By MONTE DUTTON

No wonder the kids are pissed off.

For at least two generations, the politicians who run this country have paid cruel lip service to the notion that it’s important to pass down to the young a world worth living in.

Old folks like me aren’t going to pay for trillions and trillions of dollars in debt.

It’s sort of amazing how debt has multiplied. In the 1960s Illinois, Sen. Everett Dirksen, a Republican, was famously quoted as saying, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

Now it’s a trillion, which is a thousand billion. It’s a long time since the 1960s, but not that damn long.

The GOP likes to brand itself on the side of fiscal responsibility for no good reason. The country doesn’t care about spending. It just depends on which party happens to be in charge. A simple look at the yearly deficits reveals conclusively that Republicans are worse at it.

The environment. No one’s in denial anymore. I’ve lived in these parts all my life. If it snows in the winter at all, it’s melted by lunch time. When I was a teen-ager, a thunderstorm in the winter was as rare as a herd of buffalo wandering through. The summer hasn’t even started , and it’s 100 degrees. I don’t know why we shoot fireworks on the Fourth. Once football practice gets started, the kids hit the practice fields at 6 a.m. because it’s the only time there isn’t lightning in the area.

Los Angeles is on fire again. If I lived in the desert Southwest, I’d like to have the Chapstick concession. Another decade and hurricane season is going to be longer than NASCAR. I am actually thinking about living in either a camper van or a teardrop trailer. If the forecast tells me a hurricane is headed my way, I’m just going to drive away from it.

Hank Williams Jr. proclaimed in a song that getting older means “the hangovers hurt more than they used to.” The weather does, too. During the past weekend, I was up around the clock on Friday and Saturday nights because stock-car races and baseball games around Atlanta were both delayed. At least I wasn’t down there. The electricity went out at the house, though.

Last fall, the voters were raising hell over the price of eggs. I could buy eggs if concerts, movies and ballgames didn’t cost so much. A ticket to a Hub City Spartanburgers game costs $10.64 to $24.10. An available ticket for Tuesday night’s game at Fluor Field in Greenville ranges from $35 to $107.

Parking? The Drive lists 400 free spaces with a half-mile walk, though. Park-and-ride (via trolley) is $7.

I couldn’t find how much a Spartanburger costs. Or a Spartandog. Or Spartanfries.

Tuesday-night tickets for the Angels-Braves game in Atlanta run from $13.40 (general admission) to $95.65.

“F1,” a racing movie I’d like to see, is available on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m. for $6 plus a $1.50 service charge and $.42 tax. They’re probably afraid to list what a buttered popcorn and soft drink cost. I haven’t been to a theater in five years. It was right stout then.

“Ooh, Las Vegas, ain’t no place for no poor boy like me.”

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