I don't know that I'd want to be a kid these days.
I don't know if you heard but we had a little kerfuffle here in downtown Marquette yesterday. A suspicious object was found atop a Fed Ex box in front of the federal building, which caused a couple of blocks to be shut down and everyone within that area evacuated. Thankfully, it just turned out to be something that fell off of a truck (as shown below by Marquette Police Captain of Detectives Greg Kinonen) and things quickly went back to normal.
As soon as I heard about I scooted down the alley behind the station to cover the event. The alley happens to open right across the street from the post office, and as I was heading toward the area of the incident I saw a mom and her two children walking the other way. I'm guessing they were among the people told to leave the area, as the mom was telling her kids “they have to evacuate places sometimes” as a way of explaining why they were rushing away from wherever they had been.
And the kids looked as if they accepted it as a fact of life.
Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by that; after all, these days kids have grown up with everything from terrorist & bomb threats to active shooter drills to bullies in positions of power, and they've gotten used to all of these things being a part of “normal” life. And I know that kids are very resilient and adapt to things quite easily. But what does it say about our life & times that terrorist and bomb threats and active shooter drills and bullies in positions of power are considered “normal”? I always thought childhood was a care-free time of life, not a time of life when you're trying to live through the plot of a “Die Hard” movie.
Goes to show what I know.
But like I said, everything turned out fine. Hopefully, the kids got to go back home or go back to the restaurant where they were eating or the store at which they were shopping. Hopefully, they won't give the incidents of yesterday a second thought. After all, isn't it hard enough being a kid without having things like “suspicious objects” interrupting your summer morning?
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