jail time

I have mentioned this before, but just have to say something more on this topic today. My oldest son got out of jail yesterday. It was his third trip to have some down time in jail and hopefully his last. All three were short stints, but for me it demonstrates how the world is changing. I did many stupid things when I was a young out of control teenager, but I only visited jail once and that was on a school field trip. I think it would be a good idea to re-introduce this kind of a field trip into public schools again today as there is way too much glory in going to jail. Of course it does not help that I am writing about it, but I have to blow of some steam. Jail up until recently was not a merit badge and had a derogatory aspect to it. For some odd reason that was lost somewhere along the way in the last few years. My son has been three times. The first time occurred when he was caught by police on a NC beach as a drunk underage 18 year old. Since he ran his mouth to the policeman and got out of control, they put him in jail for 36 hours. I remember talking to him about later on and he said that he never wanted to do that again as it was not a good experience at all. I guess that can be explained from massive alcohol consumption causing his good and bad brain cells to be lost. His second time was when he drove drunk after loosing his license last summer. They compounded his friend's car which he was driving and decided a little jail time was in order overnight to sober him up. The last time ended yesterday as it was a follow up visit to the previous time, and I have blogged about that already. I pick him up today, so will find out the details later as to whether it will be his last. He is joining the Navy finally and maybe all of this will be the final straw to teaching him a permanent life lesson. Hopefully jail will be a history lesson he does not want to repeat.