School Days
This continues to be confusing to someone who started school after Labor Day when he was a kid, but some schools around the country started the new year yesterday. August 1! Seems like cruel and unusual punishment to me.
The Fourth of July was just a few weeks ago!
So, parents are buying school supplies for the kids: new clothes, pencils, notebooks, glitter (I’m just guessing because I hear kids use glitter). They might even be buying their kids cell phones, and now some states want to ban them.
When people talk about distractions and wanting to ban cell phones, that’s a little misleading. They want to ban smartphones. That’s where the distractions come from, isn’t it? But what about giving your kid a regular flip phone, something that only makes phone calls, and maybe has texting? (They’re called dumbphones, but I think they might actually be smarter.) That way they can still be in contact with parents but not be distracted, because isn’t the distraction/bullying/gambling coming from the web and apps and social media and everything else we can only access on smartphones? Seems like a good compromise to me, a device that can only be used for – gasp! – actually making phone calls.
Bonus: with a flip phone kids can pretend they’re on Star Trek.
Attack of the Dragonflies
When I was a kid (I seem to be using that phrase more and more these days), I was told by a very cruel adult that if you’re not careful a dragonfly will land on your lips and sew them shut. I wonder if any of the kids on the beach in this video were ever told that?
Uploaded to YouTube by the New York Post
Which State Drinks the Most Beer?
I bet it’s not one of the states you’re thinking of.
Do You Still Use Paper Checks?
I do!
No, I’m not one of those people that will pay for a can of soda with a check (something I saw the person in front of me in line do several years ago). But I still pay a lot of bills with checks.
A lot of people have gotten away from paper checks and instead do everything via credit card and automatic withdrawals. But as the New York Times reports, paper checks refuse to die.
I still have all of my checkbooks from the past 15 years. I may even have older ones than that, I’d have to check (ha, check!). Looking at them is like reading an autobiography. I can find out what day I spent $85.27 at Macy’s!
Sure, there are many things that I absolutely have to pay for online with a credit card: online shopping, my website, subscriptions to America’s greatest magazine. But I still like writing an old-fashioned check when I can. There’s a comfort in using checks, a ritual. You can have them personalized, you can get a nice leather cover, and it’s a pleasant reminder of the way we used to do things (and should still be doing things).
Younger people should use checks, if only so they’ll have a place to regularly practice their signature. And think of how hip they’ll look, setting the trends, using a flip phone and writing paper checks.
RIP Francine Pascal, Bobby Banas, and Bob Booker
Francine Pascal was the creator of the popular Sweet Valley High book series. She died Sunday at the age of 92.
Bobby Banas was a dancer and choreographer who appeared in such films as West Side Story, Mary Poppins, Let’s Make Love, and Bye Bye Birdie, stage musicals like Peter Pan and The King and I, and TV shows like The Kraft Summer Music Hall and The Judy Garland Show (that’s him in front) He died Monday at the age of 90.
Bob Booker co-wrote and produced the hit 1962 parody album The First Family. He died earlier this month at the age of 92.
This Week in History
Herman Melville Born (August 1, 1819)
The Moby Dick author’s last book was an April Fool’s joke on America.
First U.S. Census (August 2, 1790)
There were only 47 people in the United States in 1790!
(Okay, there were actually 3,929,214 people.)
This Week in Saturday Evening Post History: “Soda Fountain Sweeties” by Clarence Underwood (July 27, 1912)
They look like they could be drinking root beer floats, right? I mention that because …
Tuesday is National Root Beer Float Day
Here’s a video from Julie’s Eats & Treats that shows you how to make a simple root beer float. That’s a pretty classic recipe, but if you’re looking for something a little different, try Sandra Lee’s Root Beer Float, which has cream soda, chocolate chip ice cream, and pretzel rods.
Sorry, I don’t know which state drinks the most root beer.
Next Week’s Holidays and Events
First Issue of The Saturday Evening Post (August 4, 1821)
It’s not online, but here’s the issue from just two weeks later. There’s an ad on the front page for bottled beer!
Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day (August 8)
I have to mention this holiday every year. I mean, look at the name!
