Where are the younger people?

Some guy wrote a comment on one of the posts about how old the crowd was at The Grove Spot last week for the Stop Grove Bay rally. I really didn't notice that until I saw the comment, but it does say a lot about the future of Coconut Grove. Now that I think about it, no younger Grovites ever partake in Grove events, politics or anything so this guy putting them down needs to thank the older people for taking up causes that effect everyone and their way of life.

I was walking to the Toxic Park meeting at Blanche Park that time and passed one of the younger guys walking his dog. He was coming from that direction, not going toward it. I asked him if he was going to the meeting, he wasn't. He wasn't interested. He lives a few blocks from that park. His dog goes there.

And as I go to various meetings about various events, Bed Race, 4th of July, King Mango Strut, I notice no younger people present.  They aren't even at BID meetings or City Commission meetings. I'm talking about people in their 20s, maybe early 30s, a generation age that used to carry peace signs and fight wars.

I suppose at that age, I wasn't involved in things either, so maybe that is the way it is. I mean I would attend all the Grove events when I was 20 -- the Strut, Bed Race and so on, but I would come with my friends, watch the event and leave, usually to end up in a bar somewhere. I never knew or cared how the sausage was made.

But I just don't see any younger people taking on causes or taking the helm of anything. I invited a few to a Village Council meeting one time and they were never to return. One of the council members actually called out one of the younger people from the dais asking him why he was making faces, when the guy probably just had a tick, and then when there was almost a fist fight between a couple of council members and lots of yelling, that really sealed the deal for the younger people not to return.

The next day one of them told me he couldn't believe how I just sat there taking notes and minding my own business. He said I was so oblivious to that type of behavior that I didn't flinch. He said I didn't realize that that was not the way meetings should be run. Well show us. Don't give up after one meeting, help make the change. Be the change. We need new, and younger, blood.