Divisive Times Have Claimed Another Victim

I think we have to say goodbye to hangouts.

Too bad.

Hangouts once were a place kids, outside the watchful glare of parents, would go out in public and pretend to be a little tougher, or cooler, or different from what they actually were.

The pool hall used to be a hangout.

The bowling alley was a good place to hang.

With a few quarters in the pockets, a hamburger joint could be a hangout of choice.

But hangouts are passe. Their time has come and gone.

Consider:

Spokane Underground, an all-ages pool hall downtown was closed by its operator recently ago after nearby tenants complained.

Diamond Bowl, a north Spokane bowling alley, will close in about a month because the land it occupies is more valuable in some other kind of development.

Wolffy’s, a 50’s style burger joint will become a parking lot.

Drive-in theaters already are gone in most cities.

Ditto for teen centers.

Hangouts have become endangered for many reasons. Some kids have jobs and can’t hang. Land values make condos look more profitable than many facilities, such as bowling alleys, that once were hangouts. People who run hangouts grow tired of operating such places.

But there is something more significant underneath all of these reasons.

Kids don’t have much time to pretend they are tougher, or more cool, or different these days.

It’s just too serious out there. Hanging out, testing the waters, can quickly lead to being at the end of your rope in the deep end.

Parents and guardians don’t find themselves telling children to experiment much with friends or new situations.

Better to have the children home watching a video than out somewhere where they might get into trouble.

I wish I didn’t suspect the worst about kids who are on the street or in an all-night dive.

But the numbers on hanging out don’t look good:

In the last two years, a record number of 10-14-year-old girls got pregnant in Washington state.

Juvenile drug offenses, mostly occurring at hangouts, are way up.

Assaults by juveniles, often hanging out on the streets, are rising.

Against this backdrop, I don’t feel comfortable sending my children off to a place, like a bowling alley, where they can hang.

Parents seem pressured to decide much earlier who is straight, who is a stoner, a social butterfly or a nerd, and keep the pools separate.

An example of this early separation was obvious this winter in the few city blocks around the old Spokane armory downtown.

At the front of the armory were kids who congregated for Laser Quest and climbing at Wild Walls.

At the back of the building were kids congregated at the now closed Spokane Underground pool hall.

The kids in the front of the armory, by and large, were headed for starring roles in home videos of their high school graduations.

The kids in the back of the building already were stars of videotapes where selling drugs, smashing wine bottles and writing graffiti on walls provided all the action.

The kids at the front and back of the building were the same age. Already, the good and bad had subdivided and sought their own pools.

Sadly, I don’t think we will be going back anytime soon to scenes out of “West Side Story” where the two, polarized crowds make up.

The storyline of a good kid being corrupted by the bad has overwhelmed the possibility that a bad kid just might learn something from hanging out with the good.

I recognize the flip side of this bad kid - good kid spectrum.

Church youth groups are booming.

The YMCA’s Camp Reed sessions fill up fast.

Halloween parties where young people stay inside and gather candy without having to actually go house-to-house are ever more popular.

Parents and schools, churches and service clubs furiously are building safe havens where good kids have an access card.

These kids will be fine. They will be walled off.

They won’t have an opportunity to hang out.

Still, writing the obituary on hangouts is sad, and a little scary. The dividing lines just seem to be drawn so early.

One possible hope for replacing hangouts with something else: a grass-roots effort to write a Spokane County Youth and Family Comprehensive Plan. Citizens interested in hosting a neighborhood meetings to help draft a plan to strengthen the lives of children and families may call 509-325-3220.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the Editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday.