Respect Your Elders

I really appreciate how kids these days don’t feel the need to respect their elders. When I was a child, I would no more remain seated on a bus when anybody slightly – much less much – older than I was present. I would have been – shoot, I probably still would be – on my feet as soon as somebody older than I am hove into sight.

But the youth of today, or at least the sample that rides public transportation, seems to have no qualms about staying seated when a person who is clearly four to five times their age clings to a center pole or overhead hand-grip while the vehicle buffets down its appointed course.

It makes me feel so very special, and desirous of staying with large groups of people (which I ordinarily do not prefer) when I look in a seated young person’s direction when I am standing on public transportation. I know that the venomous look they share with me is their rehearsal for when they are parents and need to glare so that their own children will fall into line, behaviorally speaking.

It almost makes it possible to overlook the pain in my feet, because usually, if I’m on public transportation, I’ve been walking, occasionally for long periods of time, since I’ve probably dismissed the limousine I usually travel in, and it’s not waiting at either end of the trip to whisk me off to my grand adventure on busses, subways, and trams.

Almost.

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