MOM CAN HELP SHAPE ATTITUDES
I read in the Safety Bulletin about two brothers, 14
and 15 years old, who, out of boredom or plain boy-
deviltry, invented a new pastime.
Using discarded bottles from the roadside, these lads
strewed two miles of paved highway with broken glass,
smashing the bottles on the road, then kicking the
fragments around for better distribution.
A retreating army couldn’t have done a better job of
making the road impassable. A highway patrolman
caught them, took them home, and informed their mother
of what they had done.
No, she didn’t wrap her arms around them and assert
that they were really good boys. She didn’t cuss the
cop. She didn’t mention anything about the failures
of our school system, the lack of recreational facil
ities, or the influence of somebody else’s boy who
had led her sons astray.
She didn’t do any of these things. She just gathered
up two brooms and one board, took her sons in tow, and
proceeded to the nearest end of the glass-covered
section of road.
It takes a long time for two boys to sweep two miles
of road, even when there is a determined woman banging
them across the rump every time they slow down.
Less than half of the job had been done when darkness
fell. But the boy’s father helped them out of this
predicament. He drove the family car along the road
behind them, and the headlights made it easy to lo
cate every sliver of glass.
At 2 A.M. the job was finished and the parents gave
their sons a ride home in the car. Two miles of road
were as clean as they had been before — cleaner, actually.
The boys were in pretty good shape, too — a little
stiff and sore in various places, and rather anxious
to get a little sleep, but no longer suffering from
any of our modern teen-age confusions and frustrations.
They didn’t even feel misunderstood!
Sooner or later every boy has to turn into a man, and
every man has to develop a sensible and thoughtful
approach to life. Adulthood comes late to many people.
But you can see it when it finally arrives. It shows
a man’s willingness to meet his obligations — to
keep his own two miles of highway clean.
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