Posted on 06/21/2007 9:52:00 AM PDT by Lady J USA 1981
Ascending arena stage, falling on my face
Richard Kerns Cumberland Times-News
They lie silently in a field of black and white, hidden from the eyes of the fingers that forged them. Creator's gaze cast elsewhere on a wild plain of facts and figures, traps and treasures, they're like the shy little kid who doesn't want to be called on in class, camouflaged innocuous, a vanilla pause amidst morsels Cherry Garcia and Heath Bar Blizzard.
It's only the next day that they announce themselves at kitchen tables, waiting rooms and thrones across the tri-state: Boo-boos leaping off the page to bite yours truly in the behind. Like last week.
As I am on vacation this week, I was gonna scoot out and give you poor souls a break who, through some deep character flaw or childhood wound, regularly turn to the Wednesday editorial page to read my stuff. Although I am pleased that you do, you might want to consider professional help.
"If we weren't all crazy we would go insane." So Brother Buffett counsels, in this, the month of Jimmy. Can't kiss it hello nor bid it sad adieu, without recalling the bard's words, "... wishin' every month of the year could be June."
Anyway, which is a sad segue, I planned to take a break on the column this week, but then I went and offended the good people at the Career Center, and felt compelled to return to this space to 'splain myself a bit. Because I didn't see this one coming.
The power of the written word. Amazing to feel and witness, and I am blessed in my position to do both. I've seen folks write letters that spark needed change in our little corner of the world. Seen them offer heartfelt thanks for a helping hand, and share from painful distance, deep longing for the hills of home. Sometimes they hurl words like bricks in fine First Amendment fashion.
But it's not the power of the word alone. Every bit as much, and often far more, it's the power of the platform.
Our words here live and die in the space of days, but for that time they can arc like comets across a horizon that reaches to three states. Or fizzle and fall wholly unnoticed. Either way, it's fun to light the fuse and see what happens.
The Internet platform beats the stuffing out of the Times-News, of course; a place to pontificate, postulate and self-congratulate before an audience of millions. Only, a million share the stage with you. Rare is the Web word that truly reaches the masses.
The Times-News has a circulation of about 30,000, but that's considered low for actual readership because many readers pass the paper along. The Plaza Barber Shop in LaVale probably accounts for 50-plus reads a day - its clientele as sophisticated in their taste for local news as they are in their quest for a quality trim. So double the circulation figure to 60,000. Then take 10 percent who might read your stuff. Conservatively, we stand on this page before 6,000. Not a bad little arena. And an absolute charge to trip the word fantastic upon its stage, or to trip in the trying.
A 94-year old columnist for the Cecil Whig in northeast Maryland died last week after filing 50 years of weekly columns. George Prettyman Sr. had said he "made a lot of friends and no enemies" in that time. We should all aspire to such an epitaph. Unfortunately, that fate is unavailable to me, thanks in large part to Dave my old Faceoff sparring partner, who "outed" me as the Commandant of Camp Lefty. Now roughly 60 percent of readers are seriously predisposed against anything I might write.
Admittedly, I bring some of it on myself. I didn't enjoy the recent scrum with the Gathering of Eagles, but I follow where heart leads. Same with last week's column about Vikki Knieriem, a devoted and beloved Beall teacher who's inexplicably being passed over for the new Mountain Ridge High and transferred to the Career Center. There, her unique and demonstrated strengths - college-prep biology courses - will largely be wasted, because academically oriented courses geared to post-secondary education generally are not the purview of the Career Center.
The vanilla-flavored bite mark on my posterior from last week was actually of my own doing, because I phrased the preceding sentiment poorly, and some at the Career Center understandably took offense. I can live with making enemies of those who would stand between me and the Vietnam Wall, but not the folks at the Career Center. The facility - er, school - serves an invaluable function by imparting career skills fine-tuned to meet the needs of local industry, thus helping young people earn a living wage in Mountain Maryland. No easy feat. I do not doubt the rigor of the various programs, for the private sector is a hard taskmaster, and that's usually the world to which they send their graduates.
My sloppy line, helpfully quoted in a letter below, survived scrutiny because this issue to me isn't about the Career Center at all. Rather, it's about a veteran teacher being denied by unseen, unaccountable bureaucrats. I bow low to teachers of any and all persuasion who see their jobs as more calling than profession. By my experience, that's the vast majority. School system officials regularly tout our experienced teachers as an asset to Allegany County. Yet this is how we treat one of our best? We should be celebrating teachers like Vikki Knieriem. For shame.
In any case, to all at the Career Center whom I offended, my sincere apologies.
Words follow heart, and mine's on vacation. I invite anyone offended by this week's effort to direct their complaints to Dave Boden in my absence. He could use a good slap on his backside. God knows it's wide enough to accommodate the long lines that tend to form on Wednesday mornings...
Is this guy a sophomore -- in high school?
I know all the words he used, but the essay (if you will) doesn’t make much sense.
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