Category Archives: Random Access

Random Access, the op-ed.

Supporting Parents?

Posted on by

Back in the 80s (that would be the 1980s for those in school now), our local high school had more than a few problems. Test scores were down. Graduation rates were down. “Post-secondary attainment” was down. Teacher salaries were down. Community involvement was down. School morale was down. We fixed it.

“A college education has spoiled many a good garbage collector.”

Our solution was to bring together a bunch of parents of middle school age kids to form what ended called the “Parent Support Group.” I always thought it sounded like a warm and fuzzy safety net encounter group but I was the first chair of this gang and got outvoted.

These were the Go-Go 80s. No, not the heady, speculative 1880s when real estate prices went berserk and steam trains rumbled west. As Tom Brokaw said, “Money was flowing out of Wall Street for Bacchanalia.”

It wasn’t flowing to Vermont.

I thought Management by Wandering Around could have. Maybe a little Theory Y. And some old-fashioned MBO. For building rapport in a team or a community, it sure beat hiding behind closed doors.

7th grader Jimmy Kominsky set a goal to do his homework every day.

Missisquoi Valley Union High School was about a decade old, then, a “new” school for the area. It had Florida architecture with circular brick pod-like turrets clustered to face out toward the invading hordes. It was a district school with three feeder towns, rather than the very local Town K-12 school with the schoolmarm living above your neighbor’s garage. The enrollment averaged about 1,050-1,100 students in the mid-80s. My memory pegs the annual budget at around $2 million then (the Inflation Calculator tells us that $2 million in 1985 dollars would be $4.4 million today).

The school board and the school administration were sequestered in this fort and the community stayed away. Educational changes were in the wind and the community stayed away. Budgets climbed and the community stayed away.

8th Grader Jenny Laroche set a goal to birth a foal.

Part of our charter as the Parent Support Group was to be a Booster Club to bring the community back in. MVUHS has a stunningly excellent theater; our arts council started there with the Franco Voyageurs, the Ketch dance troupe, McGill Jazz, Vermont Symphony performances, and more. Good arts and good sports bring people into the building and enrich the kids. They can even improve school revenues.

Part of our charter as the Parent Support Group was to give the then-new “Middle School” its own identity. Somebody had decided kids in 7th and 8th were too young to mingle with the older high school students and the idea of a “junior high” was demeaning.

OK.

Oh, I understand all the buzzwords, that middle school is student- not subject-oriented and “emphasizes affective development” and that “teachers and students work together in interdisciplinary teams” with experiential learning and teamwork and that the awful junior high was subject- and teaching-centered with nothing but traditional instruction for hours and hours per day. Junior high kids have to suffer through study halls and homerooms.

Jeezum.

8th grader Brown Connery set a goal to skateboard in the snow.

You’d think it was impossible to do any of the neat, new wave, high tech schooling in the Junior High building. Moreover, I still wonder why kids in middle school today have lower achievement than kids in junior high did a generation ago.

Back to the story.

The school pulled the 7th and 8th graders out of gen pop and gave them a pod of their own. Teachers shuffled around so a dedicated group shepherded these kids for those couple of school years. And we parents supported all that with in- and after-school activities.

We had music and art. We had trips. We had clubs including a goal-setting club. I don’t remember if there was a fishing club but I do remember math and cooking and tutoring and shop. Come to think of it, I don’t think we had a rocket club. Missed the boat there, we did.

Jimmy Kominsky’s goal to do his homework, no matter how tired he was after school, was because he was bored. “It’s so boring to sit there wasting your time,” he told me, “but it’s better than learning to flip your eyelids inside out.”

Jenny Laroche had some trouble finding a horse to foal. This is dairy country and there were fewer horses around even in the 80s than ever before. Benoit Laroche (no relation) let her stop every day after school. Benoit milked about 100 head, a fairly large farm for the day, and had six Morgan horses he used for sugaring.

