Broken Spring

The shock of a third arrest being made in the Florida Spring Break Gang Rape case is that it took this long. Not just to make the arrest, but for something like this to occur. How long have we, as a youth-infused nation, been promoting this kind of "fun?" Back in 1960, a group of friends discovered their companion Melanie is in distress after going to meet upperclassman Franklin at a motel. However another of the "Yalies", Dill, arrives at the motel room instead and then rapes her. She ends up walking into the nearby road looking distraught, her dress torn. Just as her friends arrive, she is hit by a car and ends up in the hospital. The friends realize the potentially serious consequences of their actions and resolve to act in a more responsible, mature manner. Fifty-four years ago. And if that story sounds a tad familiar, that's because it is the story of a Spring Break gone wrong titled, "Where The Boys Are," which came from a somewhat less cautionary novel originally titled "Unholy Spring." As for the exact location of the boys, feel free to use your comedic imagination and then keep your dirty minds to yourselves.
But that's the real crux of the problem. After decades of promoting the hedonism and escape of this annual rite, things have gotten ugly. Uglier. Remained ugly. Just like those fictional twenty-ish kids of fifty years ago, this new crop of burned-out college students, as well as many of their high school hangers-on, make the trek to the beaches of these MTV sponsored beach-blanket Gomorrahs. Dancing, Drinking, Drugs, and Debauchery. What could be more American? My angry old man response is probably weighted on the side of disapproval from the fact that I was never invited to pack my towel and trunks and head down to Daytona or any of those other dens of unbridled youth gone wild. I mostly hung out at home. So did my friends. I guess we weren't the types who went in for that kind of thing.
Until I graduated. After I had been out of college for a few years, some friends of mine and I decided to take a little trip to Key West. It just happened to be in mid-March, coinciding with the anniversary of my first year of sobriety. How ironic it was indeed for us to find ourselves within crawling distance of dozens of bars and hordes of drunken boys and girls out sowing their oats gone wild. When we pulled into town, late, we had to ring for someone to come to the desk of our motel to check us in. We were greeted by an obviously sleep-deprived local who asked us, "You're not spring breakers, are you?" 
We looked at one another and back to our disheveled host. "Uh, no."
"Good," he said, turning over the registration forms with a sigh, "I would have had to charge you an extra hundred dollars deposit if you were."
So there it is. The real reason that we tolerate all these youthful transgressions: Money. Many local economies depend on this yearly trade of cash for depravity. Totally worth it, right? You're only young once. Then, suddenly, not.