Venango County School Consolidation

(News-Herald, May 29) Valley Grove schools are struggling with administrative cuts. Oil City School District ranks on the undesirable end of the poverty scale. Franklin schools are whittling down staff a piece of teacher at a time. Cranberry School District has rejected a fact-finding report in current contract negotiations. And every school district is wrestling with bus fleet gas costs.

There are other challenges. Most of the county school building boom came in the sixties; districts are looking at aging school buildings that need serious attention, even as the population of those buildings is shrinking.

County schools carry more than the average state percentage of learning support students (what we once called “special ed”). Our regional reputation as a welfare mecca provides a steady influx of students from below the poverty line. Both groups bring special needs and challenges to school.

And lest we forget, the gummint wants every student to be above average within the next five or six years.

To meet all these challenges, schools need strong teaching staffs. That means recruiting the best teachers, but that requires money and creative aggressiveness in hiring. It also means getting the best out of the people we do hire, but that requires bold and clear leadership to train and develop staff.

Lately all of these issues are under frequent discussion, which means that it’s time, once again, to bring up the 800-pound gorilla that’s always in the room when we talk about local schools.

Venango County does not need four separate school districts.

Forty years ago, the picture was different. Franklin was considering building a separate Middle School, and the district was sending portable schoolrooms to Utica to deal with growing student population. In 1968, Franklin High School graduated 228 students; Cranberry, 184; Rocky Grove, 125. Oil City handed diplomas to 290 students. Thirty years ago, Rocky Grove still put out over 130 grads. Franklin easily topped 200, and Oil City graduated over 300.

But after another decade passed, the picture changed. RGHS graduating classes have not seen triple digits since; the current senior class is barely more than half the size of the group thirty years ago. Valley Grove is the one district of the four without a projected downward trend. Cranberry (125 seniors) and Franklin (under 200) both show downward trends for the next twelve years. Oil City (177 seniors) can expect some fluctuations, but no actual long-term growth.

In short, all four districts are maintaining facilities built for larger populations than they currently serve.

These are not easy choices. Trying to jam students into too-small facilities is ugly business, so districts must be careful not to lose capacity they could someday need. On the other hand, maintaining facilities for “ghost students” is expensive.

On top of that, the vagaries of PA school law lead to oddly-shaped districts; every morning many Venangoland students ride the bus through one district in order to arrive in another. At the very least, not very fuel-efficient.

How many districts do we really need? Two would be plenty. Oil City could absorb Cranberry and still serve fewer students than it did thirty years ago. Franklin plus Valley Grove would create a larger district than in the past, but in all cases, we would end up with a district with more than enough capacity, saving money now and preserving space that could be used in the event of a sudden influx of students.

It makes sense. Each new district could have separate high schools and middle schools—a major educational bonus. The combined schools could offer more programs, staff more efficiently, save money by cutting redundant administrative personnel. Transportation costs could be trimmed. And really—our students already play sports together, go to church together, even date across district boundaries.

Just as the common sense arguments in favor of merger are well known, so are the objections. The political wrangling between school boards would require divine intervention (Cranberry board members can’t even share power with each other—another board in the room might make heads explode).

And in a region where so many people identify for life with their alma maters, the state supreme court might be needed to settle the mascot question. Cranberry oil? An armored oriole?

There’s no question that small local schools with strong community identity are great, a luxury that local generations have been fortunate to enjoy. But it’s time once again to ask the question—how much do you really want to pay for it?

The Summer Begins

For those of you who are actually in the neighborhood, just a quick mention/reminder that the Franklin Silver Cornet Band will kick off summers in the Franklin park with a concert tomorrow night at 7:30. The concerts are free and open to the public. Bring your own chair or blanket (we sell popcorn on the premises). It looks like it's going to be a good evening. If you've never enjoyed our little slice of small-town Americana, there's no time like the present. And if you are a regular, you should know that in addition to our usual acquisitions of new music, we've made it a point to pull out some music that hasn't seen the light of day in decades. It's practically like Christmas in the summer!

What I Learned This Decade

(News-Herald, May 22) Today’s column marks ten years of filling up this weekly space. I have voiced many opinions (about 416,000 words—almost double the number of words in Moby Dick) but I decided to mark my anniversary by stating as clearly and briefly as I can what I actually believe. So…

There is a God. However, a human trying to understand God is like my dog trying to understand my Hawaiian shirt collection. Any human who claims to know exactly what God is about is full of bologna.

Most of human existence is wasted on silly junk that we just make up. We spend 95% of our time and care on things of no importance; only the other 5% has value or reality. Many people do not disagree with those numbers, but most disagree vehemently about what, exactly, constitutes that 5%.

Whatever you’re doing, try to spot the main point. This requires thinking and paying attention—the main point is almost never “to just go through the motions.” It is not necessary to be particularly smart. If you can just shut up and pay attention, you can fill in the holes in your smarts.

Comfort and convenience are the enemies of everything great and good. People go to great lengths to avoid anything difficult, uncomfortable or inconvenient. Everybody succumbs to this temptation now and then; that’s just human. Some people are ruled by it; they become truly bad people.

In every aspect of your life, you are always either getting better or getting worse. There is no standing still. If you think you have something mastered and no longer need to work on it, you are getting worse.

Life normally generates plenty of conflict, heartache and hurt. It is a foolish waste to make a special effort to add, on purpose, more hurt and heartache to the world. Our minimum responsibilities as human beings include looking out for each other and being kind.

Being kind is not the same as being nice. It is not kind to offer warm fuzzy affirmations to someone who is driving himself over a cliff. It is almost never kind to lie to someone, even though the truth can be hard.

Very few situations are improved by withholding the truth.

It is important to make judgment calls and to make the very best decisions that we can on any given day without waffling or flinching. At the same time, it would be a mistake to believe that you are so wise that you need never listen to another viewpoint. No good judgment was ever harmed by being re-examined. You can never learn too much.

Be a pessimist about the present and an optimist about the future. Be ruthless about confronting any ugly truth now, and always be certain that no matter how bad the situation is, the next moment could still bring something better. One of the great tricks of evil is the belief that if you have made ten bad choices in a row, the eleventh is sure to be bad and you might as well not bother to try. That’s a lie. No matter how many bad choices you have made, the next choice could be a right choice. Not only can you try to get it right, but you must try. Redemption is not just a possibility, but a responsibility.

There’s a long list of problems that government cannot solve. It’s a bad idea to use government as a tool to implement the horribly common human impulse to make other people behave the way we think they’re supposed to.

Life is like a card game. Fortune deals the cards, and those cards decide what choices you have. Within those limits, the outcome will be determined by your skill, wisdom, and nerve. Fortune (God, fate—pick your favorite) and human effort determine each outcome; to imagine it’s all fortune is lazy, and to imagine that it’s all human effort is egotistically foolish.

Every choice happens where the circumstances of your life intersect with who you are at that moment. Nobody can know what that intersection looks like but you.

Figure out what you believe the point is. Never stop figuring. At the same time, act as if you really mean what you say you believe.

Every moment in life is one of a kind. Filling it with spirit, meaning, beauty, purpose, use and sense is important. Growing and getting better, and helping others do the same, is most of what we are made for.

This is what I've been up to this weekend. My daughter is now officially a college graduate.

Springtime in Venangoland

(News-Herald, May 15) After a quick and cruel tease, spring appears to finally be arriving in Venangoland.

To tell the truth, spring is not my favorite season; I’m much more of an autumn guy. But I’m glad to live somewhere that actually has seasons, particularly after nine months of weather reports from my son in Southern California (“Well, today it was warm and sunny. Kind of like yesterday. But I think tomorrow it might be sunny and warm.”)

