Nowadays sending your minor child to fly alone is dangerous at best. And giving a cigarette to a teenager can land you in prison.

In fact, I remember as a kid multiple times chatting with cops and bumming smokes from them. Nobody cared back then. It was just part of the culture.

One time when I was 13 years old, I walked into the shopping mall with a 14-inch bone-handled Bowie knife strapped to my belt. The mall cop asked me if he could see it. He took it, ran his hand along the blade, then handed it back. "That's a nice knife. Make sure you don't point it at anyone or you'll get in trouble." Then he walked on.

Today if you walk into a mall with a knife half the size of a Wakahze sword, they would probably call a swat team. If a fifteen year old fired up a cigarette anywhere, there would be a strong police response.

My generation had it pretty swell growing up. Instead of pretending to keep us safe by squashing every potentially dangerous thing, the adults just let us know, "Kid, we're watching you. We're always watching you." And it worked.

If some teenager was getting unruly or acting dangerous the nearest adults would grab hold of that brat and drag the offender to the nearest seat and make them stay put until their parents could be contacted. Then the parents would show up faster than you would expect and handle it. Police were called only in the most extreme situations. Nobody wanted to report kids to the police. You reported teenagers to their parents first.

Now if you restrained some stranger's unruly or combative kid they would try to accuse you of assaulting the little snot. This modern culture is stupid, dumb, idiotic, and irresponsible.