because you don’t know if newer books will have longevity. I’m pretty sure the Harry Potter books will be read for a long time. Other newer books, like Gone Girl or Outlander, I’m not sure about. I liked Gone Girl, but I don’t know if people will still read it 20 years from now.
If I’m around in twenty years, I’m going to see if people still read Gone Girl or Outlander, and I’ll come back and let you know.
James Patterson finished 81st for his Alex Cross series. That sounds about right. If any James Patterson book/series had finished in the top ten, I would have suspected that the vote was rigged. 81st is a respectable place for an author whose name is on more book covers than anybody else. Plus, I think he might have actually written some of the Alex Cross books himself. And a couple of them might even be good.
And of course, To Kill a Mockingbird is the most loved book in the United States. When I was in school, it was the only novel that was forced upon us that nobody hated. Maybe my peers hated it and were afraid to say they hated it. We vocally hated everything else we were forced to read. But not To Kill a Mockingbird. Teachers never even showed us the movie, and we still didn’t hate the book.
I’m also glad the fake sequel Go Set a Watchman didn’t hurt To Kill a Mockingbird. Even though Go Set a Watchman was a big deal a few years ago, I think most people today pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s obvious that it wasn’t supposed to exist. It’s interesting in its own way, but it’s like an alternate history novel, interesting concept, but it didn’t happen.
There are other great novels that had bad/uninspiring sequels that don’t really hurt the original novels. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer had sequels where he was a detective (kind of). Lonesome Dove had some terrible sequels that would have ruined Lonesome Dove if anybody had cared enough about them. The Godfather (the novel) had some bad sequels too, but nobody blames The Godfather for them.
That’s not always the case. I think Mockinjay taints The Hunger Games a little bit. I mean, The Hunger Games series still made the list (again, let’s check back in 20 years). I think the ending of The Giver is ruined a little bit by information readers learn in the follow up novels. At least The Giver has been around for over twenty years and is thematically strong enough to overcome the weakness of its semi-sequels, but it’s still been tainted.
I’ll admit, I didn’t vote in the Great American Read. I knew about it, but I still didn’t vote. I was interested in the results, but I didn’t care enough to actually think about my own personal preference. I don’t know what my most beloved book is. It’s almost a silly question. I have to choose one? Even though I didn’t vote, I still have an opinion about the results. I believe you can have an opinion if you don’t vote. You just shouldn’t complain. You CAN complain, but you shouldn’t. And I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing out what I think is interesting. That’s not the same thing as complaining.
When the Great American Read poll was announced a few months, I (and probably anyone who put thought into it) figured To Kill a Mockingbird would finish at the top. I’m not sure when the next Great American Read poll will be announced (I hope it’s not too soon), it will be interesting to see what changes occur. Who knows? I might even vote next time.
Netflix has debt issues, but it might be too soon to cancel. (image via wikimedia)
When I heard that Netflix was about to take on 2 billion dollars in new debt, I thought, “Wow! That’s a lot of money. I wonder how much debt Netflix already has.”
Then I saw the number: 8 billion dollars already?
If my math is correct, then Netflix is going to carry 10 billion dollars in debt!
And that’s just the beginning. Netflix has obligations to pay out a lot more money than that because of future content creation and other stuff. I’m not a numbers person, so I’m not going to get bogged down in all that. Supposedly, Netflix brings in hundreds of millions of dollars from subscribers every year. Even though hundreds of millions is a lot, it would still take decades to pay off $10,000,000,000 with a fraction of that hundreds of millions every year.
See? This is why I don’t do numbers. Numbers make things complicated, but you need to look at them. And maybe try to understand what they mean.
The problem with debt is that you usually have to pay it back, and sometimes you even have to add interest. I’ve dealt with debt. The interest is what gets you into trouble. Even though I can’t stand personal debt, it’s always been sustainable for the money that I bring in. That might be an issue for Netflix. Its strength (being a great deal for the consumer) might be its weakness (not bringing in enough revenue to sustain its content).
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a publishing website that offers a monthly subscription for access to premium content for $19.95 a month. That’s more than my Netflix subscription. I wasn’t sure why a publishing website asks for $20 a month. I hope that publishing website doesn’t have $10 billion of debt.
Netflix (and Amazon) can take on a lot of debt because investors think there will be a payoff in the long run. If I were invested in Netflix, though, I’d be kind of concerned. $10,000,000,000 is a lot of money (from my perspective, but maybe not theirs), and I’m not sure Netflix’s future content will be worth that much. Netflix is popular now because you can get a lot of content for around $10 a month, and you can have a bunch of different people use the same account.
I’m guessing that the people running Netflix are smarter than I am, so maybe they have nothing to worry about. Then again, the people running Enron were smarter than me too. I know that because they kept telling me that 20 years ago. The people running the housing loan racket 10 years ago were smarter than me as well. I know that because none of them are in prison. If I had tried a stunt like that, some prosecutor would have made an example out of me. Netflix was smart enough to put Blockbuster out of business in humiliating fashion. I’ve never put anybody out of business, so I know they are smarter than me.
Netflix is counting on sustaining growth, but businesses usually don’t sustain huge growth. There are growth spurts and then everything slows down. If the business is financially prepared for the slowdown of growth, it can still thrive. If the business needs constant growth to sustain itself, then it often collapses. I’ve seen this happen before, but I’ve never tried to implement it myself.
