Dear Ann Landers,
am incensed by the advice you gave the young widow with the nine-year-old son. She said the boy was full of conversation at the dinner table and her father-in- law made the boy be quiet because he didn't approve of talk-ing at the table. You said kids should talk at the table and suggested that the mother and son eat first and let the old man eat by himself if he wants silence. The trouble with kids today is they are all mouth. They run everything and everybody. They tell adults where to head in. They hit teachers and have no respect for authority. If a grandfather wants to discipline a boy by saying, "Shut up and eat-that's what you're at the table for," he should do it.-Old-Fashioned Father

Dear Old-Fashioned,
Sorry, Dad, but I don't call "Shut up and eat" discipline. It's more like a dictatorship. Dinnertime 28 should be family time. And family time means conversation involving all members of the family-small fry included.