Where are the picker bushes?

The news is something that just seems to be gloomier and doomier every hour of every day. The most disturbing news to me are the stories involving younger aged people who seem to have no regard for people or property. As most of us do I began thinking "what is going on?" Suddenly it hit me! The push to have landscaped yards has ruined our world as we know it ~ we're not using picker bushes!

Who among the 40 and up crowd doesn't remember getting caught in the picker bushes? Everyone seemed to have them near or around their porch and under their windows. If picker bushes were on the scene we didn't ring their doorbells and run away or even think of hunching under the windows to knock and run.

Now, our parents taught us to stay off the lawns of our neighbors and to say hello to them long before they said hello to us. We knew we weren't supposed to go sneaking around their property, but kids will be kids.

Picker bushes taught us something about boundaries and barriers and respecting others properties in a more emphatic way. If you dared cross that boundary eventually you would find yourself getting picked because surely you would fall in the bushes, get your clothes caught on them or, on the rare occasion, get snapped in the face with a branch. It reinforced what our parents and that generation of society agreed upon. Respecting others.

I say, Bring Back The Picker Bushes!