Suddenly Obama is Worried About Ventilation?

In his efforts to spend more money we do not have in a futile attempt to create jobs, Hussein Obama has suddenly become concerned over poor ventilation in schools. Well, all I gotta say is that he's about 45 years too late.

I went to public school. The elementary school I went to was grades 1 through 8. There was no kindergarten. There was no middle school. School started the later part of August. There was no air conditioning. It was hotter than 400 hells. I remember we had these gigantic fans on stands which would blow our sweat spotted papers off our desks. An occasional wasp would fly in the open window and sting an unsuspecting student.

In the winter the school had a coal fired boiler which heated hot water for radiators. Those old radiators clattered and clanged all winter long as black stinky smoke belched from the smokestack. I always thought it was neat to take a peek in the boiler room and watch the automatic coal stoker boost up the flame.

Kids routinely got sick. On a daily basis one or two kids would puke on the floor. The janitor would come by and cover the pile with some kind of dark green powder and then come back a little later and scoop up the combo. I think a lot of the puking had to do with the lousy food served by the kitchen and nothing at all to do with the hot or cold weather. One particular teacher I remember forced her students to eat everything on their plates. It seemed she had many more pukers than normal. Finally the principal told her to cut it out.

High school was not much better. We still had no air conditioners and we still had radiators. They had just built a new cafeteria and the food was better. We actually had some vending machines in high school too.

Finally in my senior year we moved into the new high school and the old high school became the junior high. For the first time we had air conditioning. We also had black students as 1970 was the first year our schools became integrated.

I remember that some of my classmates went on to do bigger and better things. I ended up being a filthy, greedy, rich doctor as did a couple of other of my friends. A few of them are lawyers. One or two went into politics. I remember one that went to West Point. Several others pursued less prestigious careers in the military. Others became businessmen/women. Several became teachers. Many went back to the farms from where they had come. A few of them went to jail. In fact I remember one troublemaker that was shot and killed holding up a grocery store. Sadly I remember a couple that never came back from Vietnam.

So in spite of the poor ventilation, I think the lot of us probably turned out alright. Mind you that this was way before the Department of Education was created. To plagiarize a famous song by Sir Elton John,

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

And so goes the circle of life. I have a feeling this is the way things will continue to be regardless of whether we try to spend half a trillion dollars on  imaginary problems or not.