Last week, there was an article in my local newspaper about a teenager and his dad complaining of the closure of a skateboard park in a nearby town. They imply unfair treatment of skateboarders by local police and whine that people don't accept the skaters because they look/dress/act different.
And because the skateboard park was closed (due to unsafe conditions) in December, this teen seems to believe that the police shouldn't bother skaters who want to take their tricks to Main Street, which is crowded with shops, pedestrians, and car traffic.
The teenager in the article is 17. He's old enough to respectfully approach the township officials and find out what needs to be done before his favorite park can reopen. He's old enough to organize a fund-raiser or get his friends together to work on cleanup or construction, and even to make a commitment to the kind of ongoing maintenance a skate park requires.
Instead of whining about the lack of a place to play, and taking his games to Main Street (where people could get hurt and property could get damaged), this young man could be channeling his energy into finding solutions to the problem. If that happened, chances are good that people wouldn't continue to misjudge him and his fellow skaters, but rather admire their initiative and civic spirit.
As my favorite character from the movie Robots always said: "See a need, fill a need."
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