Reminiscing over Saturdays and Mondays past

We've now seen the last of the Monday and Saturday Palestine Herald-Press editions. Seems strange that we won't print a paper tonight, or Friday night. I hate to see it, but at least we're still printing a paper. They won't be doing that at some locations, such as the Denver Post. On the bright side, I guess I should be able to spend Friday nights at home with my family now, or at least most weeks. It may sound strange but I felt honored to be entrusted with laying out the last Saturday front page. The Herald-Press took a chance on hiring me 19 years ago as a young sports reporter, with no daily newspaper experience and a girl in what was almost exclusively a guy's job. It meant a lot then, and I'll always have a special place in my heart for the H-P and for Palestine. I've come and gone a couple times over the years since, gotten married to a Leon County boy and started a family. The H-P has been a thread running through that fabric in one way or another since 1990, whether as an employee or a reader. So being the person "on desk," as we call doing the page layout and editing, meant a great deal. I hope our work on Mondays and Saturdays has in some way been meaningful to you, too. Thanks for being there with us, and keep coming back the remaining five days!

Top 10 percent rule

I just read the Associated Press story about the House vote to amend the "Top 10 Percent" admission rule to Texas' public colleges and universities. I have one response - hogwash! The part that really sticks in my craw is this passage:

Supporters of changing the law say it has caused a “brain drain” at UT-Austin, prompting exceptional students who fall just outside its top 10 percent parameters to go elsewhere, including out-of-state schools.

To me, this is a blatant attempt to limit the number of vals and sals from the Class A and 2A schools, and from the troubled schools around the state, who want to attend UT Austin. Seems to me an attempt to cut out the small country schools to bring in more of the kids fortunate enough to live in a large "name" school district. The kids have little control over where their parents choose to work and live. If a child worked hard enough to be named valedictorian or salutatorian, no matter where the school or how big, then why are we going to tell that student "I'm sorry, you don't look to cut it here as well as somebody from one of the large, prosperous districts."

I won't name names but I call to mind two students - one from a Class A school 13 miles from here and the other from a 2A school 23 miles from here - who either took advantage of the Top 10 rule or could have. I was blessed to have both young women in class when I taught. The Class A student should be graduating from USC with a political science type degree in an international relations field, if I remember correctly. The Class 2A student just graduated from UT-Austin in December with a Radio-Television-Film degree, and could have done computer science, as well. She's working for a PBS station now. These two were exceptional, but they were not the exception. They were the best of some very good, and highly motivated, students at both schools.

Life has plenty of tough lessons to learn. Let the kids prove in the college classroom whether they can make the grade.

Warning: Medicine cabinets may cause drowsiness

This is why you should always close the cabinet doors. Katie the Wonder Cat decided Tuesday that the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet would be better suited for napping than anything else. Good thing the shelf was empty. Guess I'll be wiping that down today since I'm off work. Maybe she should have some coffee, since the coffee maker is right below her on the countertop. And no, the best part of waking up is NOT cat hair in your cup. Yuck.

Note: The cat did not come in contact with any open medication. She wasn't even annoyed enough by the flash photography to want to move.

UFO or science balloon??

Apparently the good folks at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility got the attention of people in New Mexico and Arizona yesterday.

News stories are floating around cyberspace about reports of an unidentified object drifting in the skies over those two states Monday.

One person in Sedona even went so far as to compare the translucent object to the "gigantic bubble from the Wizard of Oz."

Turns out it wasn't Glenda the Good Witch of the North.

The mysterious object was a 4,000-pound scientific balloon launched from a location in New Mexico on Sunday to measure gamma ray emissions.

Probably the best story appeared in the Arizona Republic, which is where the Wizard of Oz quote originated. Click here to link to that story.

Post election

Palestine Mayor Dr. Carolyn Salter called it last night during her goodbye speech at the Palestine City Council - voters wanted change. In case you missed it, Salter became the odd man out of the three-person mayoral race. Dan Bochsler and Bob Herrington remain in the running. The council will officially canvass the vote next week at its 5:30 p.m. Monday meeting. After the vote is canvassed and made official, the date for the runoff election between Bochsler and Herrington will be set. According to state law, that has to be no less than 20 days and no more than 45 days from the canvassing date, so sometime around mid-June we'll vote again for mayor.

While the mayor's race certainly has resulted in change, the more far-reaching changes occurred in the school bond elections. Three times prior, Elkhart ISD had unsuccessfully attempted to convince voters in the district to pass a bond that will allow the school to build new facilities to house the ever-growing number of students educated there. Palestine ISD also had tried unsuccessfully in the past to pass a bond to improve its facilities. This time, both passed easily. That's very good for the children in those schools. I think Anderson County Prec. 2 Commissioner Rashad Q. Mims said it best last week when he commented that voters in Anderson County had seen fit to build a new jail to house criminals, but were hesitating to do something for their children:

“You invested in a new jail facility, almost 300 beds,” Mims said. “As a taxpayer, you’re paying for those inmates” to eat, sleep and have access to medical care.

“Why not invest in a child’s future that we can turn them (today’s students) into a productive taxpayer?” Mims asked.

