Louis Roney: Growing up & other fallacies

Children — everybody wants ’em, until they get ’em.

Having children is an iffy business, a road with lots of curves and bumps.

The trouble with children is that they are people — and people come in packages labeled every way from Jesus Christ to Al Capone.

The terrible school crimes we learn about on TV news are committed by kids who went to school with your kids and mine. The naughtiest kids probably didn’t look any different than anyone else — until their faces began to appear on police blotters.

Have you ever thought of committing a crime? Maybe something a little more colorful than fudging on your income taxes? Can you even imaging taking someone else’s property, or his wife, or his life?

To almost all of us, big-time crime is way out there in left field, and we never commit it, or become victims of it in our lifetimes — thank goodness!

Being alone and unprotected can make one fearful of all kinds of imaginary crimes. There were many uneasy moments when I found myself alone very late at night walking through deserted parts of New York or London.

I lived in New York many years where walking was, and still is, the accepted mode of locomotion. Long hauls were subway trips, and if one had plenty of time, a bus was handy. The prices of public transportation, and especially of using taxis, have all risen precipitously — in my day subway and bus rides ranged from a nickel to 50 cents. Presently the price is at $2.50!

People who say, “What’s to be worried about?” might well ask, “Why do we have so many uniformed policemen on the street and in their roving cars?” And in how many houses is tucked away a pistol, a rifle, or a shotgun — surely not just to shoot quail!

Protection of children perhaps is among our most worthy concerns. I remember that the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby back in 1932 made people with small children afraid to leave their kids in the house at night. Now on TV, folks like Nancy Grace bring us unhappy scenarios nightly.

Today’s homes are often supplied with fancy protective electronic devices — some that even allow parents to watch their children on TV monitors from afar.

My parents used to leave me often at age 8 or 9 to look after my two-year younger sister in Forest Hills, our lonely neighborhood in Winter Park. Our community was then almost literally crimeless — but since I had no gun, I could have done little to protect my sister or myself. I guess most of us kids got used to being in the house without our parents when our parents went out with other parents for the evening. Anyhow, nothing untoward ever happened within memory. But I felt better when my uncle gave me a .410-guage shotgun for my 12th birthday.

Children find many ways of their own to get into trouble as they grow older. The first time your kid takes a car out at night by himself is a scary occasion.

On my first “date” using a car, I had to promise not to drive more than 15 mph! I took Jane Gary to a high school dance at the Winter Park Women’s Club. Jane kept looking at me as though she were wondering if I did not know how to shift out of second gear. Jane and I laughed about that incident when I returned to Winter Park to live in 1980, when I was 59.

Kids have their own “wheels” today — a far cry from my youth, when no kid was allowed to drive more than a bicycle to Winter Park High School!

About Roney: Harvard’42—Distinguished Prof, Em.—UCF 2004 Fla. Alliance for the Arts award (Assisted by beautiful wife Joy Roney)