Signs of The Times

The street I grew up on and currently reside isn't in the easiest of neighborhoods. In fact, it can be quite dangerous for someone who doesn't live there. A street where drive-bys happen as often as the ice-cream truck passes by (sometimes the ice-cream truck may be used to do the drive-by) and marijuana is on everyone's grocery list isn't one where you could put up your idyllic picket fence.

Needless to say, as kids, my sisters and I didn't get out a lot. Sure we talked to the neighbors and played with their kids, but our parents would never let us go over to their houses, and I always thought that to be strange. Now I know why. And I'm glad they did that. The people on this street are some kind of weird. We usually stay out of everyone business and they stay out of ours. And plus, the people you grow up with and lived next to all your life really don't have it out for you.

Yesterday, when my dad was running an errand for my mom, a bunch of the neighbors kids, the oldest probably being not even five years old, accosted him with a bazillion questions. My dad's a friendly guy, so he took his time and answered them. Among the questions were "Where are you mother and father?"
"Well," my dad replied, "They're both dead." Now if you expected the kids to ask, something like "Really?" or "How did they die?" or "When did they die?" or something like that, you'd be thinking the exact same thing that I was. And you, like me would be wrong. The first thing these kids asked was, "Who killed them?" Even my dad was a taken aback by that one.

But I guess that should have been expected, right? These kids grow up in world were people die violently and suddenly, where arguments begin simply and grow to a crescendo and that could end in a gunshot or stabbing. It's not that these kids have been grown up badly. It's just what they know. And that made me realize something. That what may seem to be normal to us today, won't be normal tomorrow. We like to think that humanity deep down is noble, and that we'd always do the right thing, but that's not true. Our morals slide everyday and we move further and further away from what we deem to be right. Our children and their children would probably be doing things that horrify us, all because they think what they're doing is right. I guess that is the legacy that humanity leaves behind. That is the sign of the times.