Spring in Venangoland is a big reveal. For a few weeks, you can climb up on the hills, clear of snow and slush, and find spectacular views unhampered by leaves and greenery. A few weeks back I discovered that Franklin Heights is still growing, with a small batch of houses now built where you can stand in the back yard and throw a rock that will land on Sixth Street. It puts you right on the old dirt road that snakes around the top of the hill. One end comes out at the spot known as “back the Gurney,” site of decades of various teenaged misbehavior; the other end winds around to the Third Street hollow (does anybody know the story behind the foundation and lot perched halfway up the hill above Fourth Street?). The whole length of that dirt path offers a fabulous view of Franklin and the river. Or at least it did until the recent eruption of leafery.

Down by the river, spring reveals what the waterways have been up to. Down in my neck of the riverbank, the water chewed its way through a lot of riverside growth and dirt (we lost a wide swath of lawn in my neighborhood).

To really see what the river has been up to, you have to get out on it. Personally, I follow the 100 rule—if the air and water temperatures don’t add up to 100, I stay on land—so I only recently dragged the kayak out of the basement and started paddling upstream.

Now, I love my bicycle. I think the bike trail is one of the great local resources. I look forward to many fine trips up to Oil City and down to the Belmar bridge. Traveling out the Sandycreek spur toward Van or pedaling all the way down to Emlenton reminds me that I live in the middle of a gorgeous park the likes of which the poor, deprived urban dwellers can only dream of. An active biker can see most of the county without burning a drop of gas.

It’s not perfect. The Great Missing Link in Venangoland bicycling is the cities themselves. We could bicycle to one of the three sister cities to eat out or shop—if we could get around the cities on the bikes AND if we had someplace to put the bikes when we got there.

There have been attempts to even out some sidewalks—great, if you want to get off your bicycle and walk beside it. For riding, the street works much better (provided you can avoid getting smushed by traffic). Some bike racks are popping up here and there. I hope more appear, but I still love my bike.

As much as I love it, though, the kayak is my recreational vehicle of choice. There is nothing like being out on the water, watching the wildlife as the great green gentle valleys slip by.

I’ve seen kayak traffic increase over the years, so other folks must be catching on. My neighbors at Wiegel Brothers Marina have even launched an entire Big House Full O’Paddle Sport Stuff across the street from their regular shop. (Since I live across the river from Country Pedalers, I am happily located at the nexus of bikes and boats in Venangoland.) These days, kayaks are made out of materials that will last until long after the last cockroach has keeled over, so a careful kayak purchase can keep you entertained for years and years (though, as with bicycles, there are plenty of handy accessories that can add to your fun and make you look really cool, too).

It should be said that water sports have to be taken seriously; our local waterways are not the most treacherous, but a heedless weekend warrior at the wrong time under the wrong conditions can still get in serious trouble. But approached with respect, the region’s rivers and creeks (don’t forget the Clarion River) can be an enormous source of fun and relaxation.

Poor Oil City Schools

(News-Herald, May 8) What does it mean to say that Oil City has the tenth poorest PA school district?

That statistic is based on a formula using property values and personal incomes. But there are certainly other ways to calculate the economic health of a school district. If we look at poverty rates, Oil City didn’t make the bottom ten on the last census. 2006 figures for the district show about 35% economically disadvantaged students (compared to over 42% for Franklin). The state figure is 31%, so Oil City is on the high side, but not spectacularly so.

And there are districts like Forest schools which have to figure out how to slice a million bucks from their budget while handling the rising costs of transporting students enough miles to make a trip to Mars and back—every single day.

But poor doesn’t equal stupid. The bottom-ten ranking has to do with the district’s ability to raise money, and that’s a factor that’s only partly quantifiable.

No area school district has suffered a larger identity crisis over the past several decades than Oil City. When the current high school opened in 1968, the district had over 4500 students. Today, enrollment is just over 2300. In other words, Oil City School District could absorb all of the students from Franklin Schools and still be smaller than it was a generation ago (with room left over for Valley Grove).

To lose the position of regional giant is not easy, particularly in an area where folks identify closely with their school of origin and maintain loyalties based the building in which they slept through class fifty years ago. That’s why the economic picture is not just a matter of simple numbers. Supporting a school system is also a matter of will, and in this respect we are strangely conflicted.

On the one hand, it’s not hard to find folks around here who will be Oilers or Knights till the day they die. On the other hand, if the state made it legal, I believe you could muster much support for a ballot item to close the local school district.

There are many voices to overcome in the battle to fund schools.

“Don’t nobody need that fancy schoolin’. I didn’t.” This generally from the person who either retired or was laid off from the industrial job that is now gone forever. The argument works if the plan is to transport graduates via time machine to the past. For students who live in the present, competing for jobs with sixty gazillion Chinese and Indian students requires a bit more

Then there’s the ever-popular, “I don’t have kids going to school here. Why should I pay school taxes?” Let me be clear as I can be—that attitude is just stupid.

Do you want to live in a world where people can get jobs that allow them to be solid, contributing taxpayers? Do you want votes cast by people smart enough not to fall for any stupid thing? Do you want your neighbors, co-workers, employees, and people who serve you to be, well, not unedumacated boneheads? I’ll bet you answered yes to at least one of these. And that’s why you pay school taxes.

That said, schools like Oil City must face economic reality. If you don’t have enough money for a Lexus, you may have to make do with a used Yugo. You can’t spend what you don’t have. Still, within that basic economic reality, there’s a lot of room to maneuver. Individuals, corporations, and governments often manage to find a way to get what they want—if they really, really want it. There’s the will.

If the people of Oil City want to maintain a top-notch school system, they’ll find a way. If all they want is to provide just enough school system to avoid getting sued, then that’s all they’ll get. If the schools are led by leaders with vision and determination to get the best they can out of the resources they have, then the schools will still be excellent. If they’d rather not work that hard, then the schools will drift and decay.

It’s a delicate balance. Oil City schools can’t tax property owners to death. But “to death” does not mean “at all.” And no community ever attracted new citizens with the slogan “Our schools—As Cheap as the Law Will Allow.”

What does Oil City’s place on the bottom ten list mean? It doesn’t have to mean a thing.

In Praise of Mistakes

(News-Herald, May 1) I write today in praise of mistakes.

Being wrong has great value in this world.

First of all, negative examples can be powerful. The thing about people who do things right and do them well is that they make so much of it seem natural and easy. When you watch a perfect performance by an athlete or musician, you can’t imagine that it could have been done any other way. It’s hard to learn from perfection.

But while it often seems as if there’s only one way to be great, there are a thousand ways to mess things up. Each one of them is instructive. The managers of Oil City and Franklin hospitals undoubtedly did a thousand things correctly over the decades, and those decisions are lost to posterity. But the botched merger of the two facilities is a management manual of mangled – well, I’ve run out of M words, but you get the idea. Even Herb Baum claims to have learned from his gross mishandling of Quaker State’s business in Oil City.

Of course, these lessons are not always worth the cost of the actual mistake. Like many divorced men, I can say that I learned a great deal from my marital meltdown. I also learned a lot from the time I lay down on a bunch of bees and the time I picked up a white hot piece of charcoal. Yet as instructional as all these life experiences have been, I can’t say that I would recommend any of them to someone else.

There is another value in making mistakes. Oddly enough, Albert Einstein is a fine example of this brand of useful mistakenness.

Among his other many achievements, Einstein laid the groundwork for quantum physics (which we are not going to explore today, thank you very much). But Einstein didn’t like quantum physics, and could never shake the feeling that it was just wrong.

And so, having laid the foundation, he proceeded to toss bricks at the young scientists who tried to build the house. On numerous occasions Einstein confronted the young turks of physics with challenge after challenge—“If quantum theory is right, then how do you explain X?” Now, Einstein was always a scientist about this. The challenges reportedly never contained a hint of “You stupid jerk kids.”

