The Answering the Call to Justice Foundation

     The Answering the Call to Justice Foundation is the culmination and continuation of the life work of the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones, retired Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, former NAACP general counsel, and lifelong champion in the fight to end racial discrimination in America. The "Good Judge" is Founder and Chairman. While Stephanie Jones, RHS class of 1977, is President.

 

https://stephanie-jones-4xfw.squarespace.com/

Head Shot 2019

2019

Best Part of Being a Kid

     When reflecting upon the best parts of being a kid the obvious ones like drinking water from a garden hose seem odd today. We certainly couldn't have survived outside during the summer without these hoses. It would have meant going inside someone's house and having to explain what we were up to or what we had planned. Most of the time our answers wouldn't have past muster as being useful or constructive so our activities were better left unmentioned. Besides we were making things up as we went along so even we didn't know exactly what we were doing. This was one of the benefits of growing up in an age with fewer options and less people trying to schedule you into activities.

   
     Yes, we drank water from garden hoses instead of carrying around individual plastic bottles.  Alternatives to this ancient source of quenching one's thirst included a thermos filled with Kool-aid everyone would share using disposable dixie cups. Other sources were the ubiquitous outdoor water fountains as well as indoor ones at schools and in public buildings.

Woodstock 50th Anniversary

     Our next door neighbors bought tickets but never made it to the show. They got stuck on one of the main highways leading to the festival. Not sure they would have stayed when the saw the chaos which ensued, but who knows?

     Thank goodness the bands did play and everyone took plenty of pictures. Later a film was edited and that is how most people remember the show. It's certainly not something which would work today and be billed as a MUST SEE event.

     I am glad Woodstock took place. It is a bright moment in our country's checkered history. For a few days people believed working together was appropriate, treating each other fairly and with respect was the new normal, and that one great Rock and  Roll show could change the world as we knew it.


     Scenes from another Rock and Roll show in 2017:

    

RHS Athletic Hall of Fame 2019 Inductee: Jeff Yearling

     Admittedly, it appears I came across this notice a few days past the deadline for tickets. Maybe a call to Tom "Fuzzy" Thurston or email to thurston@optonline.net can still net you a ticket. Jeff's long been associated with RHS sports and appears in my 1977 yearbook. His contributions were many and he's been a good role model for young men and women who participate in amateur sports.

Before Wearing Seatbelts Became Mandatory

     Before wearing a seatbelt was mandatory, safety was not the issue it is today. It seemingly was left up to the individual. We always were told to wear seatbelts by responsible adults, though my Dad had a Libertarian streak about him and sometimes refused saying, "he didn't like the governement telling him what to do." This was when dashboards were made out of metal, air-conditioners were an option, windows rolled up manually, and vent windows were largely standard on front seat car doors. By the time I could drive unbuckled seatbelts would produce an annoying beep or the car would simply not start if people sitting in the front seats didn't buckle up.

     Airbags didn't become mandatory until 1998. Fortunately, I have never seen or felt  them in action. I've been told they can break your nose if they hit you squarely when activated upon impact with another car or object. I will accept the word of the experts on the necessity of airbags and continue to drive as if everyone is a distracted driver not paying any attention to me.

    

PLOP, PLOP, FIZZ, FIZZ...

      "Oh what a relief it is"

     We more often than not now a days, we don't get the jokes made in TV, radio, or print advertising. The classic run of Alka-Seltzer in the 1960s and early 1970s were repeated incessantly by people of all ages. Hearing these ditties helped us connect with others, even if it was on a superficial level. This was possible because we had seen the same movies, the same TV shows, read the same newspapers and magazines or listened to the same records. Today even when certain products are vaunted as being ubiquitous, "Game Of Thrones" is a good example, they are not. There are simply too many channels, outlets, mediums, and means of communications that people cannot keep up and the only thing ubiquitous is the complete lack of an omnipresent voice.

     "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."

or

     “Mama mia, that’s a spicy meatball,”


     These tag lines were much wittier than the obvious observation that if you are feeling like you have too much stomach acid, this condition can be neutralized by drinking Alka Seltzer.

College Admissions Scandal

     Today's NY Times: US Charges Rich Parents in College Entry Fraud. We don't know the back story but these prospective students supposedly had no idea of what their parents were doing.

     More:

... "50 people charged with participating in a nationwide scheme to bribe athletic coaches, cheat on standardized tests, and falsify information to get their kids accepted into top universities."

     From my experience, suburban parents in the 1960s and 70s would do what they could to assist their children in gaining admission to elite colleges and universities. Whether it was having their children take a PSAT exam to practice for the SATs, or attending a College Night at the high school where prominent alumni were present. They would likely read their application essays before posting them and would accompany them on campus visits and meetings with the admissions officials.

     Can't say I would know much about bribing coaches in minor sports like rowing to place a teenager on the team without their ever having competed in a rowing event. When I visited my alma mater and told the track coach my times and my wait list status, it didn't also include the offer or request for a bribe. Seems to me the parents could have told the admissions office they planned to pay for the full tuition. It's a time honored custom of the rich and doesn't make require people to degrade themselves by submitting phony applications.

