Hi friends and family,
This story is kind of fitting for today. We are celebrating the graduation of my ward (the young woman I’m guardian of), Brianna Willey with a barbecue in our backyard. She graduated from the Post-High School, Macomb Academy in June. Today is Brianna’s day.
She’s looking forward to lots of visitors and gifts. Brianna will bathe in the praise. Who doesn’t like to be told they’re special and important . . . And she is! This is a young lady who has a lifetime ahead of her. A chance to make something of herself. A chance to live as many of her dreams as she can. We should all urge her to achieve the highest goals she can make for herself. She wants to be a rock star/actor . . . Okay . . . Let’s work on that goal while keeping smaller goals to the front of her goal plan. 
Brianna may someday reach that goal she dreams of. She is beautiful, has the drive and character to win the hearts of everybody she meets and the passion to stay focused on her goals. I have high hopes for this 26 year-old young woman that I’ve helped raise since she was ten. I pledge to do my best to help Brianna achieve the highest goals she can and to love and care for her as one of the world’s rarest of beings. Natural and uncompromised and ready to rock and roll . . . That’s our Brianna . . .
Thanks for reading,
David T
(p.s. I hope you like my dad’s story. It’s kind of sad, but also relevant)
AND . . . Comments are welcome!!!
“Teens Never Change”
By Don Tschirhart
Excerpted from the unpublished book “It’s a Wonderful World: A Retired Reporter Looks At Life“
Teens Never Change
About sixty years ago my first class at Catholic Central High School in mid-town Detroit was interrupted by an announcement that some classmates were killed that morning in a bus-train accident.
I remember the shock as if it were yesterday. We stood, made the sign of the cross and prayed for our deceased friends.
In that era when war brought death close to our teenage lives we continued class believing this is what the victims would want us to do. For a time, until the shock wore down (and it did), it was no longer fun to be at school.
I thought about this accident the other day when I heard nine people — all but one were teenage high school students — died in two separate auto accidents.
The victims no longer suffer. It is the living that must pay the human price of suffering because of the crashes:
Parents who won’t have to harass their child to get him or her up for class and worry about his whereabouts at night. Parents who will no longer see, hear, speak and hug their child or their children.
Parents who will not be proud of their child’s future accomplishments.
Brothers and sisters who won’t be yelled at in the worst of times and hugged and kissed at the best of times.
Aunts, uncles, grandparents who hereafter will hesitate to mention the child’s name without tears in their eyes.
Classmates who will not see them in school activities. Friends who won’t be called to see what they are wearing to school or on a double date. Friends who won’t be consulted about dresses and formal suits, flowers, transportation before the school prom.
Friends who the victim will not be able to confide secrets and complaints.
Two survivors from one of the crashes will wonder for the rest of their lives why they were spared.
Isn’t it odd that after accidents we pledge that similar events won’t happen again? Yet they do.
After the bus-train accident on Caniff street and the railroad tracks near Hamtramck, the state passed a law ordering all commercial vehicles to stop at railroad crossings. That didn’t stop truck or car/train accidents.
A few years ago a neighbor boy was involved in a “hilling” accident a mile from my Dryden home. He and companions were injured slightly, but area young people knew the dangers of this “thrill trip” and continue doing it.
Yes, they take the chance. Aren’t all teenagers indestructible?
I was invincible when I was young and drove with a friend to a basketball game near Orchard Lake in fog so thick you could just barely make out the road. And I did many other things on a dare that I never told my parents about and now cringe when I think about them.
Don’t we wish we could stuff into a bottle and preserve the exuberance of youth, the willingness to be different knowing that being different is sometimes being the same. And their enthusiasm for the future?
Don’t we wish we could preserve in that bottle the first time we put lipstick on to impress “the boys,” or style our hair to impress “the girls?”
Don’t we wish we could preserve in that bottle the excitement of a senior high school year filled with magical moments topped by wearing a gown and “crown” to the podium to pick up our diplomas?
At that moment we are “kings” and “queens” of the world. We are filled with happiness as we walk down the podium steps waving the diploma to the cheers of our parents and friends in the audience.
Educators, parents and just plain onlookers must remind themselves over and over that these are young people. They are not automatons who can be turned on and off with a push of a button.
They must be taught and reminded constantly the brilliant theory taught by scientist Albert Einstein that for every action there is a reaction and it applies to life as well as physics: When they do something wrong, something wrong will happen to them
When they do something right, something right will happen to them.
Youth is a wondrous time of life. It is filled with just about every emotion there is — happiness, sadness, pride, anger, love, desire to be respected, depression.
It is not emotions that are the problem. The problem is keeping them under control.
It is when some of these emotions run amok that tragedies occur.
May the latest victims of their emotions rest in peace.
* * *
