Before he was old enough to drive, Bryon Lorton caught the No.33 bus from Western Hills Plaza to Government Square downtown. He was young and curious and wanted something to do, so he'd head for the main public library or the shops at Carew Tower.

        Last summer, Bryon tired of his hair falling into his face, so he shaved it off, down to the scalp. He wore tight, black jeans and studs in both ears. He wasn't making a statement. He just liked the look. Bryon is white. Most of the riders on No.33 are black. They looked at him and saw a skinhead.

        They let him know about it. “Get off the bus, cracker,” they'd say.

        Someday, LaShelbrin Peak would like to own her own business. She wants to be an engineer, but being black and attending Woodward High, she says the opportunities aren't there. “They put us in fast-food places,” she says. “I live in a predominantly white neighborhood. Those kids are working in banks. Our students are serving hamburgers.”

        Bryon is 17, a senior at Elder. LaShelbrin is 17, a senior at Woodward. They have nothing in common, and everything. Each knows the pain of being judged falsely. Neither can fathom the divide.

        The story would end there, if they weren't kids.

        We've kicked 2001 out the door. Take a hike and good riddance. How does Cincinnati avoid a sequel in 2002? It was less a request than a cry for help. We adults broke this place. You kids fix it.

        We visited seniors at Woodward High and Princeton and Walnut Hills, Anderson and Elder and Cincinnati Country Day. It was a cross-section of the whole kid condition in Cincinnati, a sampling of the best and brightest. We interrogated them.

        This wasn't going to be about race, not exclusively. It just worked out that way. We posed two simple questions: What do you think about your future? What would make it better?

        Talking to kids doesn't make us feel better about who we are. It makes us feel better about who we can be. Boy, could we use some of that right about now.

        So listen up, adults. Sit up straight. Put away your Palm Pilots and your prejudices. Get your minds right, before they calcify. It's never too late to change the world:

        Angela Martin will choose a college with a diverse student body. She's at Anderson High now. Anderson is to diversity what the Bengals are to winning football championships: Strangers.

        Explains her classmate, Jensen Lewis, “When you get a job, you're working with all kinds of people. You're expected to get along and produce in what might be an uncomfortable environment.”

        Choosing a school for diversity? Actually dealing with people who are different than you?

        Well ...

        “It's good to talk to people who aren't the same as you,” says Jason Strauss, a senior at Princeton.

        Says Cara DuBois, also at Princeton, “We deal with different cultures every day.” Of Princeton's 1,800 students, 48 percent are black and 48 percent are white. Their message: Think what you're missing if you only stick to people who look like you. Just the other half of the world.

        “I'm better able to see both sides of the racial fence because I'm around it all the time,” says Cara. “It's my life.”

        Cara does have a situation when she goes to the mall with her white friends, though. “I shop at Guess. They shop at American Eagle,” she says. “Sometimes, I hear my friends' music and I'm like, "What is that?'” But she listens. Cara and her white friends are different, together.

        They all want the same things. It's 25 minutes between the urban streets around Woodward to the rolling, green wealth of Cincinnati Country Day, in Indian Hill. The surroundings are different: Woodward kids want more computer classes; every Country Day kid has his own laptop.

        The aspirations are the same. “I want to be known as a star,” says Woodward's Michael Bess, “someone who made it out of the neighborhood.”

        “I don't want to be called typical,” says Andrew Han, a Country Day senior. “I don't think any kid wants to be average. We all have our own strengths, no matter where we live.”

        Don't pigeonhole us, Bryon Lorton might say.

        Here's something else: The kids in Indian Hill and the kids at Woodward want to go downtown more. They think the rest of us need to be there, too. As Country Day's Katy Cordes puts it, “This is one of the reasons to revive downtown. It's a place where we all can come together.”

        She says there is a “general apathy” regarding race relations in her community. Wealth insulates. Wealth protects. “People here feel disconnected.”

        Woodward's Raymond Edwards has a hope that a place such as Eden Park could become a gathering place for youth. “Everybody's equal,” he says. “Nobody's better than anybody else.”

        The great thing about children is, they believe this. They think we should, too.

        They volunteer, these children. Adam Safdi of Walnut Hills works with the Interfaith Hospitality Network. He feeds the homeless and the displaced. His classmate, Whitni Cotton, tutors younger students. They reach out, they strive. They aspire.

        “I look forward to voting,” says Whitni. “Finally having a say in what's going on. If you're not voting, you're letting someone else rule your life.

        “I can volunteer, too. I can tutor. Being fortunate myself, I can spread that to other people. They're going to be our future. Just like we're going to be yours.”

        The kids don't yet have the power to make a better Cincinnati. That's not their end of the deal. They have hope, all of them, in varying shades of optimism. They want to do better and be better. They're smart, centered and empathetic. They're wide awake, dreaming.

        “We need to have faith in ourselves,” says Whitni Cotton. “We need to believe in each other and in our ability to be good people.”

        What would happen if Bryon Lorton met LaShelbrin Peak on the No. 33 bus? Would youthful optimism beat traditional fear? Would the pigeonhole open wide enough to accommodate them both? As LaShelbrin noted, a nice hello would work, for starters.

        “Embrace the differences,” Bryon says.“Use them as a basis for celebration.”

        Would we? Could we?

        “Great things are accomplished,” says Angela Martin, “when everyone does his part.”

The Year Ahead in Metro
Ten local newsmakers in 2002
New Year's Day closings
Young voices call for a coming together
4 bank robberies end record year for heists
Cold is here to stay
Luken in no rush to find manager
Mosque damage assessed
Muslim activist hopes for peace
New, tougher GED takes effect today
Oak Hills senior wins pageant
Police think deaths were accidental
Congrats
Engineering students get early college start
Fawn Candy founder dies
Local Digest
Police connect with collectors
Recreation Notes
Terwilleger considers run for Senate seat
Bones likely from flooded graveyard
Franklin family displaced by fire
Interfaith event celebrates peace
City divided over agency
CROWLEY: Likely newsmakers in 2002
Kentucky Digest
Accident kills 1, injures 2
GOP pioneer Warriner dies