Hope

I was at an event over the weekend and the heads of various organizations herded up for a little jawing. A common thread was the color of the hair, what there was of it. The subject eventually wound around to the recurrent theme of the following generations failing to take over the reins.

I’ve never reached a conclusion on the root of this. Is this a generation of slackers or does every senior stratum just think that? My leaning is influenced by whichever segment of the younger population I happening to be encountering at the time. The needle is tilted toward optimism today.

Last night, I attended a high school graduation party for a young lady who earned cum laude honors. On top of that, she’s a McDonald’s All-American athlete (among other high honors in her sport) and is one heck of a person. Granted, she’s a sampling of one. But, two years ago, I was at a similar event for her brother, who moved on to pre-med after racking up similar accomplishments in high school. Okay, that’s just two.

A lot of their friends and cousins were at this party and I had the opportunity to talk with many of them. They were, on the whole, bright, articulate and motivated individuals. I’m sure the birds-of-a-feather principle applies, but there were enough of them to provide hope for the coming generation.