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Comments
I write checks for donations (church, political, etc.), insurance payments, and places where they want to charge you a premium charge on top of the original charge (often called a “convenience charge”) when using a card. I also write checks for monetary gifts at Christmas, birthdays, weddings, and graduations when those occasions come about. I will continue my practice in writing checks and maintaining a check register as long as I am of sound mind and body. Also, I receive rent payments in paper check form each month and year-end. I don’t pay anything using any sort of phone app. I don’t trust the stability of the network or security behind them. I will however go to my banks’ web sites and “pay by bank” online using my desktop computer only with Norton security and bank security as fraud prevention measures.
Now to comment on the earlier start of schools, I agree August is too early to start and noticed it kept inching up earlier especially at the time they began talking about “year-round schooling” some years back here in TN. I am a substitute teacher at a local rural high school and often students have to be pulled out of classes to assist with duties on the farm, like putting up hay, silage, etc. and August is a prime time for that in the South. There are several items of note….1. It used to be the school year consisted of 175 (or 176 in some cases) days. Now it consists of 180 days which is one extra week than before and equating overall to almost 1/2 a calendar year. That’s not right. 2. There is too much nonsense that goes on (at the high school level anyway) that takes students out of the classroom setting that often lasts a week at a time. These events are not necessarily sporting events or even associated with those events, thereof. I’ve witnessed events where they bring students into the gym where they watch teachers playing musical chairs or have some sort of balloon bursting event. I have yet to understand what anything like this has to do with education. And you wonder why our students lag behind nowadays? Perhaps it because, the teachers want to remain kids themselves. There definitely is some accountability needed, 3. There are more extended breaks (days off) than ever before. There is a one week Fall Break in October. There is a one week Thanksgiving Break in November. There is still a two plus week off for Christmas and New Year’s Day. There is a one week Spring Break usually in March/Early April. There is a shorter, 2-4 day break for Easter Monday/Good Friday. And of course you have days off for Labour Day, Veteran’s Day, President’s Day, MLK Day, and so on.
So perhaps with all these factors combined, that is one reason the school year start keeps getting pushed up. You’d just have to be there to experience what I see. I think the “nonsense” is the worse of all the factors mentioned. You could easily scale back the school year to 175 days, start in September after Labour Day and end in May after Memorial Day if all the unnecessary nonsense in schools was eliminated.
I use a check every month to pay my rent. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t want a management company having direct access to my bank account.
School in most of southeastern Michigan still begins the day after Labor Day–as it should. I don’t understand the rush to send children back in August. It makes me crazy when the local Dollar Tree puts out school supplies the day after July 4th.
And now some people are putting up Halloween decorations throughout the summer. It’s called “Summerween”. Why are so many people always trying to rush the holidays & seasons?
Starting school on August 1st; this past Thursday? That’s insane. I guess that makes the LAUSD’s 8/14 start date in my coocoo for cocoa puffs state seem closer to normal. It used to be after Labor Day out here too. and they’d ‘ease’ you in with 2 half days before the whole day. Still, with over 100 degree heat continued projections, it’s not good.
Not sure about the use of glitter now, but we’d use it occasionally on art projects in class. Having that sink in the classroom was wonderful. I think you’re right on the phones. Something like a basic cell (or ‘dumb’ phone) is a smart compromise. You just can’t be too sure or careful these days with shootings, in wanting peace of mind.
Those dragonflies are pretty scary per that video link. A small state with a big problem unless/until it’s resolved.
Interesting about the beer consumption, even though I don’t drink it or any booze. I use paper checks occasionally, still having some fresh ‘books’ from 2007 still unused. I pay LADWP, Spectrum, the IRS, the gas company, and The Saturday Evening Post with my debit card; the HOA (haate that one) with a money order.
Thanks for the link on Bob Booker. My parents had ‘The First Family’ album and did play it at the time. Of course after it happened, it was put away and not seen or heard ever again. On a happier note, LOVE that 1912 cover of the ladies drinking root beer or was it sarsaparilla back then? Not sure. Root beer though, is my kind of beer.
Try as I may, it’s a challenge reading the newspaper Posts from the early 19th century due to both the printing itself, and what’s being said. My difficulties though are on me. It was written for those people at that time, and that’s it. Still, after the initial shock wore off, the people of 1821 would learn to love today’s version right quick.