But the challenges forced the young pioneers of quantum theory to refine their ideas, to correct their mistakes, and otherwise try to find answers for the smartest man in the world. In the end, with his spirited dissent, Einstein drove the development of quantum theory forward, even though every step forward suggested that he was wrong.

At various times, various people have dreamt of the beautiful, efficient glory of having everyone On The Same Page. If we just had everyone in agreement, we could rip forward with all resources focused with laser-like intensity on a clear, consistent goal.

It’s a beautiful and inspiring picture, but it only works as long as whoever is picking the page picks the right page 100% of the time. And the only thing that is 100% correct is the statement, “Nobody is right 100% of the time.”

It doesn’t matter whether you’re the Grand Imperial Poohbah in charge of Frakistan’s Five Year Plan or the uber-bossy head of a roadside ice cream stand—if your plan is that you will never listen to anyone because you will always be right and they will always be wrong, you’re headed for trouble.

One of the things that has always made America great is the Right to Make Mistakes. Sometimes the only path to the bright sunny meadow is through the dark forest. Sometimes messing up is the only way to learn what we need to know to get things right. Nobody should want to be mistaken, but I’ve seen plenty of folks who were so afraid of making a mistake that they didn’t make anything at all. A caterpillar is not nature’s mistake in the attempt to create a butterfly; it’s just a necessary step on the way.

We need people who are mistaken, just as we all the need the flexibility to let go of our own cherished mistakes. When it comes to local development, we’re better off having many people try many different things. Some of them may well bomb, but that’s better than an endlessly paralyzed search for the One Right Thing to do.

Consultants of Nazareth

(News-Herald, April 2000) Scholars recently revealed that among the fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls they have found direct evidence of the first known management consultants:

MEMO TO: Jesus of Nazareth, et al

FROM: Ernest Livgood, Management Consultant, Campaign for Sensitive Personhood

Here at CSP we have been following your career with some interest. We appreciate your invitation to join you in your work, but feel there are several points of sensitivity and effective packaging which you first need to address.

STAFFING: Your organization is simply too patriarchal-- too many guys. All twelve of your disciples are young working-class males of Middle Eastern/Jewish heritage. We suggest a group that better represents cultural diversity-- add at least three women, a Caucasian, and a few Africans. Perhaps some Confucians and Buddhists. A druid would be a nice touch, too.

You also show constant gender bias by referring repeatedly to God as a male. It would help if you could occasionally alternate the use of "Mother" and "Father." A better solution would be to refer to the Supreme Being with a gender-neutral term such as "Parent" or "Large Nurturing Presence."

QUALITY: We strongly recommend instituting a Total Quality system. While your organization possesses many of the characteristics of a fine collaborative effort, too many of your policies are handed down in a "top down" management style. Your "Sermon on the Mount," for instance, would benefit from being processed through a shared decision making model, allowing more of your customers a buy-in with the concepts.

To demonstrate the benefit of this approach, we have taken the liberty of forming a focus group here to refine some of the elements of that sermon. Our feeling was that, for example, the Beatitudes raised unreasonably high performance expectations and were also too exclusive.

For example, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Let us suggest instead, "Good news and positive energy are highly probable to those who express a reasonable humility that is still consistent with a high level of self-esteem based on a positive self-image growing out of whatever social, cultural or lifestyle choice backgrounds they may possess, because these individuals and many somewhat like them will eventually receive a just and reasonable portion of success (provided they are not the victims of political injustice from any oppressive government systems which fail to recognize their unique value as individuals)."

I think you will agree that this team-generated statement is much more inclusive. It also creates an expectation that we feel is less likely to lead to any legal action by any disappointed customers.

INFLEXIBILITY: Certain elements of your movement are simply too strict. Your regrettable tendency to label certain sorts of behavior as "sinful" and suggest that it could result in "eternal damnation" is entirely too harsh. Throwing all those potential sponsors out of the temple was simply bad business. If you have not already heard from the ACLU, I am sure that you will soon (See our attached memo re: "The Ten Guidelines").

At the same time, we are puzzled over your treatment of members of the movement who depart from the accepted guidelines. For these individuals to simply pray for forgiveness seems rather lax and liable to dilute brand identity and the movement's strength. It seems to us that some sort of sensitivity retraining before allowing them to reenter communion with the Large Nurturing Presence would help assure that everyone is on the same page.

The notion that their sin and subsequent forgiveness are somehow between them and the Supreme Being simply doesn't allow for enough checks and controls. We would also recommend that the practice of speaking in tongues be phased out. Instead, we recommend that a core committee develop a mission statement that members be encouraged to repeat in moments of extreme motivational enthusiasm. It might begin, "As persons of varied life choices, we are pleased to form consensus with the Large Nurturing Presence--"

At this point the scroll breaks off. Scholars will not yet comment on whether the charred edges are indicative of a lightning strike.

Frank Evans

(News-Herald, April 24) Amazing sometimes how one family’s story can stretch over so much time and distance. Here’s where a simple thread with just one local name took me.

The First Baptist Church started up in Franklin in 1867 with 23 members. By 1874 they were ready to build a full-sized church to seat 450 members (with Charles Miller footing a good chunk of the bill). That year the church hired the Rev. Frederick Evans, a minister in his early thirties, born in Wales and immigrated to the US (probably New York City) in 1866; it’s likely that this was one of the many times that Miller used his considerable financial resources to recruit and hire top notch people to fill positions in his favorite organizations.

Evans (Ednyfed, to his Welsh family) never lost his connection to Wales; the Baptists of Franklin granted him a leave to return there where he delivered lectures in Salem Chapel, Glamorgan. Afterwards, he returned to Franklin and a newly-built parsonage, where he lived with his family. In print (not local) he was called one of the most moving preachers in all of Wales and America, and under his leadership, the First Baptist Church increased membership from 80 to nearly 300.

His son Frank was born here in 1876. The Reverend retired and returned to Wales, where he passed away in 1897. The next year, Frank served as an infantryman in the Spanish-American War right after graduating from Princeton. Apparently the military life agreed with him because he was commissioned to the marines in 1900.

By 1909 Frank Evans was a retired marine captain serving as secretary to US Senator Briggs of New Jersey. In October of that year he married Esther Caldwell Townsend of New York City, niece of Lawrence Townsend, former US ambassador to Portugal and Belgium. The couple’s wedding announcement ran in the New York Times.

Frank soon returned to military service first in the Philippines, and then in France during World War I, where he won a citation for meritorious conduct and a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. Other post war service included duty in Haiti as Chief of the Gender merle d’Haiti. He retired to Hawaii, where he died in 1941.

But the Evans name had not yet finished its long travels from home in Venangoland.

In 1944, the Bethlehem Steel Company manufactured an Allen N. Sumner class destroyer. She was launched in October of 1944, sponsored by Frank Evans’s widow, and commissioned in February of 1945 as the USS Frank E. Evans.

After arriving in Pearl Harbor, the Evans performed radar picket and escort duty, until after the war. She was placed on reserve in 1949, but reactivated in less than a year to serve with the Seventh Fleet in the Korean War. She served two tours of duty there, including the siege of Wonsan. After the war the Evans remained on patrol duty in the Far East, but there was one more chapter left.

In 1969 the Evans was near Saigon in company with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. They were part of SEATO exercise called “Sea Spirit.” A Time magazine report of the event described a dinner with the Melbourne’s captain, John P. Stevenson, reflecting on the horror five years earlier when the Melbourne had collided with a destroyer, sliced it open, and killed 82 hands. Australia could not stand another such disaster.

But four days later, the Melbourne cut the Evans in half. In just five minutes, the bow sank and took 74 men to their deaths (including three brothers from Nebraska).

