Stories

Six Words: Deadly, Trustee, Voucher, Expectation, Brilliance, Conservative

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has fought for school vouchers, even though the state legislature has rejected the idea multiple times. Public school board trustees are universally opposed to providing vouchers for students to attend private or religious schools. It is conservatives that argue in favor of vouchers. Their argument is that parents should be able to choose the schools that their children attend. Too often, they want their schools to be able to choose the type of students they’ll encounter, or schools that can teach a particular religion, or schools that reject points of view that they disagree with. They want to create their particular types of ghettoes.

Opponents to school vouchers, and I am among them, think that school vouchers would be deadly to the public school system and, over time, deadly to American democracy and the American melting pot. Vouchers would drain money, and thus resources, from the public school systems. The brilliant concept of free, public education doesn’t just educate students on the basics. It exposes them to a range of ideas and perspectives and cultures. It creates the smorgasbord that America has held as an ideal, even though we too often fall short of that ideal.

Because of the free, universal public school system we have an expectation that “We the People of the United States, can form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty”. I think that could even become a slogan.

Six Words: Tourist, General, Fascinate, Girlfriend, Ecstasy, Distortion

Working in a Disney Store isn’t like working in a general department store. Working in a Disney Store gives a distorted, but a fascinating view of locals and tourists alike. You can see a parent bring their young daughter and her girlfriends into the store and the girls can be in ecstasy at the site of plush mountain, or various outfits.

Six Words: Understanding, Foster, Misery, Supplementary, Auction, Merit

No one expected the art auction to lead to such misery. The auctioneer claimed it was just a misunderstanding that shouldn’t merit the acrimony that followed. The description of the art piece and its provenance seemed accurate. It was the supplementary information, in the footnotes that fostered the charges of fraud. Why wouldn’t the buyer believe the auctioneer and think this was a coup. After all, the auctioneer pointed out, the painting really did look just like all the of the online pictures of the Mona Lisa and who reads footnotes!

Six Words: Admit, Attraction, Activity, Mosaic, Economics, Preference

I attended a college that is best known for engineering and architecture. That is the main attraction for students who attend the Illinois Institute of Technology. We tend to have a preference for math and science. Activities like football or wrestling are not typically a high priority. The student body in engineering colleges tends to be a mosaic of skin tones, hair colors and accents.

IIT required engineering students to take several hours of liberal arts courses. Although I got my best grades in those courses, I didn’t know why they were required. But I do admit that the course that I remember best was economics. I even remember the professor’s name. He was Dr. Brown and his often repeated advice was: “don’t perpetuate the maladjustment. If farmers can’t make enough money because prices are too low, don’t give them subsidies. Shoot some farmers and burn some crops.”

Six Words: Apple, Activity, Expenditure, Stadium, Obese, Century

We have lots of ways to describe body types. Body types that are considered attractive vary by location, by culture and by time. Some people are hourglass shaped and for a woman in our society in the current century, an hourglass shape is usually considered attractive. Some people are shaped like an inverted pyramid and for a man in our society, that is often considered attractive. But people come in, or grow into, a wider variety of shapes. A pear shape is common. If that pear shape, shall we say ‘ripens’ too much, the person might be considered obese.

People who try to come close to one of today’s idealized body types may spend a lot of time in exercise activities, such as running around the track in a high school stadium, or doing other things that involve a significant expenditure of energy. They forget that they can get hurt doing those things.

We’ve all heard: “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” I think that’s good advice. It is much safer to just stay home and eat an apple, especially one that is mounted on a stick and covered in caramel and nuts!

Six Words: Reveal, Replace, Prosecute, Continuous, Coma, Stimulation

When looking through a telescope, not many things can replace the stimulation you feel if a comet reveals itself to you as it prosecutes its way across the night sky, the round coma always pointing toward the sun and the tail streaming away on its continuous journey.

Six Words: Navy, Tolerate, Wonder, Jelly, Hypothesize, Minute

A true tale of American survival

Hypothesize for a minute, that you are in charge of a small, rented motor boat with seven passengers on the Intercoastal Waterway near where it meets the Atlantic Ocean in south Florida. Docked just in from the ocean is a very large ship belonging to the US Navy. The ship appears to be an aircraft carrier or something with a flight deck. The ship rises several stories higher than anything nearby.

