Paradigms...where shift happens!

That's 39 but who's counting!

One of my favorite sources of things to talk about in a blog posting is the surpassingly odd aspects of life today that are thrust into the limelight via the wacky filler items you can find on many of the major on line news sites like CNN and indeed dear old www.Fredericksburg.com . For example this headline from CNN.com fairly begs further examination: “Jumping sturgeon whacks jet-skier” Maybe I read articles like that for the same reason I’ll pause on the Jerry Springer show when I’m channel surfing but I really want to see the fish that can take out a guy on a jet ski.

It’s not what anyone would call a major news site but in her blog posting today on Blue Ridge Blog, Marie Freeman talking about the new school year in Watauga County North Carolina and says there is a new rule at Watauga County High School limiting students to 39 bathroom trips per semester. She predicts they’ll give up on that within two weeks. I give it one week: one day to realize the impracticality of it and four days to figure out how to back off the idea without formally admitting what a knot headed idea it was to begin with.

Who will keep track of how often the kids go? Will there be potty monitors with clip boards in the hall? Maybe they will print and distribute 39 bathroom passes to each student, thus creating an active black market for them and when that gets going can the counterfeit potty pass be far behind? Will there be a roll over provision for unused passes from one semester to another like unused cell phone minutes?

Who in the school administration came up with this idea and then had the nerve to propose it in front of the other school officials? Boone is way out in the mountains of western

North Carolina

but I’m surprised we didn’t hear the hoots and howls of laughter all the way up here.

Of course there could be a perfectly logical explanation for how this came to be; it could be a little known provision of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Nah, that’s too far out even for the Feds, right?

Right?

The man behind the curtain

Most mornings I stop off at a place called Hyperion Espresso for coffee on my way to work. As I drive up Princess Anne Street from Route 1, I see pretty much the same scenes every day. Someone is always coming out of or going into the 2400 Diner and at Little Tire they have the first couple of cars up on the lifts while one of the guys is usually outside with a clipboard talking to the next customer about whatever repair is needed.

 

A bit farther up the street several people looking for day work are waiting outside Labor Finders and then there are the two little kids who live next door running around the side walk on their Big Wheels. There's a young lady who walks her dog about the time I am going by.

 

And then there are the homeless or nearly so, at least that's what I am presuming. They appear to be starting a daily routine of heading towards downtown as well. There is one man whose stolid face seems not even to register his surroundings and I know he will shortly round the corner from Princess Anne onto William Street and with a practiced glance check the ash trays and plastic bucket outside the Hyperion entrance for discarded smokes. Sometimes he finds one and sometimes a sidewalk samaritan will hold out one or two or three cigarettes to him as he walks by their table. He'll reach out and take the proffered gift without breaking stride and with the slightest of nods to acknowledge the giver.

 

One of the things that puzzles me about this man and his compatriots is their faces. They always seem expressionless and I wonder if there is any hope behind the masks they wear and if there is, hope for what. Is it for a quickly found cigarette, a meal, a little relief from the heat, what?

 

Hope has to be there somewhere doesn't it? After all they are human beings and that's one of the things that sets us aside from other creatures. I keep telling myself that at least they have that; they have hope.

 

They do, don't they?

Are we there yet?

Does anyone remember Fizzies? They were a cross between a Necco wafer and an Alka-Seltzer tablet. They came in several flavors and the idea was that you dropped them into cold water and voila, instant soft drink.

I was reminded of them the one night last week when a big Ford Excavation or something like that passed me on the interstate. Glancing at the side windows,  I could see the glow of not one but two DVD screens strapped to the back of the front seat head rests, presumably the travel entertainment for a couple of head setted back seat munchkins while Mom and Dad rode in isolated silence up front, maybe even plugged in to their own individual Ipods.

Seeing that glow took me back to the mid 50's when my family moved from Virginia to Texas. As with most family moves it was summertime. We had an almost new 1955 Desoto that must have been nearly the same weight as a small naval vessel. The car was a two tone green behemoth with bench seats front and back that were large enough to seat all 5 of us comfortably. Other than where our little delinquent butts were planted, every nook and cranny was filled with the stuff a family of 5 needs to endure a 4 day car trip.

What it did not have though was air conditioning. Driving south as we were, the daytime temps were pretty miserable and as with any family of three kids stuck in the back of a car for the day, behavior was a daily issue. Since even back then cattle prods and spiked paddles were not acceptable tools for behavior modification my mother used a carrot instead of a stick. We were rewarded for being good with a treat of a Fizzie every couple of hours.  She kept a fat thermos jug of ice water on the floor of the front seat. It too was two tone in color, cream and hospital green if memory serves. This was before the days of spouts on jugs like that so she had to lift the jug into her lap and pour each cup of water out of the top.

The cups of water were handed back to us and we got to open the little envelope and drop the Fizzies in ourselves. That part of the evolution was good for about 15 seconds worth of amusement. My brother and I would hold the cups very close to our faces so we could feel the spray as they dissolved. Whichever one of us had the cup that finished first would shout out, "I won!" whereupon the loser would immediately look into the winner's cup to verify the results. 

I would tell you about the taste but memory has mercifully blotted that from my mind. I do recall though that if we were lucky enough to get one of the regular flavors it did seem like a reward. The root beer Fizzie was a different matter; we were both convinced that Mom was actually punishing us for something we had done or might soon do.

So,  I wonder as think about the kids in the back seat of that Ford Excavation. Will they share memories of a long vacation trip and yet another rerun of a Disney movie they have seen so many times they don't even need the soundtrack because they can read the lips of the animated characters? I think I prefer reminiscing about Fizzies, even the root beer.