From Where I Grew Up

They held a meeting this week at the school where I grew up and spent nine of my twelve years.  Basically, they've (the county board) has come to admit that declining numbers are driving the board to consider making this a elementary school only....dropping the seventh through ninth grade.

I read through the local article.  They have 172 kids in the school....seventy less than in 2002.  The board can't keep the high school open in this case and wants the locals to ship the kids off to one of two other schools in the region.

It's the same case that folks are talking about in various parts of the US....the money isn't there and you need to do thing smarter to make this all function.

The curious about this small town school is that it's existed since the early 1920s.  The main building is traditional brick and was a major part of this town's existence.

I have positives and negatives about attending this school.  It was a small atmosphere....barely twenty-four kids in my class.  From the first grade to the ninth grade....there's only four or five kids that appeared or disappeared from the class.  The teachers?  Half were lousy....half were brilliant.  The lunchroom used to serve a stew once a week which was five-star and I could have easily done seconds and thirds.  The heating was geared to the 1940s....it either was maxed out at 100 degrees in the class or it was sixty degrees and barely functioning.

One could bring up the small town Christian community and how the school fitted around that standard.  You didn't have crime or much in the way of weird stuff.

My guess is that the school will change into an elementary school....and within four years...shut down completely.  The board will put the school up eventually for auction after that.   What stood for ninety-plus years....will likely come to an eventual end.

Just Some Observations

Just some observations of looking around from the porch this morning.

Charlie Sheen?  With his show now finished and his antics widely displayed....I'd say that he's unemployable.  No one is going to touch him with a ten-foot pole.  His bank account?  It'll be depleted within twelve months.  Wild way to end a career.

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks guy?  Well...by court order, he's going back to Sweden now to face rape charges.  The humor part of this story yesterday?  His attorney got all pepped up over the way that Sweden runs rape charges.  It's a total and absolutely closed court, with just the lawyers, the accuser, the defendant, and the judge.  Julian's lawyer felt this atmosphere was totally unfair and they needed a transparent and open atmosphere....like WikiLeaks.....to give Julian his innocence.  If I were Julian....I'd start preparing for a 18-month stay in some Swedish jail.  And he might be shocked that someone else rises up to run his "toy" (WikiLeaks).

The name Gaddafi?  It's interesting to look back over the President's bold comments finally coming....against Libya, but never mentioning Gaddafi.  The word Libya was mentioned at least a dozen times in this Presidential statement.  The name Gaddafi....never once.  Maybe he forget the guy's name.  Maybe there's a rule in the White House never to mention a crazy guys name.  It's just hard to figure why the name never got mentioned.

It's a big thing in Alabama this week...Census numbers came out.   Montgomery, which is the underarm of the state...actually grew by 2.1% over the past ten years.  It now stands around 205k.  Birmingham?  It slipped down and lost 30k folks, and barely sits at 212k folks.  Does this mean that Montgomery is turning a corner and establishing itself as a nicer place?  I would kinda doubt that.