Sometimes a trip down memory lane can provoke musings about the difference between past and present cultures. Hearing Johnny Maestro singing “Sixteen Candles” triggered memories of how riveted I was with music and how it consumed my daily life. I prepared for school listening to the top 40 blasting away on my little transistor radio. Homework was done with music blaring away in the background. I can’t bear listening to what passes for popular music today.

The Brooklyn Paramount and the Brooklyn Fox had fabulous shows, with the radio disc jockey Murray “the K” Kaufman as host. My children found it hard to believe that I saw so many stars on one bill, and I even started to doubt it myself. So I contacted Peter Altschuler of www.murraythek.com, who kindly sent me a program of one of the shows I attended. It confirmed that my memory was still sound.

For just $5, I watched from a balcony seat performers who included the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Four Tops, Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Righteous Brothers, and Martha and the Vandellas. At other shows, I saw Jackie Wilson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, the Platters, and other icons of the era.

But the bargain price to see such acts was not the biggest difference between music today and then. In those days, nearly all the songs had something to do with love: lost love, sad love, joyous love, puppy love, unrequited love. All of them were innocent.

That is not what teens today are listening to.

My daughter teaches sixth grade at an inner-city parochial school and enjoys a close relationship with her students, who are mostly from minority groups. They tell her what music they like to listen and dance to, and she learned that one of the most popular hits today is a song called “The Wait” by the Ying Yang Twins. The lyrics are obscene, and yet this is what is popular among teenage fans of hip-hop music. Needless to say, my daughter was appalled, not so much by the song, but by the realization that parents simply are not monitoring what is going on in their children’s lives.

Today’s entertainment culture is supersaturated with hardcore sex, and it’s not just in our music. Pornographic scenes are hidden in the video game Grand Theft Auto/San Andreas, and that has attracted the attention of the Federal Trade Commission and some law enforcement agencies that are trying to restrict its sales. That’s a waste of time. The game is already rated M for mature, yet many preteens own a copy that their clueless parents paid for.

The problem isn’t the game. It’s the abdication of duty by parents, who should be aware of what their children are doing behind the closed bedroom doors. Why should we be surprised by the increasing incidents of teacher/ student sexual relationships when sex marketing is in hyper drive on movie and television screens and the Internet? Has anybody tuned in MTV lately?

So what’s the answer? Censorship? New laws? No. I think it’s time that decent, God-fearing people break their silence.

As I was sitting in a restaurant near Atlantic City, I observed a family sitting in a corner booth. They had their heads bowed and were saying grace. Once upon a time, that wasn’t such a strange sight. Watching them was all the impetus I needed to say some words of thanks for my meal. We should be eternally grateful for the blessings that we as Americans have in this bountiful nation.

Why should the term “religious right” be considered an insult?

Why should we be intimidated by the secular forces that spew filth to our children?

We don’t need a village to run our lives. We need to take back control of our families by controlling how we spend our hard-earned cash.

There were enough of us to re-elect our president, so isn’t it time we unite in other ways to influence our culture as well? We don’t need laws to stop the entertainment industry from producing garbage. It’s a business, and they’re in it for the money, so why not hit it in the pocketbook? Hollywood seems perplexed by the sluggish movie market. Fewer people are watching TV as well. Former moviegoers like myself are not prudes, but we know the difference between what’s bawdy and what’s vile.

I don’t expect the sophisticated teens of today to listen to sappy love songs like “Sixteen Candles,” but I dare any parent to read the lyrics of “The Wait” and not come away with the same determination to end this criminal assault on our children’s innocence.