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The contents of the “Weekly Feature” page are provided
to you for your entertainment, amusement, and perhaps information.
Here you may find articles of interest, pictures, historical information
on the Club, or whatever shuffles to the top of the pile on our
desk. The only defined characteristic of this space is that we
will make every effort to change/replace it around the middle of
each week. Thank you for visiting, and please stop by again. Click
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
Once again, it's that time of year, when our educational institutions
crank open the floodgates and release upon us a new crop of graduates,
eager
to take their
place in the world. Most of us can remember that magic moment when the last
bell, on that last day, finally rang. Even for those not graduating,
the magic was
there; that unmistakable “Last Day of School” feeling. Looking back
at the younger years, I'm not so sure just what the attraction was, since a few
days later most of us would be sweating in a hay mow or cutting thistles in a
humid cornfield somewhere. Still better than algebra, I guess. But, for the graduates,
there was an added dimension, they knew when they walked out that door, they
weren't going back, ever again. There's a life lesson there. You really never
can. “The moving finger, having writ, moves on”. We were all glad
to get out, but most of us missed it when it was behind us. Departing the familiar
for the unknown is not always a comfortable task. I fear that is more true today
than when many of us were released to the world beyond those one-way doors. Just
watching a couple segments of the evening news in recent months is enough to
give a thinking person cause for concern about the future that awaits the class
of 2008. The numbers on the sign in front of your local gas station are spinning
up faster than the burger counter on the golden arches across the street. In
spite of the new department, the old “homeland” still doesn't feel
as secure as we'd like. The graduate that aspires to higher education will saddle
himself with enough debt to last a lifetime, and find himself competing with
hundreds of other well qualified applicants for jobs that may well be less desirable
than they hoped for. Those of us in the “Boomer” era all grew up
assuming that each generation would do better than the preceding one. That
prediction seems a little harder to support with the evidence at hand today.
A prominent Presidential candidate promises to reward those who vote
for him with “change”, as though he were its sole provider.
Seems to me, based on several decades of observation, it kinda happens
anyway, and I'm not
so sure I like it.
Whatever the future holds for them, we gladly set aside this moment
to salute the class of 2008 and wish for them that they aim high, dream
big, and bring
some balance back into the Social Security system.
For a little perspective on the last day of school and how things
change, we offer the following photo of my Dad's graduating class (8th
grade) in
1914.
I think that was the school bus behind and to the left of the teacher
(Uncle Frank)
Click photo to enlarge:
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