For the record, I’m on my lunch break.

This morning in juvenile court, my client social worker was talking with a court administrator, both of them young enough that their combined ages don’t exceed my current age of sixty six years.

My social worker was telling the administrator about a fourteen-year-old young man in care of the state who wanted the money he had in his bank account to go to his grandmother who was caring for him and his siblings because the parents are lost to drug abuse. The administrator said that it was so sweet and admirable, but the “child” needed to be a child and not be “parentified” into taking on responsibilities that were NOT his.

I volunteered that the story reminded me of Clarence Carter’s great hit song, “Patches,” about a teenaged young man who had to assume the burden of providing for his family when his hard-working Daddy died.

My twentysomething social worker and the thirtysomething court administrator both had never heard this song that was so reflective of a time now long gone, I’m afraid.

Because the judge hadn’t yet taken the bench, I insisted that the two of them and everyone else in the courtroom listen to this great song on my iPhone.

Another attorney who is my age and who was appearing by telephone and could hear the song over the phone said, “Oh Lord, I LOVE that song!”

If I have to do it singlehandedly, I’m going to provide the cultural education for this younger generation that our school system has left undone.

So help me, God!