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Some people believe all sins are recorded in Heaven, and that come the Judgment Bar we'll all have to own up to them. That might be true today.

I was raised in an age commonly known as "B.C." That's how my rapidly fossilizing generation refers to the time before computers. Had I come of age today, I would never be able to live down my youth.

It was easier to get away with misbehavior back then. There weren't so many things capable of recording what you did for perusal by the rest of the human race.

For example, if we wanted to send nude pictures of ourselves to friends during B.C., we either had to draw the pictures ourselves, or describe them on a reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Certainly there were cameras back then, including models capable of filming movement. But the film from those cameras mostly required being developed commercially.

That means people would see what you recorded before you did and alert the authorities. In many cases, this provided barely enough time to run away from home.

I told you that to tell you this: I don't want to even think about some of the stuff I did when I was a teenager being digitally captured and made available to the world.

During the Baltimore riot earlier this week, a single mother of six spotted her 16-year-old son among a group of protesters throwing rocks at police. The kid was smart enough to be wearing a hood to protect his identity from the police, but mama knew.

Toya Graham charged into the riot, collared her son, and proceeded to slap the dumbass out of him. She even managed to pull his hood down. That wouldn't have been so bad for the kid except that it was all caught on a video clip that went viral.

Her: "Get that @#%$* hood off you before I beat you back to kindergarten."

Him: "Mom! Stop! You're embarrassing me — Ow! — in front of my friends. Ow! Damn!"

As humiliating as the moment probably was (and thanks to video will forever be) to the young man, his mom saved him from going to jail and/or having the cops beat him into something gooey.

Toya Graham should get a parenting medal. Whatever problems she might otherwise have as a parent, throwing a slap down on her misbehaving son isn't one of them. With a mom like that, he might just live to enjoy/regret parenting himself.

Not me. If the Old Man had spotted me throwing a rock at cops when I was a teenager, I would have ended up thoroughly drubbed and stuffed into a mailbox with the address of a local animal shelter written on my forehead.

I could have lived that down though. Back in B.C., there weren't that many ways of having one's stupidity becoming a lasting legacy.

No way would I want my family and friends watching videos of me peeing off a freeway overpass, having a deputy pull me out of my car window by my hair, running stark naked for an entire block on State Street, or having the crap beat out of me for peeking up Ramona's dress in the fifth grade.

Not that any of that actually happened. I'm just saying, you know, if it did. The important thing is to be careful. It's easier to repent of stuff when you can later claim that it never happened even though it did.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby