Groovin'

 I realize I'm old and out of touch, it happens. But I do listen to the evening news most days and have teenage grandchildren, along with social media and the internet. I'm not a hermit. But I was wondering, do the kids dance these days? I mean I haven't heard about any new dance crazes lately. I was never one much for fads but was aware of dances when I was a kid. Seemed like a new one came along every few weeks! Now I can't recall hearing about any new one. Last thing I remember was people were doing a dance Gangnam style. That was something made popular in a genre called K-Pop. I learned about K-Pop through a granddaughter. Apparently swooning over pop stars is still a thing with young girls, I don't think that will ever change.
 Seriously though I wonder what the kids do these days. We had dances. Whether it was just a party at a friends house or a bigger setup, we went to dances. I don't hear much about that anymore. Yes, the school still has dances, those formal occasions that are a right of passage in a way. I expect that will go by the wayside one day as we wouldn't want anyone to feel excluded or uncomfortable. I say that because a county here in Maryland has voted to eliminate class rankings. There will be no class valedictorian or anything like that. They don't want the lowest performing students to feel marginalized. Well because performance shouldn't be considered when valuing a persons achievements. You know, just like in the real world where as long as you show up for work how well you do your job doesn't matter! And what if they want to go to college? A lower class ranking could influence the boards decision on admission. No ranking, no judgement. But I'm wandering off the subject a bit.
 Do the kids have parties today or do they just " hang " out? I remember hanging out with my friends, adults called it loitering. It was considered a path to trouble. If you were allowed to just hang around, doing nothing, you must likely were up to no good. My Grandmother always said, " idle hands do the devils work " and there is a great deal of truth in that statement. Combine those idle hands with access to the internet and I'm thinking that can be a recipe for real trouble. The internet can surely provide more " bright " ideas than I was able to think up, or my friends for that matter.
 I don't know but I don't hear much dance crazes anymore. Now all I hear is they are eating tide pods or running alongside moving vehicles while taking a selfie. The kids take a lot of selfies! They also seem to send a lot of pictures to one another, sometimes not so appropriate a picture. When I was a kid we didn't even think about that. It was a different era that much is sure. You did have to send your pictures out for developing. It was believed that any inappropriate pictures would be turned over to law enforcement agencies, or at least the druggist would see them because they checked. Not sure why I believed that but I did. Well, like I said, the only crazes I hear about these days involve the kids doing something stupid. Of course, I realize my parents thought what I was doing and the other kids, was pretty stupid. Rock and Roll music, you can't hear yourself think with that noise, and you can't dance to it. That's why we just jumped around, flailing our arms. LOl. It's true that if I tried to dance like today I'd probably get hurt. That's alright my generation invented cool. Still the best music and dancing ever made. We were groovy, fact is, we still are. The kids call it wrinkled though, but it's groovy.