Majoring in Recess

I came across a wonderful quote, from another Press Secretary for another White House, and another President, "The President has kept all the promises he intended to keep." What a crack-up! Is that great line, especially if you turn on that little boy charm, this particular Press Secretary had, with those big puppy-dog 'would I lie to you?' eyes.

How many of us get up every morning for the promises the day holds, or that we hope to redeem? And what happens to us as the day goes along? In most states, and it's true in CT, we spend three to five times more total on people in prison than on our education system. I think (=hope really hard) we Nutmeggers have fewer people in jail than in school, making the expenditure totals even more impressive, but I'm not sure.

I no longer have 'kids' in school. I have an adult daughter (she turns 21 in less than a month) at college. Her big concern right now is getting her license changed to the vertical format that visually indicated she's over twenty-one. I understand why this is an issue for her and know I do NOT want to ask about it under any circumstances. When she was 'itty-bit' I was amazed that I could have helped make someone so tiny. Her brother took my breath away when he was born in July of 1982--hours before the semi-final of the European Cup championships in Spain, the match between Germany and France. What a day, my wife had given birth to our son and the German national soccer team had defeated the despised French team.

Michelle was different-she was a girl and she was so much tinier. But she had this thing she did from the moment her lungs filled with air; she put her tongue on the ridge on the roof of her mouth and made this 'schnicking noise" as my wife called it. And that's how we knew she was hungry. Before she could see, before she could do anything-- she could do that. She was so small I could put her head in the palm of my hand and stretch her out and her feet came to the bend of my arm at the elbow. And now she wants to make sure bartenders realize three Fridays from now that she's old enough to drink. Yeah. I'm more than a little torn up over this but am learning to surrender everything but my serenity.

Actually my wife and I are lucky we had kids when we did (though I was too old for my son and way too old by the time my daughter went to school)-it saved us from schools today (not any given school system, but the process itself). I look at all the metal detectors-not (just) in our airports and government buildings; but especially in our schools. I read a story last week, or the week before, somewhere in Georgia about third graders who'd plotted/schemed/conspired against their teacher--the kids were nabbed with handcuffs, duct tape, a knife and no logical explanation of why they had this stuff. If I'd been their teacher, my transfer papers to another school in another town on another planet would already be on the Principal's desk. Earlier last week a middle school in CT went into a modified lock-down because a 12 year old brought a bomb from home. He made it from "instructions on The Internet" (gotta love that definite article). Walk down the hallway of a middle school just about anywhere and listen to the way 'the kids' speak to one another and realize there's only one place they can learn language like that and it's NOT at Berlitz. Gawrsh, Mickey! Is that the same mouth you use to kiss your mom?

We are in a culture where kids kill one another for the sneakers they wear-where we have twelve year old girls whose goal is to look like twenty-one year old women (thank goodness school lunch passes don't come in vertical format) and my generation was so pissed off at our parents. We really were hypocrites, I guess. All our folks had done was come of age when their parents had survived the Great Depression and fought a world war. And they who had grown up with so little wanted to make sure it didn't happen to us. And we took it all in and shrugged. When our kids have problems we buy them therapists and lawyers. Between them, they can sort it out and they both have billable hours. When I look at what we did with what our parents left us and what we've passed to our kids, I'm a little nervous about wondering if I'll ever meet grand kids. What will I tell them?
-bill kenny