 Editorial
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4-13-03
Taxes and Bikini Waxes --
April. It's the month where we become consumed
with thoughts of Spring. April brings to mind other
events and thoughts as well. April brings taxes, Easter,
planting, budding flowers, thoughts of losing weight
for that summer trip to the beach. This year, it brings
continuing coverage of the ongoing but hopefully ending
conflict in the Middle East. April also brings my 49th
birthday, which commences my 50th year of life on this
planet. I can't believe it! I
still feel like the same person who walked out of Highland
Springs High School as a student for the last time in
1973. I thought that by this time I would be older
and wiser.
By this age, surely that wisdom should have come to
me right along with the graying and thinning hair, and
the ever-expanding waistline. But, you know what? It
really hasn't. Oh sure, I've learned a few things over
the years. But, most of these are the result of hard
lessons. These were not the types of lessons learned
by sitting back and thoughtfully rubbing my graying
chin whiskers, contemplating my situation and arriving
at some enlightened conclusion rivaled by Socrates.
No, I'm afraid I haven't improved much since high school,
which should really scare the Hell out of people who
know me well (you know who you are). So the question
is, if we don't get any smarter (I'm not talking academically
here), then what do we have to look forward to as far
as age and self-improvement goes? After some careful
thought and chin-whisker rubbing, I've come to the conclusion
that the real reward of age is experience. This is what
you have to share with your friends after all those
years have passed. This is what passes off as wisdom.
The difference between wisdom and experience is: With
wisdom, you can look at a situation for the first time
and make the proper decision on how to deal with it
and not take a hard knock. For instance, I know not
to whiz on and electric fence because I know it has
electricity running through it and the conductive nature
of liquid will cause me to get shocked. With experience,
you know not to whiz on the electric fence because you
were stupid enough to do it once and got shocked where
it hurts the most.
Given that line of thought…I have been thinking
that it is my generation that is in charge of feeding
the current generation of kids. When we were kids, our
parents told us that we could not continuously eat junk
food and fast food because it was not good for us. Here
on the Springer Connection we reminisce about how great
the school lunch food was.
With that said, where is the wisdom in replacing the
great food programs in schools across the country with
the likes of McDonald's and Taco Bell? When did allowing
kids to drink Pepsi's instead of milk become okay? Where
is the wisdom in the decision allowing corporations
to come in and replace viable school lunch programs
with junk food? Don't we care about the health of our
kids?
I don't fault the schools themselves. Our teachers
and school officials are smarter than that. This decision
was made much, much further up the line and created
an unwise but necessary fund generator because someone
cut resources for the lunches and other programs, which
now have to rely on these corporations for funds to
run those selfsame programs.
I know how important a good meal was to my fellow students
and myself and I would like to see the current situation
reversed. I believe that we as parents should come together
and make our voices heard. I'm sure Dan (who is always
trying to be the voice of reason for my editorials)
is going to have a cow thinking that I am blasting the
high school about their lunch program, but such is not
the case. As far as I know the same ladies are still
at HS making those wonderful hot rolls like they were
when I was there. I'm speaking from the experience (there's
that magic word) of seeing what they dished up to my
sons at their schools in California and what has been
on the news lately. I actually went to their school
and voiced my concerns to no avail. So, I just didn't
allow my boys to eat that stuff.
I've noticed (and so have other people) that posting
on the message board is way down. I think maybe the
season has something to do with it as well as the current
situation in the Middle East. I know everyone is busy
getting bikini waxes and such for the summer and have
not had as much time for the message board.
We are, indeed, going to be offering Springer Connection
shirts for our members to obtain. A special place will
be set-aside on the site for pre-ordering and it will
have all the details. Besides the t-shirts, we will
be showing some apparel items that the athletic department
has for sale. All great stuff! Speaking of the athletic
department, the post on the web by Coach
Burton (regarding Maurice Reevey) bears reading
by all members and I highly encourage people to participate.
Also, don't forget -- some of the Class
Reunions are just around the corner, so send in
your money for tickets soon. I am beating myself over
the head as I type this because I am also a slacker
in that regard (see the first paragraph above).
Until next time…see ya'll on the message board.
Jack
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