Sad State of Affairs – Kids Without Backpacks!

In California, most kids started school again earlier this week on August 20, 2008. For all these kids’s sad faces leading up to this most dreaded day, I sure did see a lot of “happy” (yeah, you heard right) smiling faces walking to school.  Some were actually skipping…okay so maybe those were the little fellas in elementary school. That was Wednesday.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Driving along to work again, kids dotted the general sidewalk landscape.  But as I kept looking at them, something kept bugging me about something being different. Couldn’t place what it was though. Sitting at a stop light waiting for green to appear at some point in my lifetime, it dawned on me what every kid in the crosswalk was missing – A BACKPACK!  Wait a minute, how do you go to school without a backpack? Hmmm…maybe it’s just these set of kids I thought to myself. Obviously their parents are not on top of stuff.  Until I started to see what should have been an anomaly appears to be the norm, 9 kids out of 10 without backpacks. What nonsense is this!

And for all you “Oh, it’s only the second day of school, they probably don’t have work or books yet, so they don’t need a backpack just yet” – THAT IS A LOAD OF CRAP! You go to school with a backpack – plain and simple.  Should have pencils, pens, paper, and at least a notebook in that backpack. And people wonder why education is in the state it’s in. Sigh…

I could not keep such pressing news to myself, so I sent a timely, local newswire (text message) to several friends across the United States to report such atrocities.

Original Message “What’s with kids walkin 2 school with no backpacks nowadays. Sad state of affairs! If I had 2 walk with a hunch so should they!!!

(Note: The above message might imply that I was bitter about the years and years of carrying a backpack and going hunchback from how much was in there. In fact, I was concerned (really…) about students getting a proper education…)

Below are the responses I received, in order….

“Jokes! ”

“True dat, maybe they’re small adults” - Huh?

“Maybe they have their books on disc or maybe ebooks? You’re in cutting-edge Cali after all” -  Seriously? Who sent this? That is such a  load of crap and you know it!

“Lol!!…yeah I noticed that…a generation lost!” -

“Lol! Stupid kids gettin off easy! Thats whats wrong with the world today” – Exactly! Can I get a shout out and a high five for this person…

“Lol. Those are kids who only SAY they’re goin to school” -

“U r silly” – Stop frontin! You know I’m right!

“I know! I had back  problems becuz of it. Not fair!” – You know what I’m saying. Can we get some equality up in here!