I seem to have put on my Malvolio hat recently.  Malvolio, for those of

you haven't seen Twelfth Night, is a steward in a rich lady's house who

stops a party at three in the morning with 'My Masters, are you mad?" 

One of the parties rebuffs him, saying, "dost thou think, because thou

art virtuous, there should be no cakes and ales?"

I find myself in the unwelcome position of agreeing with the editorial.

Oh, not completely.  I think that I disagree with the island having two

social classes "them and us." and I disagree with "a few bad apples."

logic, but everything else is on-point.

I especially like the last paragraph.  Many of the parents I have dealt

with at school have a tenuous hold on the reality of their world.  If

these parents think at all about the beach parties, it is in the rosy

glow of their own past or in the lies and delusions that their children

tell them.  Spending more time with their surly, sulky, adolescent

might be the last thing on their minds.  If their thirteen year old is

down at the strip

Now, it's a beach party, not a Satanic Black Mass, but it involves two

hundred people between 12 and 35.  Alcohol, drugs, and sex are the

order of the day.  Noone is going out to Gibb's Pond to see what a

geologic wonder it is, or to see if the Perch are biting yet.  If you

drive the Strip at 6 or 7 on a Friday Night, you can see the car-less

people who will be attending the party later this evening.

There have always been parties.  Since the parties have moved to the

Moors, something has happened intellectually to the kids.  And parties

have been a way of life out here for a long time.  As Lentowski says in

the article, "it's a right of passage for many kids living here and

working here."  But we have lots of rites of passages for kids, from

Boot Camp to Indentured Servitude.  Wilding in the Moors and on the

Beaches should probably join its forbears.

Parties, however, aren't going away.  DADD, police, and Conservation

Properties be damned.  They will hop on mopeds and follow the cruisers

to the next party and the next.

The underlying problem involves modern American society and the teen

ager.  We want them to buy  and work like as adults do, without the

history and wisdom of adulthood.  Further, we have less adults in their

daily lives.  If the folks are together, then they are both working

cray hours.  If they are not, then the parent is definitely working

lunatic hours.  Time without the Hormonal Lunatic will seem like a

vacation for both parent and child.

One of the problems that the editorial addresses and Lentowski doesn't

is "Where can kids go and hang out?"  As the I&M suggests, this is the

general public's problem, but the island can't come up with a solution.

  Parents need to do that.  The editorial suggests that parents and

children "expand their horizons and their kids outlook on life."

If parents cared about this, perhaps the parties wouldn't have 200-300

people ripping up beaches, moors and the like.

Maybe they all should go fishing for stripers.