"Danny, see your future, be your future. May, make, make it, make it. Make your future Danny...." - Ty Webb talking to Danny Noonan in Caddyshack

We did our weekly mentoring session with our 7th and 8th grade boys today at a local middle school. Talked about peer relationships. At some point we got into talking about all the fights that these boys get into. I brought up how interesting I thought it was that all the kids assumed that they could get into a fight, and always just walk away with just a busted lip or something. "Don't you know of people that come to a fight with knives and guns?," I asked. "Yeah," was their reply. Just matter-of-factly. Do they hear what we're saying?

One young man said he didn't regret any of the fights he's been in, cuz he learned from them all. He didn't seem to grasp the fact that they could have ended up with someone dead. Especially in the fights that he gets into.

This kid was 13 years old, and already in a gang. No, I'm not saying that he's just hanging out with a bad group of hooligans. I'm saying he's literally a card-carrying member of a group that people make documentaries about. And he's thirteen.

We explained to him (one of our members knew a lot about the local gang activity in our community) that the next step in his membership process was going to be participation in a drive-by. He casually agreed that such a thing was probable.

Here I am sitting 3 feet away from a little boy who's looking down the very imminent path of starting a life filled with crime & punishment. And I can't even tell if he's hearing the message we're trying to speak. It didn't seem like he was even entertaining the idea of alternatives. Not that he was one of those who refused to listen to advice - he was listening to us. Not that he had violent tendencies - he was a sweet little kid. He just happened to be a 2nd-generation member of a family immersed in the _____ gang - most of his family were in it, and he admitted that most of them were in-and-out of jail.

And he's thirteen.

After the kids left, my colleagues and I just sat there quietly for a few seconds.

Now what is we gon' do?.....