Save the Dogs--Trash the Schools

Nobody's Opinion:

I did a good thing tonight--- I saved a dog from being run over by a truck, and it's a good thing too, because I don't think my neighbor could have taken another tragic blow to her heart.

This was my neighbor who lost her son last year. He was shot point-blank straight in the head at a stoplight by black boys, downtown St. Louis one night, probably over a drug deal, but no one is sure.

They never caught the murderers.

It happened pretty quick---me saving the dog...but I'm sure the bullet to the head was quick too, as unexpected events tend to be.

I was walking my other dogs at night around the block on this fine Indian summer night, and this little miniature Pomeranian munchkin had run out barking at us...crossing the street, right in front of a moving truck.

I stepped out in front of the pickup truck, with my arms up, and grabbed his leash. Good thing the driver was paying attention...he stopped.

I have squirrels bigger than Max in my back yard. Boy, was I relieved when I picked him up, because I knew she had bought him to help ease her pain over her son's death. To see her little companion run over would have been just too much for the poor soul.

"We got him at the pound," she said when I handed him to her.

What was funny, is my neighbor lady was just standing there, and must have let go of the leash. Why, I thought? (She needs knee surgery I found out.) But, I could see by her face that she was not all there.

"Hey, I said, How have you been?" I said.

"Didn't you hear? I was laid off. " (So much for that knee surgery.)

Great--- I thought. Just what little Alex was so scared was going to happen.

Little Alex is her grandson that she is raising because one of her other sons doesn't want him. The kid comes and talks to me...all the time. He was really upset. He couldn't get a bike now he said. The last one he had was stolen and they didn't have the money to replace it.

"The way they did it was so cruel." she said. "They just told everyone to check the Internet and if their name was NOT there, not to bother to come in. Eighteen years I have been teaching there. And Shawn got laid off too."

Shawn was her youngest son of twenty- eight. She has two sons left-- Her husband was a hair dresser and things have been very slow.

"They laid off over 190 teachers." she said.

And I thought, probably mostly white teachers, because the school was predominately black and many of the black parents were complaining about having white teachers, they wanted black teachers. You don't hear about this stuff...but it's true.

As I walked the rest of the way home, feeling badly for her...I was thinking about how the problem of the educational systems was summed up on just my one little block.

Compare this lady's flight with my other neighbor across the street. She got a divorce over 15 years ago, had three daughters, and somehow got a job at the same school where the "teacher" taught, but in the administrative office building. She never had to put up with what the lowly teacher had to put up with every day...pretty much being scared for her life sometimes.

This lady, while "in the office doing who knows what" managed to get a PhD in business, and buy her daughter and herself three brand new mini- vans.

All on the same day...the minivans I mean.

She still has her job. She makes big bucks...and I still don't know who paid for her education, or how she got such a great big salary from being a housewife with nothing more than a high school diploma, but she knew someone.

Both these women are democrats..but...and as you can guess...I get along a lot better with the one who lost her son, and her job, and is raising a grandson, and now has to worry about food.

The other one...is a full- fledged feminNAZI, as Rush would say.

If we got rid of the unions, the ERA, the millions of worthless paper- pushers, who do nothing all day, and just hire decent teachers...we'd be in a lot better shape. Pay some retired teachers be principles.

The hard working teacher will now get canned, so the high paid administrators jobs can be saved. This is ...America.

I'm glad I saved little MAX...I only wished I could have saved his master's job.

So...who is going to save our kids from a nation of ignorant and greedy adults? I don't know, but I'm going to ask MAX next time I see him.

He owes me a big sloppy, sweet puppy kiss.