Even though Netflix started the streaming binge, there’s a lot of competition now. Netflix will have to be better than Amazon or Disney or whoever else tries to get in. With so many other outlets creating new content, it’s going to be tough for Netflix to be $10,000,000,000 better than everybody else. Somebody in the streaming war is going to put a lot of money into it and lose or have to merge (which might be the end game, I don’t know). There’s a lot of money to make or lose on content.
I’m not trying to badmouth Netflix. I like Netflix. I want Netflix to stick around, even if streaming content cuts down on the time that people read.
$10,000,000,000. That’s a lot of money. That’s why I like being a writer. I’ll never need that much money to sustain my content creation. I don’t even need paid subscribers. Man, that $10,000,000,000 has to be stressful. I think I’ll go read a book now.
*****
I made the following video while writing this Netflix post, but the video is not about Netflix.
Step #1- Don’t put your work-in-progress on top of the writer’s block. (image via wikimedia)
One problem with writer’s block is that most of the cures are really vague. Some of the advice like “Write anything, even if it’s garbage” isn’t bad, but if your mind is already blank, that strategy might not be helpful.
In the video below, I explain how to prevent writer’s block in the first place. I don’t give vague advice, like “Write drunk, edit sober” (which also isn’t that bad of an idea). I tell you exactly what I do, and I think my advice works because I almost never get writer’s block.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather prevent a problem than deal with a problem. You can’t prevent every problem in your life, but if you follow a couple steps, I think you can prevent writer’s block.
(image via wikimedia)
No matter where I go today, I hear profanity. It’s on the television and in the movies, even when they’re supposed to be family friendly. It’s on internet videos, even those marketed to kids. It’s on the radio stations, even in music that’s marketed to kids.
It’s in the church, even in the services marketed to… okay, I’m kidding. I haven’t heard much profanity in church. But I’m beginning to dread the moment when it becomes acceptable.
I’m not necessarily complaining about profanity (except if it happens at church). I don’t yearn for the days when I could turn on the television and everything was clean. Looking back, some of that clean programming was awful. But it was wholesome. And back when I was a kid, it was tough to get away from wholesome. You could do it, but you had to put some effort into it. Nowadays, you have to have to work pretty hard to find wholesome.
Television had almost no profanity. George Carlin had a famous comedic routine where he talked about the words you couldn’t say on television, but you had to buy the record album to hear it. There were no Netflix comedy specials back then because there was no internet and hence no Netflix. Comedians would actually make records and curse on them, and desperate consumers would actually buy them. The George Carlin album was like gold because we could actually hear brazen profanity. And it was hilarious.
Anyway, most movies were G or PG, and there was a huge difference between a PG and an R rated movie. If a movie was rated R, we kids never got to see it. There was no cable TV or internet and it was tough to sneak into movie theaters because there was only one screen per theater.
Back in the 1970s, I heard about movies like The Godfather, Animal House, and Flesh Gordon, but I knew I’d never be able to see them. I had to listen to adults (or older siblings) explain the movies to me. In other words, I had to rely on the storytelling skills of people I knew to understand what was going on in pop culture. Some of those R-rated movies had violence, some had nudity, but all of them had profanity.
The original version of the movie The Bad News Bears was groundbreaking because kids cussed in it, and adults in the audience laughed. Of course, this was the 1970s. Parents in the 1960s and 1970s were known for having bad judgement. Parents in the 1950s never would have let the adults who made The Bad News Bears get away with it.
Then again, the parents of the 1970s were raised by the parents of the 1950s, so they had to get those values from somewhere.
The cursing in the novel The Catcher in the Rye used to be a big deal. Back in the 1970s, teenagers (or young adults) would read The Catcher in the Rye just because of all the bad language. Holden Caulfield was relatable, partially because of the profanity he used. Now, nobody would give his language a second thought. In fact, he’s kind of mild. And he’s kind of a whiner.
Nowadays, profanity isn’t a big deal. People might care about it, but they don’t care about it as much. We hear it all the time, so it’s nothing special. And it’s not funny.
I still don’t think kids should use profanity, but it’s okay for adults. Using too much profanity, however, shows a lack of self-control. I have a couple expletives that I’ll yell out occasionally. Cursing up a storm for a moment can help out my nerves when I get ticked off at something or someone. Once I get it out of my system, I’m usually calm again. I’d rather curse it out and return to my normal calm demeanor than hold it in and be angry the rest of the day.
If you curse all the time, though, it can lose its effectiveness. If you curse all the time, then you have to fall back on something else when you get really mad. It might not be violence, but it could be something destructive. I don’t know if there are any official studies that prove or disprove my theory. I’ve become really skeptical of most studies anyway. It seems like so many of them turn out to be wrong later.
When I was growing up, if a kid cursed in public, an adult would tell the kid to shut up. Today, if a kid curses in public, a lot of adults pretend it didn’t happen. Sometimes I feel like telling the profane kid to shut up, but it’s never my kid doing the cursing, so I’d come across looking like the bad guy. Plus, I don’t like public confrontations anyway. I’d end up having to explain to the kid that I grew up in a time when there wasn’t a lot of profanity in public.
And in today’s environment, that might be kind of tough to explain.
*****
For more “Old Things That Are Tough To Explain,” go to Old Things That Are Tough To Explain: The Home Page.
Dysfunctional Literacy 