Today I am frustrated with some of you.  Particularly the millennials among you and especially the Gen Z-ers.  And this is unusual for me, as you know, because I am generally very supportive of young people.  I even wrote a book about millennial lawyers and what you want from employers, supervisors and managers.  In other words, I have had your collective back.

But, if you are on Bourbon Street celebrating spring break from colleges, universities and law schools and congregating and socializing in close quarters, you are not living up to my expectations.  You also are not meeting the expectations of healthcare officials and government leaders across this country who are trying desperately to control the spread of coronavirus or COVID-19 as we know it today.  We know it all too well.

If you are on the beaches of Florida, partying in close proximity to others, I have the same response to you.  Why would you risk it?  Not just for the older people you might infect if you come in contact with the virus, but, as we now know, why would you risk it for yourself?  Why would you turn a blind eye to your own health and to your responsibility as a member of a society that is threatened in a way that most of you never have experienced before?

Yes, some of you were around during 9-11, and it was bad.  Very bad.  But it also was not a nation-wide problem.  For the most part, the threat was centralized in a few spots on the East Coast, most memorably New York City, and, yes, it was unimaginably bad there.

The difference, however, is that most of us could not do a thing to help when 9-11  happened.  We were powerless.  But that is not true of the threat posed by COVID-19.  There is a lot that you can do to help your communities, and the simplest thing you can do is be smart.  Stop thinking about yourselves and your pleasure and start paying attention to the threat indicators and doing what you are told.

Primarily, practice social distancing.  Be part of the solution to “flatten the curve” and do not risk becoming part of the problem.  Be respectful of yourself and your fellow men and women.  Stay out of large crowds and off the beaches.

Here is an article that lays it out for you — up to date information that busts the myth about young people not being vulnerable to the coronavirus.  It reports on young people right here in our country who are positive for the virus and are now in ICUs battling for their lives.  Young people like many of you — who are definitely at risk.

For many of you, this is preaching to the choir.  I know this.  It is because you are not just young. You are smart, too.  But I also know that all of you have plenty of other young people, many younger than yourselves, in your spheres of influence who need to read this and have this information.

Be the generations that I always have looked to for guidance on how to educate and even protect older people like me.  It was you who inspired me to start the Best Friends at the Bar project, and it is you who continue to inspire me more than a decade later.

Currently our children have my husband and me under involuntary house arrest.  Wear a mask!  Wash your hands and clean all surface a hundred times a day!  Drink water constantly — at room temperature!  Shelter in place!

Because we are really old and feeble, right?  NOT!  Because they care.  And you do, too.

Show it and spread the word.  Younger people will listen to other younger people.  What they tend to discount from older generations will become real to them if they hear it from a cool, young person like you.  So, just do it!

Thanks and God bless.