The Australians made heroic rescue efforts. The Evans’s captain was reported asleep, a less-experienced officer responsible for a wrong turn that put the Evans in harm’s way. It didn’t matter; Stevenson was quickly hung out to dry for the disaster.

Stevenson’s wife Jo flew to be with him at the inquiry and on her own took page upon page of notes, which she later used in writing the book In the Wake as an attempt to cleanse the record. In 1999 Australia marked the anniversary of the collision, one of the worst maritime disasters ever for their nation, and Jo Stevenson was still trying to clear her husband’s name.

Her desire to clear his name is understandable; a name can travel long and far. The Evans name, even with its small roots in Venangoland, managed to spend a century criss-crossing the entire globe.

NCLB & the Texas Miracle

(News-Herald, January 2004) Okay, if it seems sometimes that I’m a little cynical about the current wave of education reforms, let me tell you a story.

One of the selling points of “No Child Left Standing” (or “Behind” or “In Public School” or whatever we’re calling it these days) was that it was a national version of highly successful reforms already proven in Texas. In 2000, Bush cheered the “Texas Educational Miracle.”

Since then, word has slowly been emerging that the miracle is slightly less miraculous than when your Uncle Floyd pulled a nickel out of your ear. But it does provide a good view of how this drive for “accountability” plays out in the field.

In Houston in February of this year, an assistant principal in Houston was surprised to discover that his school had a 0% drop-out rate, even though a freshman class of 1000 had become a senior class of 300.

There were a variety of accounting techniques used to achieve this effect (remember, this is Texas, home of Enron, that we’re talking about). Students were reportedly encouraged to take a hike; an independent audit of the school system found that roughly 50% of the students who did not graduate should have been labeled dropouts, but were not (“Um, Johnny just moved out of the district, as far as we know…”). That was about 2,300 students.

The drive behind all this was, of course, the push to make good numbers. The superintendent put the principals back to single-year contracts, and they could be terminated “without cause.” Those principals were given mandates: “The district-wide dropout rate will decrease from 1.5 percent to 1.3 percent.” In other words, their job was not to educate students, but to “make their numbers.”

When that same Houston superintendent took over, the success rate for the state’s tenth grade math test in one school was a measly 26%. The year he left, the rate was 99%.

How do we accomplish such a thing? It’s remarkably simple, actually. Houston’s technique was to keep low ability students in the ninth grade; after two or more years in ninth grade, they were bumped directly to twelfth grade. So the worst students in Houston simply never took the assessment test. In the year of the miraculous 99% success rate, there were 1,160 students in ninth grade and 281 in tenth grade.

Houston schools were also under pressure to keep their safety numbers in line to avoid being labeled “persistently dangerous,” another tag that triggers vouchers and loss of funds under the new rules of the game.

How do you keep those numbers down? Schools stopped reporting rapes, stabbings, and assaults as “school crimes,” because those students were arrested by the police and sentenced by the courts, not suspended by the school.

Over a four year period, the in-house police force recorded 3,091 assaults. In its report to the state capital, the school district reported 761 of those.

The Houston system was supposed to be the flagship school district for the country, and it certainly provides a fine example of how the sort of corporate malfeasance that has shot holes in the private sector can be effectively applied to school systems.

You tell your underlings that you will reward them for the appearance of success and crush them for the appearance of failure. It would probably be a better world if lots of people stood up to that sort of bullying, but when a bully holds a gun to your head and demands that you act like a supporter of Jefferson Davis—well, most of us will start whistling Dixie.

A survey of teachers by (take a deep breath) the National Board of Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College (phew) found that in states that use high stakes testing (like, say, the PSSA tests in Pennsylvania) 70% of teachers said that the test leads some teachers in their school to teach in ways that contradict their ideas of good teaching. I imagine that problem, of being pushed to do what you know is wrong in your job, is even worse for principals.

Now, none of what I’ve talked about this week is arcane or secret knowledge—it’s all taken from published reports in reputable papers like The New York Times. But my story is not quite over.

Who was this superintendent who led Houston schools through an exercise in cooking the books in order to give the appearance of compliance with the law, while actually avoiding it? And did anything happen to him when it was discovered that he had been thumbing his nose at the regulations?

He’s doing fine. He’s Rod Paige, George W. Bush’s Secretary of Education. This would be the part where I become cynical about government reform.

Going Through the Motions

(News-Herald, April 18) What could be worse than Going Through the Motions?

Sometimes students want to GTTM. The favorite question to justify GTTM without becoming involved is “When will we ever use this in real life?”

The sarcastic teacher would like to answer, “What? You mean, when will you ever have to use your brain in life?” Unfortunately, the sarcastic teacher knows that there are many opportunities for people to go through life without using their brains or becoming involved.

People who focus on GTTM usually become focused on what minimum motions they need to go through, and hitting that minimum estimate is a skill in itself. A bad under-estimator would be the student who observes other students writing and thinks that the minimum requirement is to wiggle your pen around while making random marks on paper. Even teachers who are themselves going through the motions may require more than that, but not by much. I suspect many students can tell a story about the time they inserted the words to, say, the Pledge of Allegiance in the middle of an essay, and the teacher never noticed.

People in any organization hate bad leadership, but often what we call bad leadership is really no leadership at all, and no leadership at all most commonly takes the form of going through the motions. The non-leader isn’t involved, isn’t engaged, and never has a large goal in mind other than simply Going Through The Motions. The minimum required motions are generally defined as enough “to avoid breaking the law, being sued, or receiving angry phone calls.”

It’s not just a matter of picking a low number of motions. GTTM is easy, but becoming really involved or really trying to get the job done often requires effort. Faced with the actual goals they should achieve, the GTTM person replies with some version of the age-old complaint, “But that would be haaaarrrd!”

If we’re going to do more than go through the motions, if we’re going to say what we mean and then behave as if we really mean it, life will often call our bluff and require us to step up. This is where all those clichés about rubber meeting the road and giving 100% and putting and/or shutting up could mean something (spouting clichés and platitudes is a great way to GTTM).

GTTM is also easy because we don’t have to bring our own compass. We just follow someone else’s directions, do as we’re told, copy and paste from someone else’s text. Because having to think things through yourself is haaarrrrrd. The enemy of the right thing is not the wrong thing—it’s the easy thing.

This issue distinguishes different types of malcontents. I disagree with most everything Ray Beichner has ever said publicly, but I totally respect that he doesn’t simply go through the motions. On the other hand, some of our local Grumpy People appear to fire off letters and lawsuits as a way to demand that others stop thinking and get back to GTTM. Dealing with people who are thinking and doing and actively trying to do what it takes to pursue goals—well, that’s just haaaaarrrrd.

Certainly everyone switches on autopilot now and then and just Goes Through The Motions. Sometimes you just need a break. But overall, I think life is not best served by GTTM.

One of the drawbacks of GTTM is that it eventually becomes hideously boring. If you never invest yourself in something, never awaken your passion and involvement, life can be a grey, dull, featureless expanse of blandness. Therefore, GTTM folks eventually want to skip over motions they find boring or unpleasant. “I wish it were the weekend” becomes “I wish it were next month/next year/ a decade from now.” This is spectacularly self-defeating, since such skipping ahead only brings you closer to the end.

Throwing away days because they are filled with dull GTTM instead of something to excite your passion is like throwing away twenty-dollar bills because they aren’t hundreds. Actually, it’s worse, because unlike money, our days can be invested with as much value as we care to put into them. Earlier this week hundreds and hundreds of people stopped by the funeral home to pay respects to Robert Porter. They didn’t do it to honor a life spent GTTM. At the end, no one ever says, “Well, at least he never tried to do anything haaaarrrd.”