     College is very important for many students, it's where you can make life long friends, acquire the skills of a life long learner, and possible make future business connections.  Though some kids would do just as well to avoid the experience and the expense.  Maybe the lesson here is that parents need to engage in a conversation with their children about college and outline all the options and career paths. This would better educate children about the pros and cons of academic life. It would keep them from ever wondering, or worse discovering, about their false credentials. After one of these conversations their parents could also rest assured their offspring would never encounter the feeling of being an imposter, for gaining admission to an institution of higher learning they were neither qualified or ready to attend.

Bring Back Boredom

     The face says it all.

     There were times when I was that age that my young friends and I would look at each other with the same bored look. We'd ask each other endlessly, "What do you want to do?" Then the exchange which followed would innumerate the reasons why it was too hot or too cold to play that way, or that we always did that, and it was now BORING.

     It would have been tempting to trade this boredom and the work it took to relieve the feeling for all the choices which exist today. The online options are endless and habit-forming. The vast amount of offerings with streaming TV and music are overwhelming. The online gaming competions are completely captivating of one's entire imagination. None of these options are boring. Quite the opposite, the feeling of boredom has largely been eliminated and ironically produces a different type of feeling I'll call tedium. It's become tedious to choose between all the alternatives we have before us. Not to mention, these choices don't necessitate leaving the house or the security of our Internet communcations devices: phone, tablet, laptop, or gaming box. To tell the truth there is little difference between these gadgets, only size and the speed of the CPU which runs it.

     My point being the main difference between now and back then is when we felt bored it was usually in a group of two or more. If you were bored by yourself, only you had to decide which book to read, or hobby to pursue or which of the 7 channels delivered by antenna on the pre-cable era TV to view. These were enough if whatever age-related chores had been completed. We raked leaves or shoveled snow long before we were allowed to use power tools to cut the grass and clip the hedges and bushes.

     Another huge change that has occured is with these same said chores. There are certainly fewer children doing chores, or at least ones any previous generation would recognize. For example, all paper routes were lost along with the decline of the newspaper industry. All yard work has been outsourced to teams of workers with power tools we could only have dreamed about for pushing leaves into piles, cutting grass, and blowing snow from sidewalks. Errands to pick up and deliver samll articles are completed by package delivery and messenger services.

     These alterations to once was the normal routine of growing up leave us with more tedium and less boredom. Does that sound like splitting hairs? Maybe. I'll leave that to posterity, and what was once the realm of letter writers to decide. Sounds like an idea for a future post.

    

Willard School Air Conditioners

     Look at the air conditioners in the windows of the original 1926 main entrance to Willard School. We didn't have them in our house until I was in high school but we sure could have used them. There were many days when our own sweat from the heat had us glued to our seats. All the teachers could reasonably do was lower the shades if the sun was shining through the windows and maybe turn out the lights. Neither actually did much to lower the ambient temperature of the room though it did give the appearance of taking action to beat the heat. At some point before they added air conditioners to all the classrooms they did put one in the principal's office. Mr. Daly, Princeton Alum, was a tireless, year round worker and no doubt rated the modern convenience. Not to mention it was a productivity enhancer.

     The same could not be said for the students in classrooms, especially in the "new wing" completed in 1966. It was built with windows that allowed for no escape and thus blocked the wind and any chance to feel a cooling breeze. Take a look at the windows on the left of this picture below. They opened wide enough that we could have jumped out. Plus they had shade trees on this side of the school that provided some relief against the heat. The "new wing" had fewer trees and thus the sun beat down on the classrooms without concern for people trying to learn something. Even on the hottest days it felt cooler outside than inside our classrooms. Air conditioners are a great idea for the promotion of learning and for producing working conditions which encouraged teacher retention.

Prank Telephone Calls

     "Hey, let's make some prank calls!"

     As a child did you and your friends ever dial a random number, local or long-distance, and engage the person who answered in some sort of manic dialog? It was sometimes very funny, at least to us, to prank some number. It was always done in small groups with one person as the lead and everyone laughing hysterically in the background. This was long before robo-calls made everyone hesitant to answer their phone and long before voicemail. The phone could ring for a long time if you wanted, and this could be just as annoying for the recipients of our brainless attempts at entertaining ourselves.

     It would be far too generous to call these antics "Improv" as that takes practice and a high degree of concentration. Today if you Google the term you'll find their are apps and games which simulate the prank call process and plenty of sites that will give you ideas if you want to make this retro pastime happen on your own.

     I doubt that with call blocking and no cost long distance that it's even possible to explain what we were doing. People today have so many better entertainment options between streaming music, TV, and movies, plus the entire Internet to surf. We were simply bored and might have been trying to kill time on a rainy weekend afternoon.

     We all tried pranking the telephone operators once in our lives but we soon discovered these people were not to be trifled with. They knew who you were and how to scold you out of ever calling them again. They were mostly women who they took their jobs seriously and had no problem ringing you back until an adult answered. No amount of hanging up on them would ever deter them from making their point that this was an extremely bad idea.