If I wrote a blog post today about three Lake Highlands High School students arrested for breaking into several homes over Christmas — making off with some $5,600 worth of stolen holiday gifts — and arrested while attempting to flush large amounts of marijuana down the toilet, what might readers say?
I can see the Facebook comments now — “kids these days,” “today’s youth,” “what is this world coming to,” and so forth. We might even go on about how the high school is going to pot, so to speak, or maybe that this sounds like the behavior of kids, possibly those who live in apartments, who lack proper supervision.
Today’s throwback story reminds that bad behavior 40 years ago matches whatever we might hear about these days. The article happens to be from Christmastime 1975. It appeared in the Dec. 29 Dallas Morning News.
Dallas Morning News archives
The previous Sunday, police had raided the home of a 16-year-old Lake Highlands High School student. There officers located stolen merchandise, including a Christmas record that played throughout the bust along with three teens “attempting to flush marijuana down the plumbing.”
The boys eventually led investigators to a mini warehouse where they were hiding more than $1,000 worth of boosted Christmas gifts (I accounted for inflation in my opening anecdote). The trio reportedly snuck into three households while families slept, entering through carefully removed window glass, and commandeered wrapped presents from underneath Christmas trees. Victims lived on Parkford Drive, Thunderbird Lane and Robin Hill Lane, respectively.
Only one of the three youths was sent to the county juvenile detention, while the other two were released “temporarily” to their parents. Their names weren’t in the story, of course, because they were underage.
