From the VAULTS When Charlie Parise was hired in Oct. 1968, Marian Helpers Bulletin published an interview with two of his fellow 17-year-olds, Kevin and Mark, who had worked at the Marians’ vocation camp on Eden Hill over the summer. Their comments about life were, the Bulletin wrote, “sometimes startling, sometimes naïve, but always revealing.” The most important things on teenagers’ minds, Mark said, were “Girls. Life. What are you going to do when you grow up. Things that are bothering you at the moment.” Morality, Kevin said, can be gauged from a teen’s record collection. He admitted, however, “What you do as a teenager dictates what you will do as an adult.” If they could change anything about the world, what would it be? “I’d change some people. Make them more considerate,” Kevin said. “You go into a city and people just walk by.” Mark liked Christmastime best: “You would hear so many Merry Christmases and it made you feel real cool to be with all those people, thousands of them.” On God, Mark said, “Teenagers are confused about a lot of things and religion is one of the things.” And Kevin added that teens don’t think about death: “There are too many good things to think about. It’s not that immediate. You can sit around all day and think about a car accident and that gets you nowhere. That doesn’t do any good. Natural death is so far off.” 36 Marian Helper • Winter 2023-24 • Marian.org
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