Do you know where your kids are ?

Those were the days, eh ? Surely our country’s kids are more recalcitrant today than they were in the mid 60s. Weren’t they ? Nontheless, at 9:P.M. American TVs regularly posed the question as a public service announcement.

It was 1963. It was 9 o’clock in the evening. Did you know where your kids were ?

I’m not really sure where this wee bit of “public service” originated. Did The Department of Health and Human Services even exist back then ?

As I think about that, a cynical smile purses my lips. I can just hear a gaggle of today’s parents recoiling at such a prompt.

“Who do they think they are, telling me how to parent my kid ? I’ll bet their kids are out raising cane , too.”

After decades of perspective on the matter, I spin the question a bit differently. Upon waking Jude in the morning, I’ll gently offer the following: “It’s six o’clock A.M. Do you know where you are ?”

Sometimes she does .

Somehow it harkens me back to an age more innocent. Was it not ? That’s for you to determine, dear reader.