Brown Connery failed at skateboarding in the snow but he learned enough to skateboard on it. That wasn’t magic, but common sense. He and his dad cleared out some space to set up a small skateboard yard with flatbottom, a nice downslope, and hard, grindable edges. It was winter-ready because he had a really big shovel.

Jimmy is 43 this year. He never did learn to flip his eyelids but he did learn to swallow swords. I ran into him again this spring in Key West. He works the slack wire in Mallory Square most evenings. He owns a house and has two kids in the Horace O’Bryant School there.

Jenny is 44 this year. She went to UVM and then Cornell and is a large animal vet in Alaska.

Brownie never did invent the perfect skateboard but he moved halfway down the Banana Belt, that part of far western Vermont where temperatures are more clement. He drives a truck over the road and serves on the school board in Bridport, I think.

Overall, the Parent Support Group was a success.

Those early middle schoolers set goals for their own enjoyment. They saw rising test scores right through graduation. Commencement rates came back up. More than half went on to some form of higher education. Neighbors as well as parents attended the musical and sports and shows there. School morale came up.

[Years passed]

Things have changed at schools in 30 years. The 2015-16 enrollment at MVU is 930 students with a student-teacher ratio down to an amazing 10:1. The 2015-16 budget is $15,231,150. USNews reports the College Readiness Index at 23.5, the mathematics proficiency at 1.7, and the reading proficiency at 2.8. In the New England Common Assessment Program, 16% of Missisquoi Valley Union 11th graders are now Substantially Below Proficient in reading and 51% are now Substantially Below Proficient in math (that’s more than half the kids for those in that category). If you add up the bottom two categories, one-third of MVU 11th graders are now NOT Proficient in reading and 80% are NOT Proficient in math overall.

There must be a lesson in there somewhere but it’s up to you young parents to solve. See, I have a different emergency. I ran out of cookies.

Next up, what Vermont’s governor and I were joking about on stage in 1984.

 

We’ll Always Have Paris

Posted on by

I write a weekly newspaper column and chair an arts council so I get a lot of press releases. You just can’t make some of this stuff up.

The nice folks at The Big E sent me this year’s entertainment lineup for the fair.

The Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, is New England’s biggest state fair, with “year-round opportunities for the development and promotion of agriculture, education, industry and family entertainment while preserving our New England heritage.” It culminates in a “field days” festival that starts in September. And it’s a lot more than farm implements.

“It’s your little girl’s squeals of delight every time a cow looks her way. Or the way your husband smiles after finishing a Craz-E Burger, or fried dough, or key-lime-pie-on-a-stick. It’s the look on your best friend’s face as she twirls through the sky on a crazy ride. Or the feeling you get when you catch a strand of Mardi Gras beads at the parade. The biggest fair in the Northeast is filled with amazing little moments. What will yours be?”

State fairs began in the nineteenth century to promote state agriculture, so they have always had livestock, farm products, competitions, and entertainment.

Gotta bring in the rubes.

The Texas State Fair had balloon ascents and “appearances by such notables as John Philip Sousa, William Jennings Bryan, Carrie Nation and Booker T. Washington.” The Iowa State Fair has had more than politicians to entertain us over the years, too.

In 1881, historian James Wilson noted that, “One of the most valuable effects of the [Iowa] State Fair is the fraternizing, humanizing consequences of bringing our people together … No one meets and mingles with 20,000 Iowa men, women and children on the Fairgrounds — the only place they can be brought together — without growth of sympathy.”

In 1922, two locomotives traveling at 10 mph crashed into each other in the second staged train wreck at the Iowa Grandstand. In 1925, more than 100 people entered the new fiddlers’ contest. The new Education Building in 1927 was a great attraction with its second floor art gallery.

The Big E is the only state fair in the nation with six states; the Avenue of States has replicas of each New England state’s original statehouse sitting on land owned by that state. The Vermont Building was constructed in 1926.