Professional Politicos

(News-Herald, April 10) There are lots of reasons to argue against the slow but steady intrusion of government into every nook and cranny of modern American life.

We could talk about the meddling, the separation of those who make decisions from those who must live with the consequences, the tendency of bureaucrats to get things wrong, or the way that government oversight makes endeavors stiff and inflexible, poorly positioned to deal with change.

Each of those is a valid complaint. I’ll probably get around to each of them sooner or later. But that’s not where I’m headed this week.

One problem with ever-spreading government is that it has created a widespread need for professional politicians.

My own profession is as good an example as any. Teaching has always been tied to government and bureaucracy; since we are an arm of government, that seems only natural.

Nowadays, the state and federal government make decisions about what I’ll in my classroom beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. Harrisburg and DC make choices about what I will do in the everyday-to-day practice of my profession.

But when politicians want to talk about education, they don’t want to talk to teachers. They want to talk to other politicians. And so we have the PSEA and the NEA, groups of politicians who are hired to go talk to politicians about education. I’m not a big fan of either group, and I often suspect that they feel a stronger allegiance to their fellow politicians than to the people who hire them.

But the bottom line is that politicians in Harrisburg or DC are not going to talk to me, not even if they have a question about teaching high school English in Venango County. So if I want to have any sort of voice in the decisions made about my profession at all, I need to hire politicians to speak for me.

My profession is by no means unique. Virtually every walk of life in this country has to hire rows of professional politicians. Doctors, lawyers, grocery store clerks, people of retirement age, left-handed basket weavers—if you want to be heard as politicians make decisions that change the shape of your life, you must hire a politician to speak for you. Employers and employees and customers don’t settle matters with each other; they send their hired representatives to battle it out in a capitol somewhere.

We call them lobbyists, but they are simply hired politicians (often retired from elected office), and each one is there because when politicians start deciding things, they want to talk to other politicians.

There was a time when Americans found their solutions locally. Problems were addressed by family solutions or neighborhood solutions or business solutions. Financial missteps and moral misjudgments were viewed as personal human problems. Now we treat them as political problems. If an issue needs to be addressed, we call for the hand of government. But any government solution is a political solution.

There was a time when we trotted out political solutions only for large problems, like the secession of half the country or massive widespread economic collapse or destroying the ugly legacy of segregation. But after discovering how effective that big club can be, we can’t resist picking it up for every little thing, and now we call for political solutions for smoking and bad salesmanship and dry cleaning chemicals and restaurant signage and spelling.

We don’t think we’re clamoring for more politics. We imagine that we are calling on the heroic figure of a good and just elected leadership. But whenever we call on the government, what we get is that guy-- “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you fill out these forms.” I hire my politician to go sic the major politicians on the people I think are the problem, and hire my politician to protect me from the politicians that other people have sicced on me.

The days where one could quietly stay in his corner and do a good job and be respected for that are fast fading. Doing a good job is not enough any more. You have to be able to sell it to a politician. And to have a voice in even the most simple parts of your own daily work and home life, you have to hire a politician to stand up for you, because no one else can.

My Sister's Birthday

(News-Herald, March 2003) My sister turns forty this Saturday. She is the baby of the family (let’s not reflect on what her crossing the big four-oh checkpoint means to my brother and me).

I distinctly remember wanting a sister. I don’t remember my mother being pregnant, but I do remember staying with friends, waiting for my folks to come back with a new child.

Apparently I found my sister interesting at the time. There are many pictures of the three of us, highlighting her legendary hair. For the first several months of her life, it appeared that my sister’s hair was never actually going to lie down, but simply keep growing straight out, like an overachieving porcupine of a chia pet run amok. Even though she was too young to understand, my brother and I still made fun of her for it. It is never too early to start.

By the time we all moved to Franklin, we had learned how games like the running away game; some of you parents will recognize this as a more active version of “La-la-LAAA-I’m not listening!” It all evened out, because she had learned to get us in trouble for things we may or may not have done.

My sister is six years younger than I am, and six is a big number when you’re young. By the time she was in high school, I was off to college.

There are disadvantages to being a youngest sibling, I hear. Your older siblings may have acquired reputations of one sort or another and you face frequent comparison. As the oldest, you just follow your interests and abilities wherever they may lead; as the youngest, people expect that you’ll be good at this or belong to that. I know my sister wrestled with some of that. But there were compensations.

My parents never threatened to be the kind of permissive overly lax parents that messed up so many baby boomers. But by the time my sister was growing up, somehow all rules had disappeared from the house. My brother and I had a list of approximately six billion rules to follow, while my sister had roughly three. Our curfew was 8:15 pm; hers was mid-June. She and my parents will deny this, but my brother can back me up. The baby of the family always gets away with murder.

As the brother Off At College, I enjoyed a certain halo effect. When I would come home, my sister was delighted to see me and would defend me vigorously from any and all challenge, assault, or inconvenience. Well, for about the first forty-eight hours, anyway.

I was back at Franklin High School as a substitute during her senior year. It’s excellent training for a substitute teacher to try to get cooperation from someone who still remembers when you hid her toys and called her “pickle puss.”

She went to college at Mount Union and became a Marching Purple Grape (I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the official name, but it’s all we ever called them). She fell in love with a man who played lacrosse, a game, as near as I can tell, in which players beat the daylights out of each other with webbed sticks while referees occasionally stop the action to administer first aid and announce random scores (I may have missed some of the nuances). She went to graduate school at Rutgers to become a librarian.

She got married, and they had a couple of sons; this was no small achievement, as she is one of those women for whom childbearing didn’t come easily. They lived in a variety of places, including a rather grubby corner of New Jersey. My sister is tougher than she looks.

Now they live in State College. My brother-in-law has one of those University computer sub-contract for the Defense Department “I can’t tell you what I did at work today” jobs. My sister spent years as an at-home mom; now she runs the Christian Education program at a church.

It is true that my sister can be a bit of a den mother. She once scolded me for walking outside in the rain in my bare feet. I was forty-three at the time.

But my sister is one of the handful of people on the planet that I actually admire. It’s not just that she’s family, though I think it’s true that no one ever knows you quite like a brother or sister. I feel bad for those who have lost that connection; I know that there are toxic siblings, just as there are toxic spouses and parents, but I don’t think you can’t lose the connection to a sibling without losing a piece of your own past.

Somewhere along the way my sister became the responsible adult dependable rock solid nurturing member of the family, and I want to be like her when I grow up.

Surprise Surprise

(News-Herald, April 3) Everywhere you look, you can find people who are surprised.

I notice it, for instance, in the grocery store. Frequently, while moving through an aisle, I find myself behind someone who parks in the middle of the aisle and slows to a speed that I would describe as glacial, except that these days we are told that glaciers are melting a few feet per year, which makes them much faster than my shopping roadblock.

Eventually the puzzled shopper registers the collective death stare of the half-dozen shoppers he has trapped, looks up, and is surprised to discover that other people are shopping in the store! Imagine. And many of them want to use the very same aisle!!

I can actually sympathize a bit. Many’s the time I have found myself transfixed by a particularly lovely piece of packaging (fruit and pasta are both delightfully arty). Since my son began his side-career in late-night grocery stocking, I have learned a certain professional appreciation for a good facing job (Facers are like little grocery store elves who toddle into the store in the dead of night to make sure that each shelf presents a full and lined-up front that hides gappage behind it; facing is a sort of consumer-based sculpture that captures the battle between chaos and order, human accomplishment and existential angst, oreos and fig newtons. When you decide you won’t buy the cheesy puffs after all, and stick them in between packages of soap, you’re making work for some facer).

