I was 5 years old and doing a fun thing along a Brooklyn pier with my family. It was summer of 1953 and my father was 39. He was on the pier with two of his brothers and we were having a ball. Hot dogs, burgers, sodas and the adults had beer and maybe a "highball".

My father swam from Brooklyn to Staten Island in 1928 across the Narrows as a 14-year-old after working the tides in a bunch of newspapers and getting some advice from guys that had tried it but in 1953 he just threw me off a pier.

He and his brothers were coming in if I foundered but I did OK and did not drown. In subsequent years my father taught me how to stroke well and rest in the water when tired. He taught me how to get out of a jam with a riptide without tiring myself out.

I bring these thoughts up because on Long Island this week young people are drowning along the beaches like they bought a ticket to go die. I'm 62 but when I was a teenager I could swim with anybody. At Parris Island I had to go 50 meters across a pool in uniform and boots with a rifle.

The kids along the south shore of Long Island lately are just getting grabbed by water going out that is thigh-high or waist-deep and they are drowning with no clue.

Different times, different days. Kids in my day didn't have video games and twitter twatter things to do on a keyboard while rotting physically on a sofa. You'd have to shoot my girlfried Pat in high school if you ever thought you could outswim her and she was a hot blond with a great rack.

Rant over but Jeez, teach your kid to swim or dont ever leave him or her near water. Today's kids are dumber than stumps about what it takes to survive.

At the heart of your rant is truth. People have become the shallow and stupid slaves of technology. In the worst cases technology has been used to replace family and real experience in the real world. People are too stupid to make their own way and rely on GPS to drive anywhere new. A generation is too stupid to cook a decent meal as they grew up with the number one combo. These unfortunate young people are too stupid to swim in the ocean because they likely grew up without a family that cared to spend the time to teach them to swim. Instead they were babysat by video games, TV and computers and lacked the knowledge and experience to swim to shore in even shallow water.

I agree with both of you gentlemen. Completely. I remember when gym and phys ed were part of every school day . . . . . so much for all that. Not to mention that so many children today look like short little versions of their "beached whale" size parents. All of its a cycle, and unfortunately they're not concerned enough to break it with good parenting and discipline.

Two dopes near my house recently collided with trains when their GPS told them to make a right. Instead of making a right into the road they made a right onto the train tracks adjacent to the road where their car was impaled on the tracks and eventually hit by trains. This happened not once but twice.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... echie-path

http://www.ble-t.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=23809

There were stupid people in my era. I remember a day when I was about ten and some fellows were out on the frozen Hempstead Lake. I didn't like the looks of it so I stayed ashore. One kid crashed through the ice. He was thrashing around about to sink when a Hempstead cop showed up. He knew me and he knew my father. As the cop was undressing to go for a swim he gave his gunbelt to me and told me not to give it up except to my father, my mother or another policeman.

The policeman made the save, nobody drowned but Newsday had a great story.

I still don't know why anybody walks on pond or lake ice when the temps are just near freezing after a cold snap.