The Sunday we left the Provo area we ran smack into the common attitude that is prevalent today. That being that "I can do what I want no matter who I bother, irritate or generally inconvience." I have seen this occur quite a bit in our travels but not quite as violent and in your face as yesterday.
We were still at Utah Lake State Park and as usual a bunch of weekend warriors had show up, this weekend most of them had quite a few small children. They all were congregated near the front of the loop and we were towards the back so at first it wasn't such a problem. We realize that on weekends campgrounds, especially state parks, will not be as quiet and peaceful as during the week and normally we deal with it. On Sunday morning we are up having a cup of coffee before heading to Park City when we look outside the rig. There are four little kids from way on the other side of the bathrooms playing in the road next to our rig, throwing stones and yelling at each other. So I go outside and ask where their campsite is and if they think they should go back there. They continue to play in the road and throw stones around until finally Bill tells them to go back to their campsite.
Five minutes later the sterotypical skin head jerk wearing a wife beater shirt comes up to the door of the rig. He yells and asks if we told his kids to go home. We said that we did and started to explain exactly why but he gives us no chance to explain and starts flipping us the bird outside the door and tells Bill to come out and "get a piece of him". Well, I'm not going to put up with such bullshit so I grab my cell phone and start dialing 911. He sees me doing that and starts to leave yelling the whole while. I get the county dispatch who refers it to the Park security. Within a few minutes two Park Rangers pull up and want to know the story. They clearly see the pile of stones in the road, the fact that the kids were playing in the road, not to mention they were quite a distance from their campsite as young as they were.
So basically it ended up that they were leaving as it was Sunday and so were we. When they pulled out of the loop in their mini van, his wife was driving of course, and he was leaning out yelling something as they passed by. What lesson was driven home here? That it seems like nowdays people do NOT want to take responsibility for either their own actions nor that of their kids. I know if that would have been my parents back in the day, we would have been in a world of hurt as the adults would have been right. Granted that is not always the truth but it seems that today the kids are never wrong. One of the reasons I got out of teaching!
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