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Social media and the destruction of civilization as we know it: An old-timer’s lament
I became an activist when I was 11 years old. I wasn’t born into it, like the character River Phoenix played in Running on Empty. And I didn’t act alone, my accomplice was my sister, Heidi.
We had just seen an episode of Room 222, “Clothes Make the Boy” which aired on December 3, 1969. It was a series about a racially diverse fictional High School in Los Angeles. This particular episode can be summed up in one sentence, encapsulated in the imdb write-up (linked above).
The principal of the school “…sees that the dress code (adopted in 1940) may need some updating, but isn’t sure how far to go.”
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We lived in a suburb of Seattle at the time. It was cold in December. Our school dress code wasn’t very complicated: boys wore pants, girls didn’t. That changed the morning after we watched episode 12 of Room 222.
I don’t remember exactly how it unfolded, but Heidi and I decided to wear pants to school. We’d worn them to school before, but not in school. On cold days, girls would wear pants under their skirts while walking to school, then hide them away before going to class. We were only eleven and twelve at the time, but we thought that was stupid.
