>>>Nobody I know has said "abstinence doesn't work". The point of any discussion is that saying "discussing abstinence is enough" is idiotic. Yet our govt has spent massive amts of money in that direction. Pretty much all of it wasted. For further discussions:
>>>
>>I guess I just think we need to put the most emphasis on abstinence, with the knowledge that kids will be kids. Handing out condoms is not a good plan. Teaching sex education is fine, but I just know how I would have viewed it if the teachers had been handing out condoms. Not a good strategy.
>
>When I was 14/15 I had a girlfriend that I was way too serious with at that age. If they would have handed out condoms in our school, we would have used them. The fact that we didn't, and we both lived in rural areas where we did not have easy access to them, was enough to stop us. That and she went whacko, but that is a different story... ;-)


Don't ever say you were too young. See if you can find "A November Farewell" by Mike Royko. He wrote it a few days after his wife died. I can't find it online any more but for sure it is in "The Best of Royko".

True confessions: when I was 18 and away from home for the first time, off to college majoring in journalism, I quickly discovered Mike Royko and wanted to be him. He was the star columnist at the now defunct Chicago Daily News, an afternoon paper when there still were some. When the Daily News went belly up he moved over to the Sun-Times and then the Trib. I can't put it into words properly but he wrote like an angel. A grumpy, funny, cantankerous, troublemaking angel. He was fearless. No pol in Chicago, no matter how high and mighty and no matter how much they hated him for rattling their cages, could ignore him. He was the embodiment of the muckraking big city journalist, back when that meant something.

When I was 18 I wanted to write like him and be like him. Passionate and hard as nails, un-BSable. I was young and naive enough to think I could be the people's avenger -- comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable. It took me a while to realize there was only one Mike Royko, and the job was taken.

"A November Farewell" was not a typical Royko piece. He was not known for understatement but understatement was what made that column work. He left the tough guy persona in the back yard and spoke from his aching heart. If that column doesn't choke you up a little, nothing will.