When I first wrote the above words over 45 years ago, I never dreamed I would still be the Editor-in-Chief of Mercury for Youngsters, and seeing life through the eyes of a child. Though kids may have it remarkably easy as compared to when I was young, really, things haven't changed that much.

I remember rolling a barrel hoop down the street with a stick would often bring me pleasure. Kids today have their own fun, playing with their video game systems and Pokey-man cards. My mother would wash my clothes down at the river, beating them on rocks. Mothers today sip cappuccinos at internet cafes and whine on their cell phones about their impotent husbands and botched pedicures.

Oh, but kids will be kids, won't they? I fondly recall stealing a crabapple from Old Mr. Granger's back yard, and then being beaten behind the wood shed with a hickory stick until my thighs wept openly with blood. Today, kids can mangle and mutilate the Pope, and what happens to them? N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Unless you count the coddling parents of these little mass murderers suing the police department for taking away their kid's sharpened spoons, thereby "violating their civil rights."

I mean, seriously! Is it going to kill you to discipline that child? For all I know, your "precious little angel" is the same sonofabitch who put those little packets of ketchup underneath the toilet seat, so when I sat down to take a crap, the ketchup squirted all over my legs! Due to a medical situation I won't go into right now, I am unable to have children of my own. But if I did, they sure as shooting wouldn't be gallivanting all over the countryside, spitting chewed-up gum on the sidewalks and talking that crazy horrible rap talk.

Children need boundaries! Children need direction! And if you are incapable of providing even the slightest iota of discipline to these TV-lobotomized, pee-wee sociopaths, then the least you can do is purchase your child a subscription to Mercury for Youngsters. After all, I've been doing your job for you for the past 45 years. Why should I stop now?

Bernard Krause

Mercury for Youngsters Editor-In-Chief