It is all over the news. Little Caylee Anthony, a toddler has been missing for a couple of months. Her mother did not report it for a month or so and now is charged with lying to investigators. Originally she claimed that the baby sitter stole her daughter. Yet, two days or so after this alleged abduction she is seen in photos at a night club dancing and having a grand old time. She is a mere 22 years old. They have found suspicious evidence in her car and cadaver dogs had a "hit" on her trunk. It looks as though she killed her own daughter. We can only hope the little girl is still alive.

Shouldn't someone have wondered some time ago what happened to little Caylee? How about her grandparents, an uncle, a neighbor, a church member, the mailman, the garbage man, ANYONE? Didn't anyone notice that Caylee was in trouble long before her alleged abduction? A few years ago Hillary Clinton wrote the book, It Takes a Village which was little more than a socialist attempt to federalize child-rearing. At least the book title is striking. It does take a village to raise kids, a village made up of family, neighbors, and just about anyone who ought to care about what happens to children.

Maybe it is the shrinking world brought about by technology, but I do not remember growing up being afraid someone would kidnap and dismember me. When I was a child I went out to play in the morning and my mom didn't see me until I came in for food. Then, I raced back out the door to be home by dusk. Kids entertained themselves. Neighbors cared about me often yelling at me for stealing apples from their trees. Nonetheless, at least they cared and noticed this little brat was in their tree. No one heard of ADD. The cure for ADD was a slap across the mouth to pay attention or a nun slapping my evil hands with a wooden ruler. In my day (don't you young people hate that expression) parents did not fear their kids and kids respected adults. My wife played in the woods, IN THE WOODS, away from her home. Her instructions were clear - don't talk to strangers. But no one feared she would be raped and murdered by some cross-eyed and toothless bum.

I was always taught to give up my seat for an adult, open the door for old people, kiss my grandparents whenever I saw them, and never sass back. My dad taught me that my mom was the most beautiful woman in the world (she was very hot) and that I should lay down my life for her if need be. I could never refer to her as "she" as in "she told me I couldn't have a snack." I could not refer to her (sic) as "her." She was always "mom." Now my mom is old and ailing. Her life has taken many twists and turns that have immobilized her. She has had a very tough life. But she lived for her kids. She was the one who sent me off to school and she was there when I came home. Although I didn't think she knew where I was when I left the house, I venture to say she did.

I did not have an X-box, a Y-box, or even a Z-box. I had a baseball glove and dirty jeans. I didn't have a cell phone. I stood outside my friends' doors and sang out their names to come out and play. I didn't have an Ipod or an MP3 player. I had baseball cards and that huge piece of bubble gum to entertain me for hours. I didn't have a wide-screen LCD TV. I had a paper route. And the highlight of that route was when my brother and I stopped at the corner store for two pretzel sticks and a bottle of Coke. My one and only act of stealing was when I stole three tiny balloons from the toy store in Beaver Falls, Pa. My conscience was so greatly pricked I went back and asked the store owner to forgive me. Now, the local "toy" store means something totally different if you catch my drift.

I lied once to a nun who slapped my face and told me to never ever lie to her again. I never lied to her again. I made fun of my over weight 6th grade teacher who then called in my parents to tell them what a gifted leader I was. If a teacher slapped a liar's face today - well I do not want to even go there. We did not have FaceBook or MySpace, we had bicycles and buddies. We didn't have computers to watch porn. We had transistor radios to listen to the Pirates. Our sports heroes did not make a billion dollars a year. They made the same wages as the rest of our steel mill parents. And they stayed on the same team so that when Roberto Clemente died we all grieved.

To watch a baseball game on TV was a luxury. I remember running home from school to catch the end of the 7th game of the 1960 World Series between the hated New York Yankees and the blue collar Pittsburgh Pirates. I listened to most of that game on my transistor radio which was a luxury poor kids like me did not usually have. I did so by running the ear piece cord up my sweater and into the palm of my hand. I then leaned my face on my hand as though I was bored so that the nun would not see me and make me put it away. (Right before the bell rang she asked me in front of the class what the score was!!!) I ran home (six blocks), rushed into our home, a shack we rented for $60 per month (I remember how much it was because I had to go up to the landlord every month and pay the rent) just in time to see Bill Mazeroski hit the world series winning home run. Then we all ran into the street, where by the way, we played football in traffic, and hugged our neighbors, the same neighbors who looked out for each other's kids. We watched the sun set through the red cloud of the steel mills we could see from miles away.

I know I long for the good ole days of the 50's and early 60's with some sort of unrealistic nostalgia. I know that one day, the first decade of the new millennium will be viewed by our kids as the "simpler times." Each generation longs to be young again. But these are very dark days and the nuclear family has all but died. The latch key kids of the last generation are now the same people who divorce their spouses with alarming regularity. In my day (there it is again) divorce was a disgrace and out of wedlock pregnancies were never glamorized with a shower. Of course we also had segregation and sinful racism, I know. But students did not slap teachers. Teachers did not fear students. Parents mattered and so did grandparents. To move away from home was an emotional disaster. I know because we did move when my dad could not find work. I watched my parents suffer financially but never questioned their love or that I would be OK. Yes, I do long for simpler times and so should you.

And I wonder about Little Caylee. It takes a village - a family. Where was hers?

In His Grip,
PB