It is with great concern that I watch the declining enrollments in Whidbey Island’s schools. From the South End to the North End, classrooms are being mothballed, schools closed and teaching and custodial jobs eliminated. The situation raises a couple of immediate questions: What’s wrong with our latest generation of adult islanders? Why won’t you procreate?

It is with some pride that I must point out that my generation kept the schools full and contractors busy adding extra rooms and new schools, or hauling in portable classrooms to meet the demand for space. In the 1980s the island was overrun by kids, produced by a generation that, by today’s standards, was inspired by all the rabbits along our roadsides. Families had three, four, or more kids, and Oak Harbor’s auto dealers couldn’t keep mini-vans on their lots. By the late 1990s, the largest classes ever were graduating from Oak Harbor, Coupeville and South Whidbey high schools.

But after that, class sizes grew no more, and in a few years they began to dwindle. Various theories have been proposed to explain why, from older adults moving to the island, to the lack of family-wage jobs on the island, to the longer ferry lines that keep couples apart for more hours than in the old days.

One factor that has been overlooked is that the island is a lot busier than it once was. There used to be three big annual events, the Island County Fair in Langley, the Arts and Crafts Festival in Coupeville, and Holland Happening in Oak Harbor. Other that, there wasn’t much to do on the island, so more time was spent manufacturing children. (We won’t get into the details of how that was done.) March was a popular month, because there was absolutely nothing else to do. There weren’t very many channels on cable and only the upper crust owned those new-fangled VCRs.

Such is not the case today. The Whidbey Island activities calendar for March looks like Paris Hilton’s “to do” list. A short sampler includes the Penn Cove Mussel Festival, Master Gardeners Workshop, St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the Spring Art Studio Tour, etc., etc. These and many other activities keep hundreds of hard-working islanders occupied day night putting them on, which in itself puts the damper on procreation. And thousands of others spend their days and nights enjoying all these distractions, then go home too exhausted to do anything but turn out the lights. No wonder they’re not producing children.

Sadly, it must be pointed out that March is now a slow month. Activities pick up in April and streamroll right through the spring, summer, fall and winter, leaving islanders with absolutely no time to answer nature’s call to reproduce after your own kind. Any spare hours are spent staring at DVDs or computer games, not exactly intimate moments.

For its own survival, Whidbey Island must make more time for couples to get together. Our once-popular adverting slogan, “Do Nothing Here,” could be rephrased to something more inspiring, such as “Do Something Here.” Of course, the idea has to generate money, so declare a local, “Do Something” weekend, with restaurants offering two-for-one romantic meals, and bed and breakfasts giving discounts to island residents. The Chambers of Commerce could sell oysters and other substances said to promote the libido.

Whidbey Island’s Weekend of Love. It has a certain ring to it. In five years, we’ll need more kindergarten classrooms.