At any rate, I can see how grocery displays might lead one to absently forget about the traffic around. But then I meet the surprised people in the check-out line. These are the folks who are, apparently, surprised that food costs money! They unload their food, watch the checker ring it up, and then, only after the checker has announced that the customer will, in fact, be asked to pay for the food, does the customer begin to consider how the transaction might be completed. Does she have money in her purse? Might she write a check, or could this be a plastic kind of evening?

It’s a suspenseful moment, best appreciated by people in line who had no hopes of going anywhere soon. I pass it by imagining the conversation later at home. “Yes, dear, I got groceries. I thought I might not have to get out money this time, but it turned out they charged me for the food again!”

Probably the biggest class of surprised people are the folks who are constantly surprised to discover that they are not the only human beings in the world.

Grocery stores, the mall, the highway—you can find them everywhere, acting as if it had never occurred to them that they might be sharing space with other slices of humanity.

You can find a full herd of them in just about any school parking lot at the end of a sports event or other post-scholastic activities, bobbing and weaving and honking and being rather surprised that they are not the only person there to pick up Junior. Other people want to drive past the school entrance? I should park my limited edition custom land cruiser athwart the traffic lane? That’s just crazy!

Some people manage to be surprised by the events that unfold in front of them. The best way to experience this sort of surprise is to simply ignore history. It took a real willful ignorance of history (both Iraq’s and our own) to be surprised by the hash of events in the Persian Gulf and the failure of USA style democracy to quickly take root and bloom.

Likewise, one would think that local leaders, trying to accomplish anything quickly and quietly, could hardly be surprised that people A) catch on, B) jump to conclusions and C) become cranky. Nor could any of us be surprised any more than the result of some local crankiness is that some folks will hit the speed-dial code for their lawyer faster than a junk yard owner can yank his bad-mannered attack dog out of its shed.

I think we’ve all caught on to most of that. And yet, I can already smell the preamble to that inevitable moment when folks are shocked and surprised that Two Mile Run County Park & Cage Match ends up costing county taxpayers money. Surprise!

1960's Newspaper Nuggets

(News-Herald, February 2004) There’s nothing like reading newspapers to give you a sense of historical perspective. For example, I recently read a series of articles about middle-eastern troubles. Seems the Kuwaitis deployed soldiers because Iraq claimed that Kuwait belonged to them.

I read that in newspapers published in June of 1961.

In my continuing efforts to reconstruct the history of the Franklin Silver Cornet Band, I’ve read through miles of newspapers on microfilm. I’ve recently been working through the early 1960’s. There are plenty of other interesting non-band items that turn up.

For instance, I never really appreciated just how controversial the moving of Franklin High School was at the time.

The early sixties were a big time for building in the area. Venango Campus of Clarion, Venango Christian High School, the airport expansion, and numerous elementary schools were built in that time, all with great fanfare about moving Venango County forward.

There was even a major push to raise money for a Fort Franklin reconstruction. An editorial in the News-Herald said of that project “This project will succeed or fail in 1961. It may well mark the turning point in the future of this city and this area.”

But when the joint board for the area school districts proposed that a new Franklin High School be built out on Pone Lane, there was massive squawking.

A Citizens’ Committee was formed to oppose the move. It addressed the Chamber of Commerce, and even took out a full page ad in the paper, listing all the school directors by name. Oddly enough, none of the coverage that I read of this group’s activities lists names associated with this opposition group.

Letters to the editor were frequent and spirited. Writers insisted that the move would be bad for the city, that having the school in the middle of town was an essential part of life in Franklin. One writer claimed that the children would be at risk going up “that treacherous hill.” Another pointed out the school’s proximity to the newly expanded airport “poses a real threat.”

Other writers replied that the school was a joint project, and that many of the rural students already had to ride buses and that the wimpy city folk should stop whining (I’m paraphrasing a little here).

This was all accomplished before the various school districts were merged. That merger vote came in the spring of 1963. Those figures were fun to stumble across as well. Canal and Mineral township actually rejected the merger (Canal voted 109-39 against, Mineral 39-37), while in downtown Utica, they went for it by 74-16. Polk joined up with a 106-16 vote while Sandycreek hopped on board 213-49. The City of Franklin itself was less enthusiastic—merger passed in town by 1179-817.

But nothing I stumbled across regarding the school system could top the fun of finding a full-sized feature story about the Warren Light Center. Out on Creek Road (aka the back way to Utica), the WLC has long been a source of myth and mystery.

According to the article, the Warren Light Center, headquartered in Newton Falls, Ohio, bought the 130 acres in 1954. In covering their seventh annual solstice, the paper noted that it was a “new thought religious group” that based its studies “on astrophysics and cosmic science.” Members studied “archaeology, religious philosophy, magnetic currents, and a variety of other fields.”

Writing about the 1962 solstice observance, the paper continued: “ Last Saturday night a campfire meeting was highlighted along with the sky watch. Several groups scattered to different parts of the property to watch for spacecraft. They reported seeing several such craft, describing them as ‘friendly forces.’” Inspired, I checked the internet for WLC references to spacecraft, but found only someone’s childhood memories of watching fairies dance near French Creek.

People had come from Ohio, Sharon, Miami, and Los Angeles for the celebration. 170 were present for a dinner at the Elks Club to hear an Egyptian Coptic Master speak.

Said one of the local leaders, “There is nothing prescribed—we take truth wherever it’s found.” Asked how he determines what is truth, he stated that it can be sought out by going directly “to the root of the matter.” Oh. Well, that explains it. The group anticipated a golden age on Earth in about the year 2000. Allowing a fair margin for error, it might be too early to declare them wrong.

The Dems Come to PA

(News-Herald, March 27) Tuesday’s paper noted that the number of registered Democrats in Venango County is close to surpassing the number of Republicans. I’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure that’s one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

Of course, they aren’t real Democrats. I don’t begrudge them that—I’m not a real Democrat, either; I realized a while back that being a registered Independent shut me out of the primaries, and in Venangoland, the primary is often the only election that really matters.

These newly minted Dems are intent on enjoying the fun of a Democratic Presidential Primary in Pennsylvania that might actually matter. I’m not sure I share their excitement.

I am what’s called a super-voter; I have voted in every election I ever could, which means I’ll likely vote this time, which means time spent harassing me is better spent than chasing after somebody who’s only going to vote if he’s heading out to buy cigarettes that day and the polling place is on route.

So I anticipate plenty of phone calls, a nice assortment of annoying recorded baloney from the campaigns to mix on my answering machine with the notifications about my car’s warrantee and invitations to timeshare.

But I figured we would mostly be left alone. I figured the candidates would deduce that their time was better spent speaking a rallies of thousands of big-city voters than talking to the fourteen card-carrying Democrats in Venangoland (though I suppose they could cover it by taking us all out to one quick lunch). If we’ve rounded up enough Democrats (real, converted or faux) to attract attention, that would be too bad.

In a way, I can see why this race would be attractive to Republicans.

On the one hand, we have a candidate who feels entitled to office, will pull any political streetfighting tactic to win, and claims that anything thwarting the campaign is the result of a malignant conspiracy between Evil Forces and The Media. On the other hand, we have a candidate whose policies are easily criticized as vague or seriously wrong-headed, but whose rhetoric is inspiring and uplifting, reminding us of all the good things we want to be as Americans.

In other words, Clinton vs. Obama is actually Nixon vs. Reagan.

True, the “First Woman/Black President” marquee muddies the water. It would be nice if we could have the election without gender or race being an issue, but we’re not quite there yet.

It’s hard to tell where we are, precisely. I believe there are plenty of people dumb enough to vote against Clinton because she’s a woman or against Obama because he’s black. But it’s a much smaller number of people dumb enough to say so out loud. So that part of the campaign travels underground, expressed through code, indirection, and internet lies and distortions.

