8 AUG 05: EARLY TO RISE
It's the first day of a new school year in Muscogee County - and countless adults know what that means. It's finally safe to shop at the mall or visit a library in the middle of the day again.
But the new school year in Muscogee County is starting with some controversy. Take this e-mail we received over the weekend:
Richard,
It seems that the various Councils & Board of our local government have come up with a novel way to handle the traffic issues on Cherokee Ave.
The final paving is being accomplished on the Columbus High School parking lot. The result....it will handle about half as many cars as before the improvement. Juniors will have to participate in a lottery to try to get a parking space on campus. Sophomores & freshmen need not apply.
Bill
Bill, this is startling news. Isn't it bad enough that students are indoctrinated about lotteries in pre-kindergarten programs?
But let's start at the beginning. Yes, the Columbus High parking lot IS being paved - and I talked with an alum Sunday who actually was distraught over that. It's almost as if the gravel rocks in that parking lot are the city's version of Stonehenge....
(If those old rocks are so important, why didn't someone at Columbus High turn them into yet another fund-raiser for the baseball team?)
The paving of the parking lot isn't finished yet - but Columbus High School plans to open today, anyway. Students who drive to school are asked to park at the old Sears building on Macon Road, and ride shuttle buses. Why they're not asked to park the cars at home and ride regular school buses, I have no idea.
Columbus High School teachers are parking for the time being at St. Paul United Methodist Church. Students may NOT park there - because as we all know, they might pick up a gospel tract and spark a big church-state separation debate.
If that's not enough to worry about, the Muscogee County Schools web site notes a circular driveway in front of Columbus High School and one in back are closed. So what's really going on here? Is the school district indirectly telling terrorists to blow up Carver High School, because Columbus is extra-secure?
So what's a Columbus High School parent to do? The district web site recommends they show up early to drop off children on 17th Street, Forest Avenue or Cherokee Avenue. For those of you who drive through midtown under "alternate sides of the park" rules: stay west for awhile.
The web site discusses purchasing parking decals at Columbus High School -- and it notes they're "not transferable to their students." Everything students learned about sharing from Mister Rogers and Barney the Dinosaur are thrown out the window....
The district web site does NOT mention anything about a Columbus High School parking lot-tery. But it notes: "Parking spots cannot be purchased for future use." That approach might be worth trying at other places, though -- such as offering them to lawyers at the county jail.
So is Bill correct about the results of this project? How do you pave a parking lot, and reduce the number of parking spaces by about half? Hey, maybe I know the answer. Columbus High students will have to learn to be neat and orderly....
Bill doesn't come out and say it, but I assume Columbus High seniors will have first rights to spaces in the newly-paved parking lot. Being in the upper class always has had its privileges - such as dinners at the River Club, for instance.
Hopefully sophomores and freshmen at Columbus High will understand why they can't have their own parking spaces. But then again, maybe I don't understand something - how a 15-year-old can be old enough to have a driver's license.
One other thought comes to mind about this work along Cherokee Avenue. Why not have Columbus High students park big cars along the west side of the avenue, north of the school? They'll provide a natural buffer, to keep drivers from falling into the canal -- and thus solve the guardrail debate.
(And while I'm thinking of it: Why doesn't the Historic Columbus Foundation sell boat rides in that canal, to pay for the proper form of rails along Cherokee Avenue? That draws all sorts of tourists to Venice.)
While Columbus High is opening on schedule, five Muscogee County grade schools will be delayed two weeks due to construction. For these students' parents, two more weeks of "back-to-school" sale ads in the newspaper actually will make some sense.
There's been debate in parts of Georgia and Alabama about the school year starting earlier and earlier. Alabama tourism officials complain August vacation dollars are being lost -- and the state only has so many members of Congress to make up for that.
But school officials argue by starting the school year in early August, the entire first semester can be finished before winter break with no carryover into January. Isn't this strange? Most college football coaches WANT a carryover like that....
THE BIG BLOG QUESTION wants to know what you think about Muscogee County schools opening on August 8 - and of course, some nearby districts opened even earlier. Should schools wait until it's closer to Labor Day, when the weather's a bit cooler? Or do we really want stores to get out holiday merchandise in mid-August?
E-MAIL UPDATE: Now a follow-up to a message with many questions which we posted Sunday:
Good for you. Keep it up, and I mean that (see, I do have a heart).
It's worth noting that the protestors at the funeral were only there a meager 15 minutes before deciding their time was up (if I can only say that in another sense), and there were less than ten of them. [d**n] fools
AR
AR's talking about the group from Fred Phelps's Kansas church, which protested outside the funeral for Army Sergeant Christopher Taylor. Maybe the picketers had their 15 minutes of fame - but if they eventually wind up right, they'll have all eternity to remind you of it.
Speaking of which -- Instant Message to all Christians (even in my own denomination) who scoffed at the work of the late Peter Jennings: At least in some documentaries, he searched for Jesus. What are you doing to get other people interested in joining him?
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