Collisions

Dear You,

This morning I read a newpaper account that began, "After a night of bar-hopping with friends, a law school student was at the controls of a motorboat when it broadsided...another boat on Skaneateles Lake, killing a Virginia police officer and his girlfriend..." The facts: 2:40 a.m.; 32-year-old U of AZ student; two friends in boat were ejected, after which he stopped to pick them up before leaving for his family's camp, four miles across the lake . . . without aiding the people he'd hit. Later, his (sober?) 25-yr. old brother, in an attempt toprotect the older one, told investigators that he had been driving the boat. The story fell apart, as these things so often do, and this fellow will soon face felony charges.

I cite this as the most recent of several instances that I have seen of people acting recklessly, without regard to others, and who subsequently fail to accept responsibility. Whatever has happened to "Yes, I did it, and I am sorry"?

As I read the story this morning, I could not help thinking of my parents, who were so amazingly honest and honorable in every dealing I witnessed while growing up in Ohio. I still have a book from my mother, who inscribed "To Paul, toward a noble manhood." Whenever I have failed the ideals my parents set for me, it has not been because I had no teachers.

But today? Not even those occupying the White House can be cited as models of proper behavior. Not even to say, "We have made mistakes, and we are sorry." Not even a young law student, it seems, can be expected to behave properly today. We should all be sorry about that.