As we settle into our role as the New Iowa, we’ll get to see and hear it all. If nothing else, this election will provide a windfall for media ad sales departments, sign printers and whoever manufacturers those vile, repugnant auto-dialing recorded message deployers.

I do feel marginally better about this election cycle than the decade’s displays of mud-wrestling between two sacks of trained weasels. McCain is the closest thing to an actual Republican we’ve had on the GOP ticket in a while, and I appreciate Obama’s attempts to act like a real grown-up. At the risk of tipping my electoral hand, I will admit that Clinton II embodies pretty much everything I find loathsome about DC politicians (whatever his rather large failings as a man, I thought Clinton I was an okay President).

I feel sorry for local candidates, who will have to try to buy the few seconds of air time not already dominated by Presidential politics. I know there are about 147 guys running for John Peterson’s spot. Somebody has hit the ground running with plenty of tv ads, but all I’ve retained from them is that A) this guy is ticked off about illegal immigrants and oil-rich countries that hate us and B) to my middle-aged eyes, this guy looks to be about twelve years old. I do not remember his name nor the office for which he’s running, so if I’m supposed to be part of the target audience, his handlers may want to refine their message. They don’t have much time before Clinton/Obama have sucked up all the oxygen in the room.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep hoping that the candidates will swing through in person. Maybe they’ll take a ride on the OC & T, or catch a fish on Justus Lake. I would be happy to host a picnic for them and Venangoland’s lifetime Democrats in my back yard. Just call ahead so I have time to get a few extra groceries.

For anyone keeping score, this has seventy-some more words than the newspaper version; the thin-sizing of the paper caught me by surprise and I sent this off before discovering that I would have to adapt to a new, shorter reality. After ten years, I'll be interested to see if I can now write in shorter takes.

Promoting Venangoland

(News-Herald, March 20) I had the pleasure of attending the premiere party for the Venango Chamber’s promotional dvd, and it’s a pretty good piece of work.

Traditionally, we’ve been pretty lousy at this sort of thing, stuck on one simple truth-- If you want to play the game in the big wide world, you have to play by the big wide world’s rules. We have had far too many people who insisted that we should be able to play the world’s game by our local rules. We’ll do it our way or not at all, some insist. It’s not much of a choice.

We have had some people over the years who got it. Guy Mammolite boosted Franklin so vigorously that it’s a wonder he wasn’t perpetually bedridden with multiple hernias. But he knew you had to shmooze the rest of the world. I suspect that at all those PA Mayors’ meetings there were plenty of mayors in the room thinking, “Oh lord, here comes that Guy again.” But they knew who he was, and they knew where Franklin was.

We have not always been good at branding. I am a major fan of the ORA, and I applaud them for trying to finally get us out of 1962 and into the twenty-first century. But “oil region” and “oil heritage” are not great pieces of branding. For that matter, “Franklin” and “Oil City” are not great brand name assets, either. A quick search on line will show you that these names are associated with a gumzillion different places. They don’t distinguish us from the pack.

Our best branding asset is the word “venango,” which is only used three other places in the USA, all of them small and not likely to draw attention away from us. It is odd, unique, and memorable—a built-in brand name. (I will happily chip in “Venangoland” as my cost-free contribution to local marketing.)

Franklin has made some odd choices in its quest for a nickname over the years. “The Victorian City” was, well, weird, given that in many places “Victorian” is not really a compliment. The new incarnation as “a small town with great festivals” is a step up, though somehow, I doubt that people in Pittsburgh, Cleveland or even Erie can be convinced that we are the only go-to location for small town festivals.

Oil City’s television ads also confuse me. These cable-placed commercials invite folks to “rediscover Oil City” and I can’t help wondering who they think has misplaced it. Part of what our marketing whizzes need to figure out is not how we view ourselves, but how an outsider could distinguish us from Mercer or Warren or Grove City.

Marketing does not start with the assertion that the prospective customers ought to want what we want them to want. It starts by figuring out what we have that might have broader appeal. This means that some businesses, good card-carrying, dues-paying members of many of our assorted Chambers of Commerce, must be willing to take one for the team, step back, and let the most alluring choices serve as our marquee attractions.

Marketing also must start with the belief that we do have something to offer. I am tired of people who have gotten bored looking at the same scenery for sixty years and therefore believe it is uninteresting, just as I am tired of those who believe that nothing less than a massive manufacturing firm is worth bothering with (provided that it is silent, immaculate, and in somebody else’s neighborhood). People who won’t stoop to pick up money unless it’s a hundred-dollar bill deserve to be poor. Many regions have achieved success with far fewer resources than we have here.

We have a beautiful outdoors. We have beautiful waterways. We have bike trails. We have people willing to work. We have a cluster of small towns that, taken together, represent everything that people imagine when they think about Mythic American Small Town Life. We can go outside at night, safely. We have an arts community large enough to have quality but small enough to have room for people who are not ready to go pro. We have the kind of recreation activities that city-dwellers spend millions to imitate, badly. We have a remarkably low cost of living, right down to homes that would cost ten times as much in any other market.

There are many reasons to want to live here. If you don’t believe that, you need to get on a bus and ride a hundred miles in any direction and look at the miserable conditions people settle for.

The people who made the dvd get that, as did the people who made the full-color flyer for Franklin. I can look at both and think, “Yeah, I’d want to live there.”

Jerry Frey

Hard to believe that it has been just over four years since Jerry passed away. Here's what I wrote at the time.

(News-Herald, February 2004)The Franklin Silver Cornet Band lost one of its stalwarts this week.

Jerry Frey had the longest tenure of any active band member. He held that rank by a matter of just a few weeks; shortly after he joined as a teenager in 1945, Jerry recruited Dick Eshelman to join the band.

Getting people to do stuff was one of Jerry’s talents. He had a special knack for it. There are people who guilt or browbeat you into helping out. And there are plenty of people in the volunteer world who want you to become the supporting cast as they step into the spotlight. But Jerry was not a spotlight kind of guy.

Not that he couldn’t have been. Jerry played an unusual assortment of instruments, including trumpet, horn and tuba. Musicians can tell you what an odd personality mix that makes. Trumpet players are known in the band world for, well, a certain lack of shyness and humility. Horn players can be a bit high strung and diva-ish. But tuba players are the quiet clowns of the band world.

Jerry had played trumpet in his early years in the band. He told me once about showing up for a concert and getting a field promotion to lead trumpet because somebody didn’t show up. The band performed a particularly challenging piece, and Jerry afterwards swore that he’d never give up the peace and quiet of the tuba section again.

Jerry was a born supporter. Talk to the old-timers about the people who held the band together when times were tough, and Jerry’s name always comes up. For us younger players, Jerry was the veteran who always made you feel that he was glad you were there.

It wasn’t just band. I never knew Jerry to be slow to praise or express appreciation. Back when my brother and I anchored the Big Band Show on Saturday mornings, we could always count on Jerry or Norma Jean to call when they heard something they liked. Over the years he always had a spare minute to offer a word of praise or encouragement.

Jerry worked at a variety of jobs over the years, most notably out at Two Mile Run County Park. But for many of us, Jerry always seemed to be more clearly defined by how he spent his “free” time.

Jerry was a choir director, a Sunday School teacher and a Red Cross volunteer. He played in just about every band that existed in Venango County over the last sixty years. And in all of his activities, he would recruit other folks to come along and join in.

And Jerry was a real clown. I remember how excited he was about running off with the circus when he was already over sixty. It was exciting to imagine Elmo the Clown out touring the fairgrounds of America. I can remember watching Elmo work; a modern tv-jaded child would view him first skeptically, as if a clown were just too uncool for words, and then be slowly won over by his charm and humor.

