Who is the Delinquent?
(EARL NIGHTINGALE © THIS IS EARL NIGHTINGALE 1983; NIGHTINGALE-CONANT)

 I want to share with you a letter that moved me deeply. It was written by a boy with a record as a juvenile delinquent, to his parents.

 Dear Folks,

 Thank you for everything, but I am going to Chicago and try and start some kind of new life.

 You ask me why I did those things and why I gave you so much trouble, and the answer is easy for me to give you, but I am wondering if you will understand.

Remember when I was about six or seven and I used to want you to just to listen to me? I remember all the nice tings you gave me for Christmas and my birthday and I was really happy with the things - about a week - at the time I got the things, but the rest of the time I just wanted all the time for you to listen to me like I was somebody who felt things too, because I remember even when I was young I felt things. But you said you were busy.

Mom, you are a wonderful cook, and you had everything so clean and you were tired so much from doing all those things that made you so busy; but, you know something, Mom? I would have liked crackers and peanut butter just as well - if you had only sat down with me a while during the day and said to me, "Tell me all about it so I can maybe help you understand."

And when Donna came and I couldn't understand why everyone made so much fuss because I didn't think it was my fault that her hair is curly and her skin so white, and she doesn't have to wear glasses with such thick lenses. Her grades were better, too, weren't they?

 If Donna ever has children, I hope you will tell her to just pay some attention to the one who doesn't smile very much because that one will, really be crying inside. And when she is about to bake six dozen cookies, to make sure first that the kids don't want to tell her about a dream or a hope or something, because thoughts are important too, to small kids even though they don't have so many words to use when they tell about what they have inside them.

I think that all the kids who are doing so many things that grown-ups are tearing out their hair worrying about are really looking for somebody that will have time to listen a few minutes and who really and truly will treat them as they would a grown-up who might be useful to them. You know - be polite to them. If you folks had ever said, "Pardon me," when you interrupted me, I'd have dropped dead!

If anybody asks you where I am, tell them I've gone looking for somebody with time because I've got allot of things I want to talk about.

Love to All,

Your Son