Image Credit: Facebook / Al Fitter

By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: Logan Lake paint spill just smalltown gossip fodder, not proof teens are terrible

Aug 21, 2020 | 11:09 AM

THE BIG PAINT SPILL this week is something that will go down in the annals of small-town gossip history for Logan Lake.

A 16-year-old is accused of emptying a huge paint drum on a parking lot, turning kilometres and kilometres of highway lines into one big pool of mustard-coloured waste.

What is, on its surface, a fairly minor incident, provides the perfect mix of ingredients to feed the B-Sers for months: it’s a rare occurrence, it cost a moderately large amount of money – and one of those punk kids was responsible.

“Kids these days.”

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“Parents these days.”

“Our joke of a justice system.”

“Who’s gonna pay?”

There, I saved you the trouble of looking at the comment section.

It’s the talk of the town, to be sure, and that’s why the RCMP issued a news release to reassure the public that the delinquent has been caught and will face the full weight of the youth criminal justice system.

I don’t know the teenager involved in this incident or his family, but it sure reminds me of pranks we used to pull or dares we used to throw around when my friends and I were teenagers.

Personally, I was either too well-behaved or too much of a chicken to pull anything of this scale – but it would not have been outside the realm of possibility for some of my friends.

We didn’t have boundless video surveillance and cameras in phones back then, remember. You could do something with reasonable confidence it would remain unrecorded.

So don’t peg this incident as some kind of harbinger of the decline of western civilization.

This one episode doesn’t prove anyone’s angry theories about why the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

There have been teenagers making mischief since the dawn of time.

Sure, their parents might have responded with a sound thrashing in years gone by, but I don’t think it wise to wish fondly for the days of widespread corporal punishment and physical abuse.

For every egregious case of mischief, there are ten examples of teenagers making our communities better.

Talk to teachers and parents and volunteer coordinators and you will get story after story of hope and optimism.

If this is the worst thing happening in Logan Lake, the community should consider itself lucky.

Oh, and one more thing: make the kid help clean it up.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.