Hello, Well I was talking to my neighbour who is a school teacher about the vandal situation. I must admit even here in the quiet country cemetery they stole the silk flower arrangement off my sons grave. Sylvia This was her reply............. Now for a reply to the cemetery problems...... It is my belief that until we have more stable homes with a father and mother setting examples by modeling good manners and good behavior we will continue to have the problems we are plagued with. Although I was a single parent I didn't think it was the best thing for my kids. The one thing I did was try to teach them that taking things from someone's yard like a flower was not acceptable since it didn't belong to them. I had the opportunity to teach the lessons because we walked to school each morning when they were small. There seems to be no sense of what ownership of property is all about. In my classroom a pencil found on the floor instantly became the property of the finder. "Finders keepers, losers weepers!!" was the rule. To keep that from happening I put the name of each student on the pencil. It should not have been necessary but I had to keep the peace. Just seeing it should have brought on an investigation by the finder to locate the person to whom it belonged. Not to long ago a gentleman who was working on a house across the street ask me about a set of keys he found while fishing. He wanted to know if the library would have the information on a person since the keys had a library card attached. I told him I am sure it would. This is a good example of finding something, realizing it doesn't belong to me and trying to find the owner. Now you are probably wondering what this has to do with the cemetery. I wouldn't consider doing damage to someone's property including a grave or tombstone. I don't think that my children would either. In both cases it is because someone took the time to teach us values. That just isn't happening in our hurried busy society. I am sure teenagers were bored when I was growing up. We didn't go out and vandalize just to beat boredom. We knew our parents would be on our case forever if we had. I have to realize my parents were not divorced and were ever alert to where I was, who I was with and what I was doing. Are parents that alert today? Now just please don't ask me how all this can be corrected. As I first stated the lack of interest by parents in their children's lives and the divorce rate must be a big factor. Being a parent isn't an easy job. It becomes even harder when rules and regulations are enforced. The interesting thing is that kids appreciate having boundaries even though they fight them tooth and nail. When one decides to take on a family they need to have training to help them be the best they can be at that job. To few did not have a good role model and don't know what to do to make things better for themselves and their children. Susan Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: "Take two aspirin" and "Keep away from children." Sylvia in Florida ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.