In past years, the fair has hosted bands I have booked or know well including Prydein for Celtic rock, the Western swing of Rick and the Ramblers, JimmyT and the Cobras with outlaw rock, Young Tradition Vermont, and many more. My friend Rebecca Padula who played for me at Bay Day this year was disinvited from the Big E lineup because her singing partner moved to California last week.

Some performers are more widely known.

Paris HiltonHidden among the 2015 notes that Alabama will play, that the Big E is ranked as the fifth largest fair in North America, that the Charlie Daniels Band will kick off the proceedings, and the agriculture results, is Paris Hilton.

Paris Hilton? “Yes, this is for real…Paris Hilton has added turntables and headphones to her accessories and is Western MA bound to DJ at The Big E!”

Turns out her debut album sold over 600,000 copies worldwide.

She can sing?

I watched her semi-explicit Good Time bubble gum video which features Lil Wayne.

She can sing?

The Big E had DJ Pauly D perform in 2013, something they called a “big success, attracting thousands of fans to the Fair.”

Paris might draw more, but for singing?

They have a countdown clock. The 2015 Big E with Paris starts in exactly 73 days, 20 hours, 00 minutes, and 00 seconds. I may go this year. I’ve always wanted to watch cow wrangling in Paris.

 

Just Words

Posted on by

I have a little man-crush on Antonin Scalia.

Justice Antonin ScaliaAfter all, how many Supreme Court Justices could call a decision “jiggery-pokery”? Mr. Scalia did in his dissension to the King v. Burwell decision, otherwise known as the Care Package for the Unaffordable Care Act. Here he was absolutely right on the Law and right that lay readers and lawyers alike “would think the answer would be obvious — so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it.”

Next up, Obergefell v. Hodges, otherwise known as the Same Sex Marriage Decision. Here Mr. Scalia is wrong on the Law but dead-bang on in his description of the Court and the fallacious route they took to arrive at the right decision:

“Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count).”

“The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic… one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.”

Bwah!

 

Flag on the Play

Posted on by

Flags of Conquered CountriesI’m a Yankee. My mother was born to a quiet Quaker lady whose father was an abolitionist. Still, I have no dog in this fight except one: Freedom of speech and expression in the United States is protected as our first and most fundamental Right. I also have one or two observations:

• The U.S. bested Great Britain in more than one war. The Union Jack still flies.
• The U.S. bested the Cherokee in the Chickamauga war. The Cherokee Nation banner still flies.
• The U.S. bested Eyalet of Tripolitania and the Sultanate of Morocco in the First Barbary War. The Royal Standard of Morocco still flies. The flag of Ottoman Tripolitania flew until 1911 when the seeds of Libya were sewn.
• The U.S. bested Spain in more than one war. The flag of Spain still flies (adopted in its current version in 1978).
• The U.S. bested Regency of Algiers in war. The flag of Algieria still flies.
• The U.S. and the Republic of Texas bested the Comanche Nation in war. The flag of the Comanche still flies.
• The U.S. bested Greek pirates in the Aegean Sea Operations. The flag of Greece still flies.
• The U.S. bested Fiji, Samoa, and Tabiteuea in an “Exploring Expedition.” The flags of the Republic of Fiji, the Independent State of Samoa, and the land of no chiefs still fly.
• The U.S. bested Mexico in the Mexican-American War. The Mexican still flies.
• The British Empire, France, and the U.S. finally bested the Qing Dynasty in war. The flag of the Qing Dynasty flew until 1912.
• The U.S. bested the Confederate States in war. The Confederate Battle Standard still flies. Oh. Wait.
• The U.S. allies bested China again in the Boxer Rebellion. The flag of the Qing Dynasty flew until 1912.
• The U.S. bested Germany and Mexico in the Mexico-United States border war. The flag of the German Empire flew until 1918.
• The U.S. bested Germany and Nicaraguan Liberals in war. The Republic of Nicaragua’s flag still flies.
• The U.S. bested Germany in more than one war. The flag of Germany still flies (adopted in its current version in 1949).
• The U.S. bested Japan in war. The Rising Sun still flies.
• The U.S. and Jamaica bested Grenada in war. The national flag of Grenada still flies.
• The U.S. deposed Manuel Noriega and bested Panama in war. The Panamanian flag still flies.
• The U.S. and allies deposed Muammar Gaddafi and bested Tripoli in war. The Libyan flag still flies.
• The U.S. bested Iraq in war. The Iraqis have had many flags; at least one may still be flying.
• Vietnam bested the U.S. in war. The American flag still flies (adopted in its current version in 1960).

