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Renee CK

writer, editor, tweetable http://twitter.com/chicskirt

I'm a fun girl who's on a quest to figure it all out. I'm cynical but living the dream- I'm not sure how that happened exactly. Follow along in my blog for fun, mayhem, and merriment. There's never a dull day! (Or, go download my book!)...

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BEER WINE KILLS KIDS

stupidity breeds ignorance

I wrote about my escapade at the Y last week.  I mentioned that I was already running late when I got in the shower.  While it’s true that an inordinate amount of people “needed” to be on the exact pieces of equipment exactly when I needed to be on them, that wasn’t the only thing that held me up.  The thing that delayed me started even before I got to the Y; it was a sign.

I was going around the downtown square with it’s one-ways winding around the courthouse.  There it was on the courthouse lawn, a sign not unlike many others around town these days, but instead of McCain/Palin, For Sale, or any of the other sentiments that you’re used to seeing, this one was white with hand stenciled letters and simply said in black letters…

BEER WINE

KILLS KIDS

It was about 15 yards before the next street, a two-way street and I really needed to keep going  straight, but in those 15 yards, the sheer void of missing information on that sign forced my hand to flip on my left-turn blinker and make my way to the nearest parking spot.  I had to wait to do a U-turn in order to get back and as I did I couldn’t stop thinking…

I get what the person who took the time to Sharpie in the letters may have meant.  Underage drinking can lead to DUI’s.  Parents with problems with alcohol can lose judgment to the point that they kill children.  (And this can be more than physical.)

I spent my first Mother’s Day marching in the Million Mom March in Atlanta.  Many people take that to mean that I am anti-gun.  It means nothing of the sort.  It means that I strongly support the responsible use of guns, especially where children are involved.  I do not put out signs or the statement saying “Guns Kill Kids”.

This sign made it sound like beer and wine are loaded guns held to the heads of children.  It did not speak of the responsibility that should come with drinking just as it should come with gun ownership.  That kind of responsibility starts young.   If anything it should start with kids.  I have a friend who is an alcoholic and when he is a father, plans to be very deliberate about explaining to his children that while alcohol is okay for people in general to drink, because he knows what it does to him, that he is powerless over it, he has to be responsible and not even take the first sip. 

Of course, there wasn’t room on the 14x16” sign to plead for moderation and responsibility in drinking, though I do not think this sign had any tolerance for those of us who enjoy a glass of wine after we put the kids to bed.  There wasn’t room to give facts from their perspective, at least, not for them to be readable from the street. 

While turning around, I wondered how I would respond if given more time to act.  I suppose I could have put out a sign with fliers for people to take talking about talking to children about drinking, drinking responsibly, and probably even given directions from the courthouse to the jail where people could talk to people who lost control while drinking.  If I did, how would they respond?  More signs, this time backed up with facts trying to force their point-of-view on me?  Where does it end?

I contemplated just leaving the sign right where it was.  It wasn’t really hurting anyone.  People who are knowledgeable about these things would laugh it off.  But what if there was that one person who seriously considered it?  What if there was someone who passed it and was already suffering but doing what they can to make things right?  How many people would this sign affect before it was pulled out?

There is a time and place to argue things like prohibition, but in the small space of a yard stake and with so few words used to express the point, making children the victims, it wasn’t the appropriate place. 

Which was why I didn’t feel any remorse when I lifted the sign off the courthouse lawn and put it in my van.

Enjoy!

Renée