39; kids today

"Hold me like you'll never let me go:/ 'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane,/ Don't know when I'll be back again,/ Oh babe, I hate to go."

And before John Denver no one ever could express their feelings of a loved one leaving on a jet plane. It strikes me as so dreadfully unusual that so many sentiments seem to have not been recorded in song before the 1900s, when popular music really took off. How did people cope?
"I'm feeling kinda upbeat, honey, let's go listen to the 5th." "No, no. Too sad for that. Let's stick to the oldies: a little Palestrina?" "I feel like singing about milkshakes as euphemisms, but have no words to express my feelings as of yet."

"Well, how am I supposed to sing my praises to gorgeous rounded booty? Sir Mix-a-Lot isn't invented yet. I'll need to stick with Bach. I'd Toccata your Fugue any day."

Oh, those silly aristocrats, with their canoodling and classical music. As Wolfgang said, "There's no sex in the upper loge."

Somebody stop me.

Today is parent's day here in Natick. The kiddies get their parents on campus to watch them in class and rummage around in the dorms, and critique dining hall food. Frankly I've had it up to here with the notion that these pupils are 'kiddies', though. These kids are all in 6th grade or older. Heck when I was their age I got myself to school on the bus, made my own lunch, and would leave a note on the weekends when I wanted to got to one of the museums or park across town by bus. These 'kiddies' need a dose of independence, says I. Let's throw them in the lake and see if they can swim. If they can, good, they're able to cope with surprises and life on their own. If they drown, then heck with them, I don't want to be looking after kids who don't have basic survival skills. They shouldn't be allowed in public.

George Carlin says all kids are too sheltered, and he's right. Bill Cosby says they're brain-damaged, and he's right. Yet if they are brain-damaged, shouldn't we shelter society from these creatures for society's sake?

But, really, I'm going to be a swell dad. I'll give them full access to my library and albums. It'll learn everything I teach it, and when it grows up it'll appreciate everything I've done for it. And take care of me and my new hot wife in our old age. Isn't that what everyone wants?

While I'm at it I also want a million dollars. And a good song that describes why I feel broken and sad but unable to cry. Perhaps I'll write one.