Where This Crab Draws The Line

This old fart is frequently the first to chastise other old farts when they begin ranting about the flaws of younger people. My go-to strategy is reminding coots my age that the old have been criticizing the young for one thing or the other as far back as Socrates.

Still, I'm aligned with codgers who are a bit nervous watching kids texting, viewing videos, or updating their social media profiles while riding their bicycles. Invariably, my inner fuddy-duddy shudders picturing these future drivers. Yes, I know not all of them will be distracted by their devices when they get behind the wheel. But, given how hypnotized people in my own cohort are by their phones - often when they are driving - I'm concerned about a coming generation of drivers who have never not had Siri at their fingertips.

In the town where I live - about one mile from the Atlantic Ocean - bicycles are everywhere. Young people ride on the sidewalks and, often as not, not with the traffic. When I'm walking and a young cyclist forces me off the sidewalk, or, when driving I'm caught off guard while making a right turn by a cyclist on the wrong side of the road, I shrug it off. I don't want to be a curmudgeon. But I'll own my crabbiness when that sidewalk or wrong-side-of-the-road cyclist is tweeting on a phone. Isn't it bad enough that the leader of the free world can't control himself?