 

Adventure

Posted on by

Floridian Ilse Telesmanich sprained her ankle hiking in South Africa. She was 90.

A retired builder, Englishman Tom Lackey, took up wing-walking at 89. His family thinks he’s mad.

Adventures come in many forms.


Superboat in Marathon

In 1982, Boppa looked around and said, “I’m 92 years old. Let’s move to Florida.” It was the first wanderlust he had given in to for 67 years. My grandmother, though, came from a family of semi-wanderers.

Her great-x-5-grandfather, Richard Barnard, wandered from England to the Colonies in 1642 to follow William Penn into what became southeastern Pennsylvania. His grandson (my first cousin six times removed) Isaac was an American lawyer who served as a United States Senator and in the Fourteenth Regiment Infantry of the United States Army Militia as a Major General in the War of 1812. Odd role for a Quaker. Another early cousin, Cyrus Barnard obtained a patent for a mowing-machine as early as 1820. He was also the first to import merino sheep into Chester County. Another odd combination. A subsequent Richard Barnard (my first cousin five times removed) was perhaps the first Chester Countian to go to California in search of wealth.

My neighbor sold his air conditioning business in Maryland and moved to the Keys to buy a boatyard. My own parents couldn’t stay put despite the fact that their lives were based in Chester County for five decades and in the Keys for a couple more. They wandered in road trips and in the boat and one hurricane season moved to Gallup, New Mexico. They are now circumnavigating the globe on a rose petal but that’s another story.

My path has been a little different because I got a variant “adventure” gene. I flew to Europe to ski the Alps and then later to work and annoy German waitresses. I conned a 50′ twin-screw diesel boat in the Chesapeake and built a 30-foot boat in the barn. I’ve rappelled down the Palisades.

Now much of my travel across New England, Florida, and the American Southwest is to get the light right on a bat tower, lie in the grass for a view of brown cows against vibrant foliage, view an ancient cactus bloom against biosphere glass, or capture the vanishing end of a seven mile bridge over clear green water.

I have visited 40 US states, but I tend to settle in. Although I’m a ninth-generation Pennsylvania native and I’ve resided in only four states, I found a home in the Keys.

There are adventures here.

Once upon a time, long after the pirates stopped sailing square-riggers, the Keys had powerboat races in the waters off Key West, Marathon, and Islamorada. Somehow, we lost the Marathon and Islamorada events but the Super Boat Grand Prix will return to Marathon on Fourth of July weekend. There should be 20-25 boats, the big iron, there. These boats can hit 150 mph going under the 7-Mile Bridge and past Inch Beach. And they’ll be back at the marina behind Faro Blanco.

I drove race cars for several years but I’ve never considered driving race boats. See, when I tried that I discovered that I don’t think in the third dimension at speed. Race cars go up and down but they stay (mostly) attached to the ground. Race boats go up and down and the driver needs to remember to land the darned things.

There may be a different approach.

On the news last night, SWMBO and I watched a piece on seniors (that means people waaaaaaay older than we are) taking up kiteboarding. Now-74-year-old retired science teacher Louis Self writes that “Riding and jumping with a wake board, being propelled only by the wind gives an unimaginable rush.”

Hmmm.


Surfing to Infinity

She told me that I can’t do it. A boy does love a challenge if I can just figure out how to land the darned thing.

I’m not going to try to master a headstand, though. I’m not nuts, after all.