Seems that the voters listened.

School traffic rant

It's 2:20 p.m., which means it's almost time for the second of my twice-daily blood pressure spikes, both induced by transporting kids to and from school. There's nothing like feet-dragging, complaining kids and traffic congestion to start the day off right (ahem). Likewise, there's nothing like more traffic congestion and word that the youngest foot-dragger has acted up again in class to make your afternoon. I think for Mother's Day my family can just get me a framed "Terrorist Negotiator" certificate to hang on the wall for having to deal with these unhappy little (or not so little) Foleys.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to suggest a rider to the $64 million bond issue that voters in Palestine ISD will decide upon this Saturday. Carve out a few dollars to paint a line down Wanda Drive as it runs beside Story School to create a "5th Grade Only" pickup lane and clearly mark it with a big "5" painted at the beginning by Moody Street and a road sign or two. Paint a second line parallel to the first and mark that newly created middle lane as "3rd and 4th Grade Only" so that the parents arriving for kids in those two grades can pull up without worrying if they're cutting line in front of other 3rd and 4th grade parents stuck in the middle of the 5th grade traffic. Ban 5th grade parents from parking along the curb on the opposite side of Wanda by the playground so that two-way traffic can flow. (if the bond passes and Story's grades change, you can re-label the lanes with the appropriate grades when that time comes.)

As it is now, if you get there too early, there'll be a line of cars parked along Wanda waiting to turn into the school's drive to pick up kids at the three wings. There'll also be half a dozen vehicles parked on the opposite side by the playground with parents sitting at the pavillion and waiting for their 5th graders to come out, with room in between for one lane of traffic to pass. I really don't see why anybody gets there at 3 p.m. or earlier to wait on the 5th grade when they're the last to be released, sometime after 3:15. It creates congestion and confusion because there's no way for a driver approaching from Moody to tell what grade the cars already there are waiting for until the assigned teacher is able to come outside and direct traffic. (Mr. Lamb, you deserve hazardous duty pay and a medal!) I've been early and sitting waiting to turn when other drivers have cruised right on up and cut in, which can be infuriating. I've also driven up later and mistakenly thought that only 5th grade parents were waiting, and so pulled on up only to find out otherwise. That's embarrassing and ought to be avoidable.

While I'm on my soapbox, I'd also like to suggest that a note be sent home at the beginning of the school year addressing drop-off/pickup driver etiquette. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like for the sake of keeping the lines at each wing from backing up, the driver at the front of the line whose child just got in the car should be allowed the courtesy of pulling away from the curb by the drivers approaching from more than one car length back. Again, maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me if you're driving past, say, the third grade wing and you're more than one car length behind the car picking up a child, you ought to be going slow enough to be able to stop to allow that 3rd grade parent to merge and the ones behind them to pull up. Wouldn't you want that parent to do so for you?

Random thoughts over my 2nd cup of coffee...

Monday morning status report: Kids at school on time (that's always worth noting with our feet-draggers), husband's crutches delivered, work e-mail checked, two chocolate doughnuts devoured and one cup of coffee drank, with one more begun on my day off....

Saturday's Cinco de Mayo Celebration in Reagan Park
I don't know about you but I thought it was great to see the park filled with people enjoying themselves at a family-oriented festival Saturday. What a terrific idea, and implementation! I didn't bring my kids to it - I usually don't to events like this because it's much harder to do my job while worrying about who's wandered off where - but if I'm not covering next year's event, I'd love to bring them. The food looked and smelled great, the music was good and the elementary kids dancing were fun to watch. It made me wonder - why have we waited till 2009 to do this?

Saturday's scary roof collapse at the Cowboys' indoor practice facility
With the violent wind and hail storms they get in the Metroplex, you would think that something like this would have happened before now, not six years after this facility opened. I read the accounts on the Associated Press Saturday night while putting together the Sunday paper, and I just finished reading the Dallas Morning News' stories and blogs, particularly those by Todd Archer. Archer was the DMN staff reporter who was on the field when the structure collapsed, and was pinned to the ground under some of the door frame. It was interesting to read his first-hand account of what happened. It's amazing more people were not injured, or killed. Whatever your opinion may be of Jerry Jones' management style or draft day involvement, he stepped up to the plate Saturday, leaving the Kentucky Derby early to fly back and spend time with those hospitalized. From one report I read, he's expecting Rick Behm to continue on with the team once his recovery allows. Behm is the 33-year-old employee with the scouting and video end of the organization who was paralyzed from the waist down. Good for you, Jerry. That's putting the special in special teams.

From the "They don't make 'em like they used to" department:
Something our youngest daughter said this morning while getting ready for school reminded my husband and me of those old Joe Isuzu commercials from the late '80s. Remember him, the sleazy car salesman who'd tell lies about the products while the car company would put up "He's lying" across the screen? When we tried to explain to the child why we were laughing, she didn't get it, so I pulled up You Tube and found some of the commercials posted there. She watched while putting on her shoes and laughed as hard as we did, then asked why we bought an Isuzu pickup with that lying salesman on TV. Click the link above to watch some funny clips.