I haven’t posted an email forward for a long time. I got this one from a friend the other day and it just about sums up the way I feel about the two furry beasties you see in my profile pic. (No, that is not me and Dan in the profile pic!) I wanted to get a new blog up, but I am currently working three jobs, I am having a party tonight and have to get his house cleaned because we have been gone on weekends for a month and the dust rivals the Sahara, and I attended a professional workshop in another part of the state yesterday and am going to another Monday and Tuesday. To sum it up, I am having a wee bit of trouble finding time to blog. Hope you enjoy this. I will be around to visit tomorrow – I hope!

Dear Dogs and Cats:

1. They live here. You don’t.
2. If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture.
3. I like my pet better than I like most people.
4. To you it’s an animal. To me he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn’t speak clearly.
5. Dogs and cats are better than kids. They eat less, don’t ask for money all the time, and are easier to train. They usually come when called, never drive your car, don’t hang out with drug-using friends,don’t drink or smoke, don’t worry about buying the latest fashions, don’t wear your clothes, don’t need a gazillion dollars for college, and if they get pregnant, you can sell the results.

That’s my husband’s jack-o-lantern. He carefully carves one every year and puts it in our darkened entryway to greet trick or treaters. We sit with the inside lights out and the porch light and orange icicle lights hanging from the roof on, play a CD of miscellaneous groans and screams, and await the little ghosts and goblins. We don’t get nearly as many of them as we did when our kids were growing up. Back then, all the neighbors had kids about our kids’ ages and we had a steady parade on Halloween night. Now the kids have grown up and the neigbborhood has become senior citizen’s row. We were the only house on our block that even had the porch light on to welcome little ghouls. Because we are teachers and everybody knows us, we still do get a trickle of kids venturing to the door and we enjoy handing out the candy treats.

Madison and Ryan are having a similar experience to the one our kids had. Their neighborhood is full of young families with kids. Everybody knows everybody else, so they can trick or treat safely in their neighborhood. They’ve had their costumes for quite awhile. I took this picture about 3 weeks ago when they were modeling them for me. They are quite the little hams. They were excited already and eagerly anticipating Halloween. That’s half the fun of holidays for children, isn’t it?

Jess sent me this picture of Jake the Giant Baby who is now Jake the Giant 15 month old. It was taken Halloween night. Jake was a cow, but a very modern one with a headlight. It’s clear that he had never seen so much candy in one place before but he was eager to learn all about it. I am sure he will ask to go trick or treating again every night for awhile.

God is not running for President. Nor is He endorsing either of the candidates, although it certainly sounds like it sometimes. I will be really glad when the election is over. I am tired of all the rhetoric that says that one candidate is better than the other based on religious criteria. That is not what the United States is about.

I do believe in God and I practice my religion. It happens to be the same religion as one of the candidates. However, I do not think that that makes him a better or a worse candidate. I do not think it should be an issue at all. Encouraging someone to vote based on religion is just another way of saying, “Do not think. Just do as you are told.” There are too many people these days who are willing to do that.

It’s not about whether or not disapproving of the war is the same thing as not supporting the troops over there, either. Those are unrelated topics. I have come to believe that the war was a mistake, but I certainly do believe that the troops who are caught in it deserve all the suppport we can possibly give them. I fear that they are not getting it. Whether we like the war or not, we cannot walk away from it now. I think every thinking person knows that. We can, however, change our approach and I think that needs to happen.

I would love to see an honest discussion of what each candidate would do to improve things for the citizens of the U.S. That almost happened in one of the debates. Almost. You’d think such topics would be important, wouldn’t you, but apparently they are not.

At least it will be over in a week.

These are pictures from our family dinner Friday evening. The top picture is Dan, me, Dave’s wife Salli, and Dan’s brother Dave. The bottom picture is our daughter-in-law Jess, our son Andy, their son Jake, Dave’s son Aaron, his wife Jo, and their new baby Bode, our son-in-law Matt, our daughter Betsy, and their children Madison and Ryan, who did not seem to be in the mood to be photographed.

We were supposed to meet Dave and Salli at the airport when their plane arrived at about 4:30 on Friday. Aaron and Jo were supposed to be there, too. We had a long drive and could not leave before 3:30 because we had to wait until school was out. To get to the airport, we have to take I-494, which at that time of day is basically a large parking lot, so I knew that we might be late. I had Dan call Aaron on Thursday evening and give him my cell phone number so he could call us if we were delayed and find out where we were and how long we thought it might be before we arrived. Aaron also gave Dan a phone number, which Dan wrote down, but Dan did not tell me that it was a cell phone number, so I did not bring it along. We did get delayed, arriving about 5:30, and I kept waiting for my phone to ring and Aaron to ask where we were. Upon our arrival, we learned that Aaron had tried to call, but he had recorded my phone number incorrectly so he met some lovely new people when he made his wrong number call. So much for planning!

