23 FEB 09: Pugilists in Pajamas

What's going on here? First there was a brawl at a high school basketball playoff game. Now we hear about battles at a Saturday night teen party. Did some movie channel have an "Oscar week" showing"West Side Story" and "Fight Club"?

The latest skirmish developed over the weekend at Hollywood Connection. Police were called to a "pajama party" when several fights were reported, both inside and outside the building. It's supposed to be a lock-in, not a lock-up....

Several parents say fights broke out inside the "Back Door" teen club, then spilled into the parking lot. Is it possible that gangs make pajamas in their special colors?

The parents claim police were called, and The Back Door ended the party early. Trouble was, it was supposed to end at midnight -- so many teens had nowhere to go, while waiting for parents to pick them up. Young people walking along Whittlesey Road in their pajamas?! Let's all be thankful this party wasn't on Victory Drive.

One parent said Sunday the managers of The Back Door were more concerned about clearing out their parking lot, than making sure the teenagers were safe. That's one way to look at it. The other way could be that managers were more concerned about getting arrested themselves for violating police orders, or encouraging teens to break the late-night curfew.

The Sunday evening news didn't say if any teenagers were arrested for the fighting at The Back Door. But why should they be? No one apparently was arrested at the Valley-Montgomery Carver basketball game the other day -- not to mention that brawl involving the Cottonmouths in North Carolina.

There's part of me that wants to give The Back Door a little credit. It tried to offer teenagers something fun to do on a weekend -- at least the 99 percent of teenagers who don't know how to ride a skateboard at that new park in South Commons.

And there's part of me that's thankful the pajama party didn't get farther out of hand. Let's face it: it's hard to hide a weapon in a pair of pajamas. If someone had a robe with pockets on top of them, that might have been different.

But two incidents like this in a six-day span show -- well, they show some teenagers are much like teenagers were decades ago. There used to be "rumbles" in the alley, or so I've been told. Now they're out in the open, where surveillance cameras can identify them - which may mean the teens long ago were smarter.

The Phenix City Library tried to offer its form of an alternative Sunday, by debuting a "Tween and Teen Area." Trouble was, the guest authors shown on TV didn't look very young to me -- and the sparse crowd didn't seem to include teenagers. Maybe they were finishing weekend homework, before Sunday night cruising time....

The main Columbus Library offers an area for teenagers on Friday afternoons promising "music, games and fun." But that ends when the library closes at 6:00 p.m. After that, teens are expected to go home, eat dinner and sleep until sunrise.

Now for other Sunday items which might interest all ages:

+ The Ledger-Enquirer reported Columbus State University and Columbus Technical College may start an education partnership. You'll notice this is one college merger State Senator Seth Harp conveniently has NOT suggested - one that could eliminate jobs in his own district.

+ The Columbus Civic Center held the first-ever all-star indoor football game for area high school players. For some players, this had to be a dream come true. They could finally do indoors what their parents told them not to do in the basement when they were six.

+ Instant Message to the Columbus Times: About that ad on page 4 - the city government ad that says, "We salute the accomplishments of African Americans" right above a large picture of Mayor Jim Wetherington. Do you know something about his background nobody else does?

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