The Central Park eve of destruction in August showed us all how out of touch we are with our youth. That was a "Take Back the Night" night proclaiming safety first for watchful neighborhoods. And while the police and the state police and the neighborhood watch were celebrating safety in Central Park, the tennis courts were being vandalized. Three full nights of petty destruction and no one knew.

The center of destruction, the eye of the storm? Girls — young teens acting out a scenario they really didn't understand. A group of, "I just want to belong" girls raising a little hell and not even knowing why. Yes, I know they did many stupid things, but remember your own youth? Remember outhouse tipping? Cow tipping (that was for you rural folk)? Remember filling a brown paper bag full of dog poop and lighting it on fire and leaving it on some cranky person's front porch?

There's shaving cream, letting air out of tires and of course, my personal favorite, rolls and rolls of toilet paper decorating cars and telephone wires. Remember "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" These were the vandalisms of a less sophisticated age. Though, tipping an outhouse with an occupant is right up there with serious damage to property and image.

What will happen to these 12- and 13- and 14-year-old girls? I don't know, I vote for carpentry classes and rebuilding what they tore down. Maybe then they'll have a clearer idea of what it took to build up what they so frivolously took down. I don't claim to be an all-knowing guru here but sometimes a little more direct intervention might be a realistic venue. I find so many of these young teens needing major one-on-one mentors. These girls are talkers. Give them an opening and you'll know their life history (truth or dare) as fast as they can get it out. I've sat in a dark car for 45 minutes with one young lady only to take up where we left off the next day and the next day and ... you get the general idea here.

And many times, it's the very smallest, most minute things that can send them off the rails. A pimple on a prominent spot, a bad hair day, being called fat or ugly. They don't seem to mind being called stupid. We really need to look at that; all us women libbers worked so hard to make being smart a sexy come-on. Seems we have more work to do. What exactly are women good for anyway?

Even having a baby is often done in order to grab a man, get free from school and parents, become (or so they think) independent.

Poor little butterflies. They are so frail, so vulnerable, never so broken as when they are trying to act tough. But no one taught them that being tough is getting A's in math, playing football and really sticking to the rules. Being tough is standing up for an unpopular friend, rescuing a stray cat when it is being tortured or abused. Strong is simply doing the right thing no matter how hard it is, which is hard for anyone, let alone the image-conscious, young teens. And ours are especially fragile and unsteady on their feet.

Here's a new alert: Karrie, just this instant, told me that at the Altamont Fair this August, a boy tipped over a Porta-Potty. I guess some old tricks never get old. And now, Halloween is coming. We are having a party at QUEST the day before Halloween (Friday the 30th) — come on by, but bring some candy to share. One year my car got egged in the parking lot, but my house got egged in Niskayuna, and that was at midnight. So, it's all a matter of perspective and patience. "Patience," I told myself when I was at the "U Wash Yourself" car wash. But, getting my house egged at midnight left me totally unsympathetic to teen tricksters.

And another date is approaching. My little girl, the first of the teen suicides, the day of her death is in November. And now, we are waiting with dread in our souls. All those bitter memories and the ongoing helplessness that afflicted us as we try now to bolster our spirits and to show solidarity and strength as women living and working in a community that is collectively holding its breath.

"This time," we say, "this time, we will do better. This time we must do better." All of us must form a chain of loving adults and all of us must be ready, at a second's breath, to reach out and grab and hold on tight to anyone lost in the prevailing winds and sloughs of despondency.

This is a chance to reclaim ourselves and our city, to prove we are a strong people who mean what we say.

I just read something which disturbed me mightily: "It is easier for mad men and youth to let go and die, by whatever means, because they have been with us such a short time and have no reality of life to hang unto."

We have always romanticized in poetry and story and song those who died young. So many poets died of tuberculosis in the romantic age of the 19th century. So many women poets committing suicide in the 20th century. Cults springing up and around Sylvia Plath. Even her novel "The Bell Jar" is semi-autobiographical. And if you don't know anything about Ms. Plath, it's time to look her up and find out. Even Vincent Van Gogh, that amazing revolutionary painter who cut off his ear to present to a prostitute, even he went out into a cornfield and painted his last picture and then shot himself.

It is said that more women attempt, but more men succeed, if you call successful suicide succeeding. We stood and watched four young girls succeed. We must not let a cult spring up around their deaths. Rather, let it be a bittersweet remembrance. As eternal as a perennial herb garden under a starry, autumn sky.

Lest We Forget
We Will Remember