It’s a lot harder for an adult-sized teenager to just take off into independent life these days. Bad and good ... in Louis’s generation, it wasn’t unusual for full-grown boys to be given a firm shove, “Write when you find work.”
Indeed.
I like to think I'm pretty independent; then I remember and am humbled by the thought of what our forebears endured: crossing oceans and continents, blazing trails, building communities from scratch, with seldom - if ever - a hint of govt assistance...