Two stories from today's Star Tribune give the impression that all of America is slowly turning into Sodom and Gomorrah, or even worse, Los Angeles. The one comfort we oldsters can take is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In this week's installments of Teenagers Gone Wild, we have our first story, where school authorities had to end a Sadie Hawkins dance a wee bit early. From Bend, OR:

Administrators at Bend High School sent students home when the dancing became too dirty at a school event. The Sadie Hawkins dance was cut off at 10 p.m. after students persisted in dirty dancing after repeated warnings from administrators. ...

"There's no other way to dance besides being up against the other person,'' said Mat Baker, 17, a senior. "It's just the way people dance these days.'' McDermott said the school had heard complaints from parents and the community. In the week before the dance, the school warned students that "grinding'' would not be permitted.

Dirty dancing? Dudes, that is so 1987! And for a flashback to the fifties, Captain's Quarters takes you right here to New Ulm, MN, where small-town teenagers decided to recreate a time-honored American ritual -- the rumble:

Brown County authorities broke up a planned fight between two high schools that attracted roughly 60 students near Lake Hanska in south-central Minnesota, authorities said Tuesday.

The Friday night fight was to be held between students from Sleepy Eye and New Ulm Cathedral high schools, as well as other young people, the sheriff's department said.

Also involved were the Surfers and the Cruisers, the Sharks and the Jets, and the Democratic Underground and the Young Republicans. The article doesn't mention the motive behind the rumble, but to be honest, a crowd of 60 sounds like a pretty pathetic turnout. Maybe I just went to a larger school, but you could get 60 people to show up for a loud argument; for a fight, anything less than a couple hundred participants and onlookers (well, okay, mostly onlookers) was considered a social embarassment. Come to think of it, the fighting usually turned out to be less than Mike Tyson-quality, too. The toughest fight I ever actually saw in school happened between two girls in high school, and they were best friends, too. Seriously.

All of this leads me to conclude that this generation is in deep trouble ... apparently, they have no imagination or originality. They may be the first generation to bore the previous one.

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