A Gravitational Enigma
Kent Wickham
Our educational system is suffering a terrible financial crisis. As a father, I worry about my two boys and what will happen with further cuts in school funding. Already, it seems our institutions of learning are ignoring basic topics that need teaching.
For example, schools are not teaching children that briefs should remain beneath the primary garment covering the lower anatomy, invisible to the general public. Likewise, kids aren’t learning that pants are designed so the waistband encircles a part of the body that is slightly thinner than the portion located immediately south. When I see young men (like my own kids and their friends) with boxer shorts billowing from their jeans, which cling tenuously to their upper thighs, I can’t help but feel like a bit of a fuddy-duddy. But I have good reasons.
I recall certain events in my own life when trousers dragging on the ground might have been problematic. Once, a stampeding herd of children in a neighboring community exited safely from a burning cinema. I can picture today’s youth experiencing gridlock in the aisle, with the fire progressing quickly behind them. This would be a tragedy, all caused by a young man heroic and savvy enough to lead the group out, who then tripped over his dropped trow, caused a chain reaction of tumbling bodies, and effectively blocked the route to safe passage.
I also remember a certain duck hunting trip. Quietly advancing through an alfalfa stubble field, my clumsy partner tripped in the muck behind me and discharged his .410 shotgun into my keister. Luckily I was hunched over, with only my hiney protruding. Although I was eventually decorated with a lovely pattern of tiny bruises, my properly placed long johns, thick dungarees, and rain pants saved me from certain injury and an embarrassing trip to the doctor for removal of a thousand pellets of birdshot. Today’s youth wouldn’t be afforded such protection.
There were also times during my economically lean college years, when I had to go without underwear for a day or two due to my inability to either afford or get to the laundromat. I’m sure university students today have similar financial and vehicular limitations. How do they deal with this predicament? If your son is a practicing sagger, would you want him out in public after choosing between the several bad options available in such a crisis? Would you want your daughter dating such a boy, or sitting behind him in English Lit? Call me old fashioned, but this seems to me a matter that should be of huge concern to the public at large.
Now I must admit, as a male, I enjoy the current trend of exposed bikini briefs and thongs as practiced by the lovely young women of the world. After all, such garments, created by some of the most respected designers in the industry, are worthy of viewing. Plus, the female hip system is quite versatile, and more adept at handling the load placed upon it in the form of lowered jeans or corduroys. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that our educational system has failed to teach this most basic of personal values to an entire generation. I shudder to think what this next round of cuts may lead to.
