As one who has been showing up at the office for over 20 years, I recall the days when I would arrive at 8 a.m. on Monday, and in response to my coworker’s sleepy, “Hey, Mike, ready for another week in the salt mines?”

Excuse me, but do you mind if I use your bathroom, as long as I’m here? Okay, whoa, I can see you’re a bit put out, but I really, really have to go. And yes, I know that the last time you let me go here, my aim wasn’t all that great. I left a stain or two on your toilet seat, also on the bathroom walls, the floor mat, probably on the mirror over the sink, the medicine cabinet and the light switch. My aim is pretty bad, I admit.

Here at Spring House we provide a supportive environment for up to thirty spoiled rotten teens, with the youngest age 16 and the oldest 19, who are not yet so lazy as to require hospitalization or life support. Experiencing the emotional and physical upheavals of youth along with the cognitive and bodily failings of advanced age, or claiming they do, these teens suffer the worst of both worlds. They need help with bathing, dressing, homework, applying for jobs, getting out of bed at some point and saying a kind word. That is where we at Spring House step in.

The hick of today is a stunning sophisticate compared to his counterpart of only one or two generations ago. Often flaunting an Ivy League education and a job in the public eye requiring diplomacy and social nuancing, today’s cracker, compared to yesterday’s in terms of sophistication, is as Rand Paul is to Harry Truman, or as Jeff Daniel is to Oliver Hardy, or as Miley Cyrus is to Minnie Pearl. You would never guess how many influential politicians, trend-setters and opinion-mongers are actually outlanders from benighted states like Ohio and Texas and Kentucky, but grown remarkably adept and refined.

I don’t enjoy my limps through the park as much as I used to because teenagers keep knocking me out. Soon as I hobble past the fountain, some hulking thirteen-year-old will break away from his pack and deal me a solid to the jaw. Then it’s lights out as I hit the ground like a chopped tree. I suppose I do, only I don’t see it. This happens a lot. It makes a body wary. Once I reported it to the police, and they asked if I knew who it was, or could I describe them. But it’s never the same kid twice, and how do I describe a fist? It’s got five fingers, officer, that’s all I know. Five fingers, you know, curled up together. It’s a fist.