We all proceeded to Betsy’s for dinner, a lovely visit, and, of course, the mandatory picture session. We had not seen Dave’s family for several years, so we had a lot to talk about, plus there was new baby Bode to cuddle and coo over.

We had a variation of the classic “children’s table” at dinner. We had an “old folks’” table! Dave, Salli, Dan and I sat at a small, separate table to relieve congestion at the big table. That gave us a chance to visit, something we don’t often get, and it gave the cousins a chance to get to know each other better. There was a lot of chatter and the food disappeared, so I would pronounce dinner a success.

After dinner, or really towards the end of dinner, the men drifted to the TV to watch the Twins game. When we finished eating, the women moved into the living room. Why do parties always end up that way? Men in one room and women in another? The kids kind of traveled back and forth between the two groups.

At the end of the evening, we took pictures. That’s a ritual nobody really likes, but it’s important so that there is a tangible memory of the occasion. Then Dave, Salli, Aaron, Jo and Bode headed to Aaron’s home in Rochester to spend a few days with them before flying home to Salt Lake today. Many times during the evening, they extended invitations to all of us to come and visit them in Salt Lake. I think we need to find a time to do that. It’s been about 6 years since the last time we saw them. I think we need to make sure so much time does not elapse before we see them next.

This has been a week of remembering. The picture above is of four of my college classmates and friends, Cathy, Joan, Millie, and Loretta. We have known each other since 1966 and, when we were in college, we were inseparable. Altogether, there were eight of us who met at the beginning of our freshman year, lived in the same dorm, and hung out together throughout our college years. This picture was taken a few weeks ago when they met at Cathy’s for supper. I was not able to attend, but I had lunch with Cathy, Millie, and Joan last Saturday and Cathy brought me this picture. It’s a wonderful thing to have friends of such long duration!

I have also been remembering my mom this week. Yesterday was her birthday. That has been a rough day for me every year since she died in February of 1985. Yesterday was a good day, though, with only nice memories. It only took 20 years for that to happen. I guess time really does make a difference.

This evening, we are going up to our daughter’s house to have supper with her family, our son’s family, and Dan’s brother and his family. Dave (Dan’s brother) lives in Salt Lake City and does not come back here frequently, so it will be a nice treat to see him. We will see his new grandchild for the first time, so our granchildren will meet a new cousin. I’m sure some nice new memories will be made.

It’s Part of This

Now, that’s perfectly clear, isn’t it?

That’s our bike rack.  We like to ride bikes.  On nice days, we frequently take our bikes to one of the trails and ride 20 or 30 miles.  The rack attaches to the back of our car to carry the bikes.  A couple of weeks ago, we drove up and parked at the Lowry Nature Center and then biked over to Excelsior.  When we returned to the car, one of the little rubber buttons came off when Dan put the bikes up on the rack. It wasn’t a big problem because the rack holds 3 bikes and we only had 2, but we wanted it fixed just in case we need to haul a third bike sometime.

The bike rack had the name and phone number of the company that manufactured it conveniently printed on one of the metal arms. I called and talked to a very pleasant woman who sent me out what she thought was the correct part. The rack turned out to have a lifetime guarantee, so there was no charge for that service.

The part arrived in just a couple of days, but it was the wrong part. We called the company again, and this time offered to take pictures of the rack and the part we needed to assist them. The man we talked to that time told us that his company had bought the company that made our rack, so they were not as familiar with the parts as they would have been if they had made the rack. He told us that they did have a large supply of parts for the racks, though, and would send us the part as soon as they found it. He later emailed to thank us for sending the pictures.

Now, when a product has a “lifetime” guarantee, that does not mean your lifetime, or even necessarily the lifetime of the product. It can mean the lifetime of the company. When a company is sold, the new company has no obligation to honor those guarantees. Nevertheless, the company we were dealing with cheerfully sent us not one, but 2 parts, free of charge, and thanked us for helping them do that.

What was the name of this company? WaterMark Sports. I recommend them very highly. They’re great people who stand behind their products and go out of their way to give wonderful customer service.

What Is It????

My husband and I found ourselves in need of one of these recently. Can you guess what it is? Answer in next blog.

I think that this will probably be my last blog on this topic, unless someone makes a really interesting and challenging comment that requires a response.  I have enjoyed writing these blogs and have appreciated the courtesy and consideration with which the comments on them have been made.

On my last blog, someone commented that private schools provide an option when the public schools are overloaded with non-English speaking students.  I do not feel that giving parents vouchers to pay for educating their children in private schools is a good solution to that problem.  In fact, it does not solve the problem at all.  Removing tax dollars from the public schools only means that they have less ability to meet the demands of educating the students.  All that would do is re-create the situation that used to exist in the entire South, and still exists to some extent in some areas, in which middle and upper class students attend private schools and poor students attend substandard public schools.  That creates a cycle of poverty from which escape is very difficult.

