A Road House Society

In the back of the large hall, the doors, evidently needing damper adjustments, slammed and rattled about every thirty seconds making it hard at times to hear what we were there for. During the brief intermissions, people were shouting up on stage trying to embarrass the performers as they walked off. Even during the performance, people were standing up and jockeying for position to see who could get the best angle for recording the event on their cellphone or perhaps blind the most people behind them with the backlight. The performers themselves weren't without fault as one wore a mini skirt so short, she constantly had to hold the hem down to protect her modesty. Another one didn't perform at all, simply stood on stage making "rabbit ears" behind those next to him, doing wrestling poses and making faces.  As each act ended, people leapt out of their seats to rush through the doors in the rear making sure to let them slam shut and interrupt the next ten minutes of the performance with loud bangs as they walked out one at a time. One might think it was a slightly more civilized scene out of the movie "Road House" but in fact it was the 6th and 7th grade Christmas Choir performance.

If I had to capsulize what it wrong with our society, I would look no further than last night. We have ceased to care about anyone in this world except ourselves. We have wholly given up on teaching our children how to be polite and have manners when out in public. We have given up completely on setting society limits on what is proper and what isn't. Instead, it has become one big "you do you kid". One might read this and assume this was a one off event but in actuality, this was the second concert of the year and although the first concert was full of many of the same interruptions, including the same 6th grade girl in the same extremely short mini skirt having the exact same modesty issue, this was worse on all accounts, especially the catcalling by the parents. Perhaps the only thing that improved between the first concert and this one was while both required the students to dress all in black dress clothing, there were no kids wearing white, green, yellow, or name your color of pajama pants. Evidently the parents (and children) learned from the first concert that disregarding those explicit instructions reflected badly on themselves.

Not long ago, Transportation Secretary Shawn Duffy made a plea for civilians to dress up again for flying on our nation's airlines. Even though I would have said there was little chance of that happening, after last night's performance, I would extend that to say there will be little chance of that happening in the next 100+ years. We've already ruined the next generation or two of children.