Springtime and being elderly

For the first time in my life I feel like an elderly rural matron. I am sitting as I write, listening to Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion. The St. Olaf's Girls Choir is singing, "Will You Go Lassie Go?"--a song I remember best from my Uncle Jerry's place when I was a child. He had all the Clancy Brothers albums and we listened whenever we visited. He's been gone a long time now. So have my parents. A Prairie Home Companion is evocative of another time, when families sat down after Saturday dinner, after mowing the lawn, fixing the car, and painting the shed. They listened to the radio and watched television, Ozzie and Harriet, Your Hit Parade, Sing Along with Mitch. Garrison Keillor can make me remember those times, not at my home but at my aunts' houses in Long Island and Peekskill. They were gentle times of blue twilights and warm breezes.

At the end of this school year I will retire, in spite of not being of an age to do so. I am fortunate enough to be able to leave early. However, it is extremely disconcerting to realize that I will no longer have to get up early and that my life will no longer revolve around "getting ahead." In fact I had gotten to the point where I felt that I was just spinning my wheels instead of getting ahead. Actually, I have completely forgotten exactly where "ahead" might be. So for the past few days I have been feeling a tad nostalgic for my youth. I truly hate nostalgia. It is doubtlessly the most negative of emotions. So once again I need to do something crazy in order to formulate a future lest I risk becoming a victim of the past.

Spring is the season of all that is new. It is the time of rebirth and resurrection so I am going to resurrect my earlier self. Fernando and I are thinking of spending a few of our hard earned dollars on buying 60 day bus passes and setting off to look for America.

I have seen A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood in Massachusetts but I think I want to see it at home in the Fitzgerald Theater in Minneapolis or maybe at the State Fair. I also want to see if there are still 4H clubs in the Midwest, peanut farmers in Georgia, and cowboys in Texas.

I once wrote an English paper about the road trip as a theme in American novels. This should be a monumental road trip. Maybe I'll write a novel. In the meantime, I'll be posting here.

A rant on education issues.

I have never been a fan of labor unions. I has always been my opinion that most unions are simply an extra layer of management but one that takes my money. However, I am actually proud of Michael Mulgrew in that he has waited to answer the nonsense that has been promulgated by the mayor of New York City and his henchwoman Cathleen Black until he had all the facts pertinent to the possibility of teacher lay offs in New York City. Mike Bloomberg and his former henchman, Joel Klein, have founded Education Reform Now (Klein is its CEO) in order to terrify the people of New York City into believing that the State is going to force him into laying off up to 21,000 teachers. Mayor Mike would have us believe that he will be forced to lay off all of the young, wonderful teachers he has hired in the last five years while seniority rules will allow old, stale people to remain in their jobs. First of all, there is no real crisis. At the moment New York City has a surplus of $2billion. How much left over money do we need? Cuomo is suggesting cuts of $59 million. That still leaves about $1.5 billion in surplus money. Why should anyone lose a teaching job? The UFT is dead right on this one.
The mayor simply wants to get rid of those who cost the most money. Perhaps he needs to hire a few more chefs for Gracie Mansion. By the way, I am one of those who was hired in the last five years. I should go first. It's only fair.

We all agree that American education is not what it should be. By the way, people have been agreeing on that point since I was a child--many years ago. We are probably not as bad as we think--we never have been. However, I am presently watching a frightening trend. At all levels of education, we seem to believe that more instructional time, more testing, and more work on the part of teachers will solve our problems. I find this frightening because as a child of the Cold War I was always taught that if the communists took over children would be raised by the government instead of by their parents! The government would use then brain wash American children!!! In the words of Vladimir Lenin, "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." Wow! If children spend most of their time in school, think of what I can put in their heads.

I propose the opposite--children should have more time to play! Friedrich Froebel tells us that "Play is the work of children." How very true. More things have been discovered through play than through research. Man did not invent fire. He discovered it by messing around. Kids need time to mess around. Parents, please look at the people who are responsible for public education--business people all. Do you really think that they have your best interests, or those of your children at heart? I think not.