With that being said, as I wait for Skylar to get out of chorus practice, there is a bit of variety in the activities (or lack thereof) in which the other parents are partaking. I am the only one with a computer (having just finished commenting on a plethora of student papers), and there is one woman on a Blackberry. This is out of a sampling of about twenty parents/guardians, ranging in age from 25 to 65. There are two tables of four parents involved in conversation. The one nearest me is having the worst sort of political discussion--the one where everyone quotes bumper-sticker slogans and all the rest agree emphatically with the speaker's pithy wisdom. I'm not sure about the other table. No matter what it is (even if it is as abhorred as the one I am being subjected to), at least they are engaging in conversation. What disturbs me about the rest of the people in the room is that they are doing NOTHING. They sit and stare at whatever enters their field of vision. I sit in a place of higher learning and do not see even one book, and this depresses me.
Doesn't anyone read anymore? Sure people buy books (according to the New York Times Bestseller list, a lot of them), but are they reading them or just setting them out for their friends to see in their living rooms? I don't blame television, the internet, Google, Macintosh, or Republicans or Democrats for what I see. I only blame the people themselves. I don't know what's worse: the people who don't do much outside of what technology can offer them or the people who simply don't do much. Is it apathy or ignorance in either case, or both? These are questions to ponder, but not for me. Not now. Now I plan on calling my wife and laughing about the Larry David look-alike dressed entirely in denim that just walked into the room.
Until next time...I'm all in.
