No Good Happens After Midnight

When I was a teenager growing up in Front Royal, my father would tell me and my sister two things before we went out on the town: “First, remember it takes years to grow a tree and only minutes to cut it down.” He told us the tree was like a reputation that takes a long time to build and only one foolish, thoughtless action or word to destroy. Be careful, be smart – what we did or said had consequences.

The second piece of wise advice was, “Be home by midnight because nothing good happens after that time.” My dad would reinforce this by explaining that we will encounter situations where people may ignore their better judgment when dealing with social pressures. This could be caused by drugs/alcohol or outside influences, driving some individuals to act without thinking of the consequences of their bad decisions, especially under the cover of darkness. He would reinforce his statement by telling us that he and other family members would have peace of mind knowing we would be home before that time. They cared and let us know it. The consequences were clear when not heeding his sage counsel, which could be the loss of the car and being grounded. We would often hear at school, following a weekend, that some of our classmates had gotten into serious trouble from not heeding or hearing caring, parental guidance.

It was my father’s concern for our well-being and his good advice that I followed during my adolescent years. It was the same advice that I passed on to my kids when they were teenagers and out of our protective sight.

I feel obligated to write about this as a result of the trial of the young man in Wisconsin who was acquitted in the killing of two people during the civil unrest in Kenosha. It’s unthinkable for me to comprehend that an under-aged teenager managed to take a semi-automatic weapon in public without adult supervision, even more, unimaginable that he could travel to another state and involve himself in an area of dangerous civil unrest. Most troubling is that a certain segment of our population, and elected leaders, have elevated this young man to a position of respect and hero status after killing two human beings; solely to promote their own self-serving ambitions and craving for attention. Just think if this young man had someone in his life who saw the need to impress upon him the above wisdom maybe this situation would never have happened. After the aura of gratuitous back-slapping has worn away he would not be stained for life when the spotlight becomes as dark as midnight.

The actions and resulting consequences for our kids today have escalated to an unbelievable degree compared to when I was a teenager or when my kids were growing up. It’s scary that as a society we have become so blinded by the political dogma that we can no longer separate common sense right from wrong. The consequences of our actions as adults may now be creating a generation of young people that feel unpowered, even encouraged to make a bad decision.

No good happens after midnight and shame on us adults for allowing it to happen to any of our kids.

Michael Graham
Front Royal, Virginia