Saturday, November 10, 2007

Youth of Today

Too many times, we stereotype our young people. We look at the extreme individuals that are picking fights for no apparent reason, the ones who are shooting other youth and teachers in our schools, or those stealing or doing drugs. We too quickly give up on all the kids of this generation.

Thursday afternoon we were driving home from a luncheon we had with my husband's family. As we rounded the curve on the road leading to our house, we saw a small red car turn into our driveway. We didn't know anyone with that kind of car and wondered why it was coming to our house. About that time, we looked over in our yard and saw a small deer dragging it's back leg, trying to get up but just could not make it.

As we pulled into the driveway, the young man, around 18 or 19 years of age, exited his car. You could tell he was shaken up. He was rubbing tears from his eyes. In a shaken voice, he said, "I am so sorry. I've never killed anything in my life." At that moment, I felt so badly for him, I could have cried. I wanted to console him. He asked what he should he do. My husband told him not to worry, that he would call the game warden and have them take care of the deer. As he turned to leave, tears were streaming down his cheeks.

We live in an area where deers are too plentiful, and, at any given time, you will see one or two deer jumping a fence. They seem to come out more at night. We have to be very careful riding down these long mountain roads in order not to be caught by one jumping out in front of us and having no place to go. This happened to this young man. He said a large deer came across the road and he didn't see the young one. Just as he got in its path, it jumped the fence and hit his car. He could not have avoided the accident. In fact, several have been hit on our road in the same spot. We have seen as many as six deer in our yard at one time.

Hopefully, this young man will not let this stay on his mind and interrupt his life. It was just an accident. But, it is nice to see a young man his age who was not ashamed to let his emotions show. To me, it shows a strong character when a man cries. Nothing to be ashamed of at all!

Linked at Conservative Cat
Church and State

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3 Comments:

Mimi said...

I agree with you and a man who shows his emotions is truly a man!!!
the news media focuses on the youth who are troubled and make it sound like all the youth are full of mistakes and misjudgments..but I believe that the majority of youth still would like to be and do what is right... if we as the older generations will but lead them in the correct way!!!

Marie said...

That reminds me of our dear Scout leader, who cried after he ran over a squirrel.

Barbara said...

I love to see tender hearted young men. Our grandson, who played football for 5 years in HS, cried many a tear when they lost or when he wasn't treated fairly. And, his sister's boyfriend is a big boy, too, but I've seen him cry after a loss at a football game. These kind of men are the ones that make good husbands and fathers.