It was always hard to remember that Jerry had been in band longer than any of us; it was hard, really, to think of Jerry as “old.” He kept taking on new challenges, staying active, getting out into the community. It was difficult, visibly difficult, when Norma Jean died. But just last Christmastime, I played with Jerry in a brass group for a local church service. He was as sharp as ever, and shared some more stories of the old band days.

Jerry was a good man. He gave hour after hour to so many groups in the community. He married into the kind of loving partnership that most of us wish for our own children. He brought people together, one or two at a time, throughout the area. And he provided a living example of faith in action.

The world has way, way too many people who seem to think that the measure of a person’s faith is how much noise they make about it, people who think that if they drop a mention of God into every other sentence, it won’t matter what a lousy job they do of acting out that faith in their daily lives.

In all the years that I knew Jerry, I don’t think I ever heard him try to tell me what a very devout Christian he was. And yet, I don’t think there was any doubt that that’s just what he was.

For me, Jerry’s life was a witness to a couple of important truths. One is that how you walk says so much more than how you talk. The other is that while we may not change the course of history, we can still each make a small but important difference in our own corner of the world. I miss him already.

John McConnell Tries Retirement (Again)

(News-Herald, March 13)The end of this month marks the end of John McConnell’s tenure as general manager of the Barrow-Civic Theatre in Franklin.

It is not an easy job. The Barrow has had several people in the position over the last fifteen years, and, to be perfectly honest, not every one of them had the chops to handle the job.

Managing a theater like the Barrow requires a multitude of skills. There is an army of volunteers who keep the place functioning, and managing volunteers is a special skill because, well, nobody is paying them to put up with anything they don’t want to put up with.

The Barrow has become the jewel of downtown Franklin, but that in turn gives it a responsibility to be an active member of the local commercial community. The general manager needs to connect, work with, go to meetings with, and otherwise connect well with the other area businesses.

And since it’s a theater, the general manager also has to stay connected with as many of the varied strands of the local artistic community. More contacts, more networks, more meetings, more egos.

But since it’s a regional resource, the Barrow also has to connect and compete with the larger world. And that requires a level of expertise as well. If you want to play the game in the wide outside-the-county world, you have to play by the world’s rules.

On top of all that, a manager of any regional theater operates forever on the edge of financial disaster. I can remember when the theater first opened and people would ask the question, “Well, how long until the theater is a self-sufficient money-making venture?”

The answer, discovered and rediscovered in thousands of regional theaters across the country, is “never.”

That’s not a bad thing. A theater is a big black hole of capital expense. There’s always something to be fixed or maintained, always new equipment that would be great to have. I can’t imagine any theatrical facility’s manager announcing, “We’ve got everything we could ever want or use. No need to raise any more money ever again.”

So you have to find contributors, sell memberships, figure out what the local breaking point is for ticket costs, and then guess what kinds of acts will be make back the money it takes to book them, all coordinated against the schedule of a thousand other local events (and figuring in the random factor of local weather).

Even if you were good at it, the general stress of operating check to check, booking to booking, depending on the public to support a service that many view as a luxury item—all that would be enough to give an iron man a permanent ulcer.

John McConnell certainly didn’t have to take the job on. In his career at Oil City High School he contributed as much to the growth and vigor of arts and music in this area as anyone ever has. Take that teaching career, add all the work he’s done with Civic Operetta, and he could have retired to play shuffleboard, drink exotic beer with funny names, and take cruises to far away warm places. Nobody would have said anything but, “He’s certainly earned it.”

So having him at the helm of this important regional asset has just been gravy for the rest of us. Not since Toby Saltarelli oversaw the transformation of an empty shell of a building into a living, breathing theater has someone done so much to make the Barrow a model of powerful positive change in the larger community.

I don’t know who will be replacing him; I don’t even know who has applied for the job. I wish them luck, and not just because John’s shoes will be hard to fill. To stand up and take a leadership position in the region takes vision, determination, and a thick skin. Taking a stand and making a difference guarantees that you will be a target for everything from cranky phone calls to lawsuits.

The new manager will take over a facility that faces some enormous challenges but also possesses enormous strengths, including a wide web of connections to the community and the region.

Those strengths exist today both because of the gazillion hours of hard work by an army of volunteers (and a handful of people whose pay is only slightly greater than volunteer pay) but also because of the leadership and dedication of John McConnell.

So as the month winds down, there will be no better time to drop him a line at the theater and let him know that you appreciate his stewardship of this community treasure.

Self-Made Men and Other Myths

(News-Herald, March 6) I am tired of self-made men. I am tired of people grunting, “Well, nobody gave me anything. I’m a completely self-made man.”Well, no, no, you’re not.

I don’t for a moment discount the value and importance of hard work and good decisions. Life provides an endless supply of opportunities to choose wisely, or not. Everybody who ever lived has gone through a phase in which they refuse to make those choices, or make the choices and insist that they get the results they want no matter what choice they make. Everybody goes through that phase, but then they have their sixth birthday and, in the vast majority of cases, start to grow out of it.

Those people who still want to make bad choices without consequences, who want to take eat the meal but not pay the bill—those people desperately need to grow up.

People who have succeeded in life usually do so because they make smart choices, accept sacrifice when needed, see available options that other miss, and leverage their talents and passions into meaningful achievements. They work hard, make wise decisions, and put energy into their lives.

They deserve a great deal of credit and recognition. The accolades that they receive, the success and recognition they collect is well-earned and much to their credit.

But they are not self-made.

I don’t care who you are, what you’ve achieved, how much you’ve clawed your way up from the bottom, there is still a long list of factors outside your control that share the credit for your success.

Let’s start with the presence of a stable government in a peaceful society. A John D. Rockefeller who lives in a country where either rapacious government officials or angry poor folks with pointy sticks can take away everything-- that is a John D. Rockefeller whose great success will simply never occur.

You live in a country where you never have to worry about how you’ll get where you want to go or how you’ll talk to whoever needs talking to. Having food to eat and water to drink and power to run a houseful of gadgets are concerns that barely register on the consciousness and take little time or effort. I doubt that you have a hand in providing anything close to all of that yourself. At best, you pay other people to take care of that, and you can only do THAT because you live in a country where a stable economic system makes such transactions totally routine.

And we haven’t even scratched the surface.

Your health is somewhat under your control, but if you draw the short straw in cancer roulette, that’s out of your hands. If you’ve never had your life derailed by catastrophic illness or disease, that has nothing to do with how virtuous or hard-working or deserving you are. You can call it the grace of God or you can call it sheer dumb luck, but don’t pretend you somehow earned it. Plenty of folks have been hit by the hard health hammer through no fault of their own.

You don’t get to take any of the credit for whatever end of the gene pool produced you. A quick twist of a dna molecule here and there and you would have been born half as strong or twice as dumb.

And while we’re talking about grace and luck, let’s talk about all the stupid things you’ve done in your life that, fortunately or gracefully, did not result in a life-changing consequence. That’s not because you’ve worked so hard, either.

I won’t minimize for a second the lifetime of hard work, sacrifice, and good decisions that have brought you to where you are. People who don’t make the most of what they have, who don’t make the effort, who don’t keep plugging away at turning their lives into something—many of those people end up with problems that they have foisted on themselves.

But if you want to tell me you’re a self-made success story, I disagree. And if you want to tell me that you don’t owe anybody anything, I say that you are full of malarkey.

Given a whole day, you could never list all the people whose lives and works have made your success possible. Nor could you list every turn at which misfortune could have derailed your life, no matter how great your efforts and determination.

The very least we owe our country and community and universe and Creator is gratitude for the chance to become who we have become. The very least that such gratitude should awaken is a sense of responsibility to use our gifts wisely, and a sense of respect and responsibility for our fellow travelers.