When did I become your father? When did I get old?

Okay, here is the deal...I hate teenagers. I never used to, but now I do. When did that happen? Sure, they’re self-centered, loud, rude unpleasant warts on God’s butt, but what the hell, so am I. I see them and I want to smack their easily displayed behinds.

An aside: I wish I could take credit for this, but I can’t. One of my colleagues at work was discussing the tattoos that have suddenly started to appear on young girls backs. You know the ones, the tattoo at the base of the spine. Usually its some Celtic pattern placed above the tush of someone who not only has never heard the word Celtic, but also has never heard of Ireland. But there it is, proudly displayed.

The theory is that now that young ladies are wearing their pants lower, and the shirts higher, exposing the ring of flesh around the middle, they feel the need to put some decoration on the skin. Interestingly enough it is placed in an area of the body that they will never see. Unless, of course, they use a mirror, but then it will appear backwards. Anyway my colleague calls them “Slut Stamps.”

I digress.

Oxford this time of year is chock-a-block with students from all over the Europe. They come here for language classes, and they sure need it. None of them seem to understand the phrase, “Get the hell out of my way.”

All of them loud, all of them in packs, all of them with not a single redeeming quality, but most of all, all of them are in my way. No matter where I try to move there is a herd of them just standing there taking up space.

But, I do have to admit that Sunday night was a hoot. I was in Christ Church in time for the World Cup final. There are hundreds of young Italian students here at various schools taking language courses. When Italy won the Cup the students hit the streets in unbridled celebration. Yelling, screaming, cloaked in Italian flags and driving around with horns on continuous bleat.

Occasionally you would see a lone French student running by himself with the French flag draped over the shoulders. The Italian students would part and allow the French student to run through the gauntlet. But, no violence, the students would just yell, “Italy”, Italy” and applaud the French student. Not what you would have seen if the English had been in the final. The logger louts would have been punching everybody including their own. But both the Italian and the French just were yelling with joy. The next morning there were Italian flags draped out the back windows in Christ Church.

And here is the point. We are talking an outpouring of joyful celebration unlike anything I’ve ever seen. That made me wonder if there is anything in America that would arouse so much joy and passion? I’m afraid that I don’t believe there is. I can’t think of any World Series or Supper Bowl where there was this kind of demonstration. Even though there is a celebration of championships in all of our sports, including college it is localized not nationwide. When the USA won the hockey match from the Russians they was a swelling of national pride, but can you recall anything else that would engender this kind of response?

I don’t believe you can...I know that I can’t.

At the end of the day I have to say those young teenagers were impressive, both for their joy and passion and the non-threatening demonstration of that joy and passion.

Okay, maybe they aren’t all that bad...but they still need to get the hell out of my way before I punch one of them.