The Locker Room Floor

Well maybe it happens at the Beauty Parlor or the Coffee Shop but I know it also happens with us men types at the Y or Health Club locker room . I overheard it yet again the other day.

It comes in the form of glittering generalities about really complex and sometimes important issues. Whether you like it or not you can hear , because it echoes in those locker rooms for all to take in, one line comments about politics, education, how kids have no respect anymore, religion, and all kinds of comments on economic policy.

The other day one guy who was bantering on about how poor the quality of education had become rounded the row of lockers and left one last comment on the locker room floor as he left; "Well what can you do?" Well here is what I want to say, "Many times there is something you CAN do and it does no good to leave one line over generalized comments on the locker room floor and then walk away."

Do something to make things better. And quit the locker room talk. I don't want to over hear it because most of the time it is full of simplistic sound bites about some really important issues. Here's one, "Obama has spent more money than any other President we've had!" Well you know that might be right, but what does it really mean? I suppose this person does not like Obama or his policies but what locker room talk has become is like the sound bites on TV that simply make people draw lines in the sand and throw dirt at each other across the line.

It is not doing us any good. The issues facing America are not that simple and we are all going to have to learn to "play together in the sandbox" if we are going to keep talking and acting like children. These are grown up problems and our politicians need to grow up...but the truth is they can't as long as those to whom they talk still use locker room language and and act like we expect simple-sound bite-solutions to complex issues that require some painful compromise by probably all of us.

"Well what can you do?" You and I can learn the complex realities and start expecting more from our leaders. We can convey to them that they do not have to make us happy all the time and that we are willing listen to "hard" solutions that may impact our life style or even our pocketbook. It is time to quit acting like children.. in real life and in the locker room.

When was a kid playing football that kind of of talk was OK because after all I was a kid...but some guy I discovered a few years later coined a phrase that can be used for many different occasions not just religious ones: "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became an adult I put an end to childish ways."

Leave wet towels on the locker room floor, not trash talk about really important things...

Jody