Teenagers These Days

The parks in my town serve as designated meeting places for several groups of people. In the middle of any given weekday, you will find moms with toddlers and young children, grandparents sporting fanny packs power walking and truant teenagers from the alternative high school.

Last week, we ventured out to a park with a large tubular slide. Beatle climbed up the ladder and then climbed back down.

"Why didn't you go down the slide?" I asked him.

"I tried," he explained, "But it's clogged."

I stuck my head up the bottom end far enough to see a couple making out.
"GET OUT OF THERE NOW!" I yelled (my voice echoing about 8 times.)

A few seconds later, a teenage boy wearing skintight jeans and shoes without laces exited the tunnel. A few more seconds later, his equally well-dressed lady friend followed. Without a backward glance at the picnic table full of evil-eyed moms, the couple sauntered off hand in hand.

The next day, we tried a different park, one with no enclosed spaces and no public bathrooms. Within a few minutes, a compact car pulled into the parking lot, blaring uplifting music. Five teenagers piled out and made their way to a picnic table at the far end of the park. All of the moms stopped discussing the merits and pitfalls of the current Friends & Family coupon promotion at Gymboree and watched the group suspiciously. I crouched behind the see-saw and to get a closer look just as the sweet aroma of marijuana wafted onto the playground.

"Mmmmm!" said Mikey. "Someone is cooking something good." He scanned the park for open barbecue pits. Finding none, he shrugged his shoulders and ran off.

"One of us should say something to them," said one of the moms, scanning the group. "Or call the cops."

Since I broke up the lovebirds the day before, I was off the hook. Before any lots could be cast, the teenagers finished their drugs and walked off into the woods.

The risks of getting mugged and acquiring a deer tick with Lyme Disease outweighed my desire to find out what five teenagers were doing together behind a large tree.

If it doesn't rain, later this afternoon we're headed to a park that is across the street from a grocery store and behind the cemetery. Included on its grounds are the ruins of an old schoolhouse, a duck pond/ drainage ditch, and a crumbling gazebo overrun with weeds... in other words, a school-skipping teenager's dream.

Wish me luck.