Who Says?

Direct quote from a ‘view’ without author credit in a newspaper:
“A combination of economic realities have combined to reduce the number of programs and teachers, leaving millions of young children across the country without access to a preschool setting that can influence their academic and behavioral futures.”

The writer¹ of the article must/might be included in the group without having had the afore mentioned setting. The subject of the sentence ‘combination’ is singular, therefore it should read ‘has combined’ not have combined.²

This octogenarian did not go to preschool or kindergarten and missed half or more of grades one through three but earned a BA and MS.

Many well educated and successful octogenarians I know do not have preschool or kindergarten in their academic resume. Do I dare say play time was not harmful to their academic and behavioral futures?

One of my college professors with a PhD did not finish high school. Is it possible his not having a high school diploma is the result of no preschool or kindergarten?

A friend–National Merit Scholar–finished high school with a D average and went to a private preschool and kindergarten. Oh, he has a BA and MS GPA of 4.00.

Bill Gates never finished his undergraduate degree—the billionaire dropped out of Harvard University. Was he set up for success by going to preschool and kindergarten?

Just say’n, … errr … just ask’n!

Notes

1
Or, was it AI generated???
2
The writer may have been thinking ‘realities’ the object of a preposition, was the subject.

Sport Thoughts

Watching sports makes me wonder about concentration.

A baseball crowd yells, “No stick or rag arm.”

The rag arm follows with a 90+mps ball to no stick.

With the crowd screaming and the announcer shouting, the batter concentrates as the ball moves through the air at more than 132 ft/sec. No stick has less than a half-second to watch and swing or not.

Total silence, except for motor humming from the blimp above, is asked–yea demanded–as the golfer addresses a nonmoving ball setting on a tee.

Even the announcer, who is nowhere near the golfer, nearly whispers.

The crowd yells and opponents waive their hands in the BB player’s face as one is popped in from 30 ft. Or the ball is passed to one who is bumped and jostled while dunking the ball.

Opposing coaches simultaneously shout at players to do something different.

A player disregards six or eight hundred lbs. of well-padded opponents trying to crush him.

Oh-by-the-way, the fans on both sides, and perhaps a few coaches are yelling their heads off as the QB hits a moving target 40-yards away.

As a receiver, how much concentration does it take to know you are about to be smashed if you make the catch or not?

Yes, it takes great skill to make a 20 ft. putt on a rolling surface, but no one, not one is yelling or waving hands as the skill is performed.

OBTW, I still like watching golf!

Just say’n!

Back Then

Back then, Sixty-five-years-ago, July 11, 1958, was a Friday.

It was eighty degrees.¹ when I caught a no AC Greyhound shuttle for the 20-minute ride from Ft. Lewis, WA, to Tacoma. The heat didn’t bother because I thought it was my last day in the Army.

My uncle picked me up at the bus station. I had travel pay to get me back to Minnesota, but Uncle Al and Aunt Virginia were taking a trip to North Dakota on the 15th and invited me to ride with them.

The Army was shipping my duffel bag with most of my clothing, and I hadn’t anticipated the invite. I expected to board a bus and travel the 1,550 mile, twenty-three-hour trip wearing what I had on.

Knowing I’d be in a car without air conditioning for several days with relatives I barely knew, I used part of my travel allowance for a change of outer clothing and several days of underwear and socks.

I knew job opportunities were rare back home, so I looked to see what was available in the Seattle area. Boeing was hiring and during an interview, I was told they would hold a job for me until the first of August. Army electronics training and having had a TS clearance made me a good candidate for working on the 707s being built to replace the aging propeller driven presidential airliner fleet.

It’s been a blessing that I didn’t just take a bus ride instead of having a few days in Seattle/Tacoma after that day 65 years ago./div>

What happened in early June back then that put me at Ft. Lewis is another story too.

Notes

1
No! I don’t remember. I looked it up on the Weather Underground history page.

Clarify Please

Scrolling banner on news program this morning:
“… pilot parachutes to safety after a glider crash.”¹

Would someone please clarify which of the meanings of after fit the incident.

adverb: following in time or place; we arrived shortly after; returned 20 years after

preposition: behind in place; people lined up one after another

subsequent to in time or order; 20 minutes after 6

subsequent to and in view of; after all our advice

conjunction: subsequently to the time when; We will come after we make plans.

adjective: later in time, in after years

Perhaps the sequence of events went: the pilot crashed the glider onto a ledge 1000 ft. above the base of a cliff and parachuted to safety after the crash.

Or, maybe it was a mid-air crash.

Well, most of us will assume the glider crashed after the pilot bailed out, but why not say it correctly in the first place?

Notes

1
The bold is my doing.

Not Uncle Corn

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.¹
Not! But it’s grown in my back yard.

My first memory of corn is of an unpleasant experience. The cobs were cold, but cooked and eaten with little else. My consumption was followed by barfing in the car. There is more to that story, but this isn’t the time or place.

I like corn in taco salad, in soup, creamed, and in almost any preparation–even on veggie pizza. In spite of the experience before I was ten, I like corn on the cob the best.

As an early teen, we had ‘they will never miss a few ears’ picked from fields along the road. Of course, that was what we called field corn grown for animal feed, not the sweet corn destined for human consumption.

I anticipate having my own crop from this year steamed or boiled and served with butter and a little salt-and-pepper. And it looks like there will be enough to share.

Seeing my uncle’s corn fields in Minnesota after being in North Dakota where the fields were mostly winter wheat, was a nice² experience. He was especially proud of his ‘for the fair’ field. It was enclosed by a stand of trees but harvestable.

I remember him standing on the seat of his John Deere tractor to reach the tassels. Organic wasn’t a common word, but all of the natural fertilizer gleaned from the milk cows made that field so. Well, as I remember the other fields got the same treatment, but he said he had a secret for growing his ‘fair’ corn.

During the season, every time he was in town, we got a good quantity of garden corn. We had c-o-t-c for several meals, and my mother stripped the cobs and canned the rest.

There is more to corn than meets an elephant’s eye, but that’s all for now.

Notes

1
From Oh What A Beautiful Morning: Song by Gordon MacRae.
2
Nice seems generic, but my brain isn’t forming something more descriptive.