KILLER BEES

I sat on the living room couch and cried. I was 8 or 9 and not usually prone to watching the daily 6 pm news, but somehow I had caught a segment on killer bees. Swarms were migrating northward from South America and soon would be crossing into America. After swiftly conquering the Southwest, they would inch their way relentlessly towards the Midwest. 

I would be dead before I reached college age. I had it on good authority that nothing could stop them.

Mom and Dad reassured me, but why should I trust them over the people on TV?

That was when the world needed only three channels on TV (four if you counted PBS, and I didn't). And it was long before the 24 hour news cycle. News premiered at 6 pm and repeated at 10.

I was a nervous child. A few years later when I started to see magazine covers featuring the new and bigger threat of global COOLING, my stress levels increased again. ("We are entering a new ice age!") 

I cannot even imagine how different my experience might have been if born 40 years later and coming of age in the midst of fake news, conspiracy theories, clickbait and Tiktok.  Not to mention 24/7 access to instant communication with friends ... and enemies ... and strangers. And then top it all off with unlimited mindless entertainment (and pornography?!) at my fingertips? 

Holy cow, I would have been a mess! 

I believe I have just talked myself into a fresh admiration for my own sons and daughters and even for the roughest, most ornery students in my 8th grade English classroom ...