Spring Break Madness

We are in the middle of spring break here on the Central Florida coast, and it’s been absolute madness. I don’t have a problem with the crowds of young people in the restaurants and bars and on the roads and beaches. That’s just part of life in any resort area. But the behavior of some of them has been absolutely disgusting. So much so that the City Council in New Smyrna Beach had to impose an emergency 11 PM curfew for anyone under 18 years of age.

I’ve always thought of Spring Breakers as college kids, but the problem here seems to be teenagers from out of town whose parents come and rent houses or motel rooms for their kids, furnish them with booze, and then take off and leave them to run amok.

There have been reports of rowdy teenagers assaulting people on the sidewalk, including at least one incident where the victim had to be taken to the emergency room for treatment. One store owner on Flagler Avenue reported that in the last few days, he has had teenagers blow marijuana smoke in his face, spit in his face, and throw whiskey in his face. They also came into his store and stole bottles of water and soda, and smashed them in the parking lot and on the sidewalk in front of his place of business.

Others stole a ladder and climbed to the roof of a restaurant on Flagler Avenue and began throwing things at the crowd below, including tables and chairs from the rooftop dining area. They have also spit on police officers and thrown water bottles at their cars.

Perhaps the craziest thing is the fools who are running around with paintball guns shooting people with soft gel Orbeez balls. Apparently, this is another one of those stupid online challenges, like eating Tide pods. At least two teenagers have been arrested here in our county for these assaults.

In one instance, a father and his child were shot while in their driveway, and in another, a UPS driver was shot in the neck and face. These fools are lucky someone doesn’t feel the impact of one of these things, and not realizing what it is, react and shoot back at them with a real gun.

One parent excused the actions by saying, “Kids are kids, and they only live once.” As far as I’m concerned, these punks need to be put in a cell, and their parents need to be locked up, too. Come on vacation, leave on probation.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize an RV camping journal donated by Barbara House. Barbara makes several variations of these, and they all have pages where you can list the date, weather, where you traveled to and from that day, beginning and ending mileage, campground information including amenities at RV sites, a place for campground reviews, room to record activities, people met along the way, reminders of places to see and things to do the next time you’re in the area, and a page for notes for each day.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – There are like 8 billion people in the world and I can only tolerate about six of you.