To me, it would be better to solve the problem.  Give the schools the funding they need to cope with the situation they face.  Non-English speaking students are a fact of life over most of the country now.  In our small school system, we have approximately 30% Hispanic students, many of whom have deficient English skills.  Failing to provide them with the services they need in order to be educated only means they that will become under-productive adults who may need public assistance for much of their lives.  Is that what we want?

Someone mentioned that many of the non-English speaking children are from families who are in the United States illegally and so do not pay taxes to support the schools.  That is also a problem that our government needs to address in a more effective way.  In our community, the non-English speaking adults who are here are doing jobs that the local people refuse to do.  Our businesses cannot operate without them.  I think that is the case in many places.  Most of these people are honest, hard working folks who are grateful for the jobs they have because they have fled from abject poverty, risking their lives to do so.  They do not cause problems, because to do that would be to draw attention to themselves and to risk being deported.  Most of them do not want to be illegal, but they have no other choice if they want to support their families and educate their children.

In many areas of the country, it is the policy of law enforcement to ignore the presence of illegal people unless they cause problems, because the local government recognizes their necessity to the economy.  How much better would it be to just make them legal so that they could pay taxes and be accountable for their share in supporting the system?  Deporting them has no effect because others promptly appear and obtain employment with the businesses who need them.

As for the idea that it is the right of a taxpayer to receive a voucher to pay for educating his/her children in the way he/she chooses, that assumes that one taxpayer’s tax contributions could pay for educating one or more students.  That is not usually the case, however.  My husband and I pay in property taxes less than half the cost of educating one student in the public schools for a year, and we have one of the nicer homes in our community.  Those taxes support not only our school, but all the public services provided in our little town.  Public schools are supported by the combined contributions of all the taxpayers in the community, some of whom do not have children in the school system because they do not have children at all, because their children are older or younger than the age group served by the public schools, or because they choose some other form of education.  Even if I agreed, which I don’t, that taxpayers should have the right to decide how their education dollars are spent, that would mean that I also have the right to determine how mine are spent.  I object strongly to any part of my taxes going to pay for vouchers for private education. 

I did a little research on the cost of private school education.  I found that most private schools do not list their tuition and fees on their websites, nor do they reply to emails inquiring about tuition costs.  One that does list costs on its website is Breck Academy in Minneapolis.  The following is a summary of costs at Breck.  Dollar amounts are for combined tuition and fees.

Preschool Half Days $12,565
Preschool Full Days $17,065
Kindergarten Half Days $12,580
Kindergarten Full Days $17,085
1st Grade through 4th Grade $17,85l
5th Grade through 8th Grade $18,335
9th Grade through 11th Grade $18,470
12th Grade $18,670

I don’t think a tax voucher is going to cover those costs!  It’s doubtful that a poor family would be able to afford Breck on a tax voucher.  I doubt a middle income family would do much better.  So, we are left with wealthy families, who can already afford to send their children to Breck.  Do we want to pay taxes to help the wealthy have things they can have without our help?

The one private school that did reply to my email request for tuition information was Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul.  Their tuition for the current school year is $7,500.00.  That amount does not include fees and uniforms.  This high school is affiliated with the college I attended and I happen to know that they have substantial endowments and receive large private donations, which help keep cost down.  A voucher in the amount of the cost of a year in a public school would cover the cost of this high school.  The question still remains, though, does the parent pay enough in actual school taxes to cover this?  If he or she does, he/she probably has enough income to pay the cost of this tuition without assistance.  If the parent’s taxes do not cover the cost of a voucher, does the parent have the right to take taxes paid by other people without their consent?  Those questions do not even address the situation in which the family has more than one child, making multiple tuition payments necessary.

Another comment on my previous blog was that private schools improve the quality of the public schools by providing competition for them.  Competition between schools does not require private schools. In Minnesota, we have open enrollment. Any student can go to any school. There is no additional charge. A high school senior can choose to spend his or her senior year in any college at no charge. We also have charter schools and alternative schools, all funded from tax dollars and all available to all students at no charge. That provides plenty of incentive to make local schools as good as they can be. We have all of those options available in our school district. I live in a town of 2000 people. It happens to be the biggest town in the county, proof that these are not just options available to students in large metro districts. Any child can have them regardless of how rich or poor his/her family is.  Isn’t it better to use our tax dollars to provide high quality public education for all students? Isn’t that what all children deserve?

Postscript: For those who may not have read my previous two blogs, I will state again that I am not opposed to private schools. I went to private schools. I sent my kids to private colleges. I am just opposed to using tax dollars to pay for them.