We the People

My mother has become a kook.



I was chatting with her the other day, deftly avoiding all the land mine topics like politics and gun control and my brother.



Or so I thought.



I mentioned a funny story involving my nephew and a tradition at his prep school....one that has probably endured for decades and which the administration knows of but is not really in a position to take a stand against, and if it does, it is sort of the same position universities take against hazing. They don't support it, make a public statement against it, but are powerless to prevent it. And there is no kid on the planet who is going to admit having participated, so it simply did not happen.



I am not saying that my nephew was forced to run naked down Main Street carrying a school flag and singing the fight song.



No, the seniors on the football team ambushed him and buzz cut his hair before the last game of the season. They pick a sophomore. They picked him. The artfully disheveled pop-star hair I've mentioned before was an easy choice. If they had to pick a sophomore to buzz cut, it was not going to be the kid who already looked like Sgt. Carter from Gomer Pyle or the wimpy kid who is going to whine to the Head Master. It was going to be Pretty Boy Floyd who has the chutzpah and the swagger to go to school the next day without having been to the barber to fix the amateur cut (that, let's be honest, was not intended to look good - razored to the scalp but left with the long flowing bangs...pretty)



If I were my nephew, I would wear that hair like a badge of honor. It is an honor to have been the one. It is a rite of passage. An invitation to the dance. Initiation to the elite club. Very cool. Even if it does sort of derail his mother's plans to take the family Christmas card photo in three weeks when everyone is home for Thanksgiving...(Hello, Photoshop?)

My mother thinks differently, natch.

And went on a rant that began with the words "I tell you what I'd do! I'd march right up to that school and let me tell you, they would get a piece of my mind! That's just not right. I've about had it with putting up with other people's behavior..."

And despite my attempts to interrupt, redirect and ultimately terminate the conversation, Mom went sailing down the slippery slope of political reason and crashed head first into a hissy fit that went stomping into the mine field that is the notion that we should, gulp, amend the U.S. Constitution to, of all things, limit our First Amendment Rights.

And all I could think was. "Please someone limit Mom's freedom of speech at once, and do make sure that we have curtailed her Second Amendment Rights to keep and bear arms before we attempt to do so."

But that was not to be done.