Looking on in wonder at its size and thrilled to get so close to a ship like this, you approach closer and closer. You and your passengers hear the indistinct sound of a voice through some kind of public address system, possibly coming from the ship several stories above you, but it might as well be speaking through a bowl of jelly, not a word can be understood – at least not by, you, the skipper of your small, rented motor boat with six young children and three other adults aboard. The voice repeats itself, louder, and more urgently. It still cannot be understood, but your passengers all insist that it is warning you to back off, and that approaching any closer will not be tolerated.

What would you do?

Since I’m here sharing this adventure with you, you can tell that I did turn around, and that led almost immediately to another misadventure that maybe I’ll share another day, when we’re challenged with the right six words.

Six Words: Nature, Equal, Nursery, Photography, Decorative, Volunteer

Photography clubs are common all over the country, and probably all over the world. They are usually run by volunteers. The clubs that I have been a member of encourage participation by all levels of photographer and all levels of equipment.

Sometimes photographs are critiqued, to help everyone become a better photographer. Sometimes there is a specific category of photographs at a meeting, such as nature photography or holiday decorations. One time here in Austin, a photography club went to a large nursery to take photographs and I took a lot of photos of dragon flies and damsel flies.

Sometimes photographs are judged. When judging is involved, photographers may be grouped so that you are being judged in comparison to people of equal skills. In my Connecticut photography club, you started in the lower skilled group – I’m sure there was a polite name for it, and if you got enough points during a year, you moved up to the higher skilled group. I never made it to the higher skilled group, but I did earn a few blue ribbons in the group that I was in. It still makes me feel good to have those ribbons displayed in my apartment, but if I had ever moved up I might never have received another one.

Six Words: Tension, Duty, Desert, Carrot, Tolerate, Exhibition

In August of 2010 my wife and I visited “The World of Peter Rabbit” exhibition in Bowness-on-Windermere which, as you probably all know, is in the lakes district in the northwest of England. It is on the east side of Lake Windermere. In case you still can’t place it, on the opposite side of Lake Windermere are the villages of Near Sawrey and Far Sawrey. Far Sawrey is the village that is the one that is closer to Bowness-on-Windermere. Bowness-on-Windermere is northwest of Mitchelland. It is very close to the intersection of Ray Rigg Road and Lake Road, but Lake Road becomes Crag Brow for a bit in that area. While you’re visiting, you may enjoy a stay nearby at The Angel Inn where you will have views of Lake Windemere and the fells of Claife Heights and Latterbarrow beyond.

It becomes almost your duty to walk around the area and explore places like the White House and the Magic Circle and The Hole in the Wall. You’ll have a harder time finding a high rise building here than you would finding a waterfall in the desert. Within the exhibit, smoking and other crude behavior is not tolerated.

The exhibit features a life-size Peter Rabbit dressed in his blue jacket and with a carrot in each hand, carrots which would undoubtedly have been stolen from Mr. McGregor’s garden. And here, dear reader, is where the tale takes an unexpected turn. Noticing that we were the only ones in the room at the time, Denise tried to take one of Peter’s carrots! The tension in the room was palpable and, as we felt Mr. McGregor’s presence, the photo was captured!

Six Words: Blade, Soldier, Interface, Top, Study, Laboratory

No one knew who the knight was, or how he came to be in the field where he was found covered under centuries of detritus. It is exceedingly rare to find a complete skeleton still encased in a full suit of armor. Once found though, arguments could commence about what to do with the knight, and about who had the right to make those decisions.

Eventually the decision about what to do with the knight had been made, although the arguments about who had the right to make the decision would never end. A name was now assigned to the knight. Hence forth, until some prior evidence is discovered, the knight is Sir Dung Beetle.

The archaeological forensics laboratory was excited about their new opportunity. They were one of the top archaeological laboratories in the world, although truth be known, there were only a handful of archaeological laboratories, so they were all one of the top archaeological laboratories. More than one PhD thesis has emerged from this study.

The examiners quickly determined that a blade pierced the soldier’s body at the interface between his breastplate and his arm. If the arm had been severed just a little bit more, this poor guy could have given himself a pat on the back.