What has happened to the youth of today?

Bril­liant. Some gen­er­ous soul has star­ted tran­scrib­ing Ron­ald Smythe and H. West­folds’ “let­ters to the edit­or” to a blog.

Between them, West­fold and Smythe have cornered the mar­ket on cur­mudgeonly grump­i­ness, mak­ing their out­put, nat­ur­ally, some of the best com­edy writ­ing to be found com­ing out of our fair city. Says Smythe…

What has happened to the youth of today. It is a rare occa­sion indeed when I am shown polite­ness and respect by the young­er age groups. Good man­ners have flown out the win­dow, along with dress sense and decency.

I pre­sume today’s pub­lic schools are partly to blame, although par­ents are no doubt shirk­ing their respons­ib­il­it­ies also.

…and H. West­fold, chan­nel­ing, it would seem, Grandpa Simpson…

Your March 15 item about that lovely 1963 Stude­baker and its man­u­fac­turer evoked memor­ies of my adoles­cence in the late 1940s. You see, it was Stude­baker which pion­eered the “New Look” ana­log­ous to that of women’s fash­ions just then. It was in late 1947 or early 1948 that just a few of the latest Stude­baker mod­el appeared on our Tarana­ki roads, one of those cars being owned by a farm­er near my homet­own, Ingle­wood. For a short while, their pro­file made heads turn – a car’s front and rear ends both looked like front ends as we’d known cars for many years!

…and so on.

Read more at the aptly named I am of the Opin­ion.

[Hat-tip to Alan for actu­ally un-earth­ing this.]