Some Random Observations
I was going to call this post food for thought, but it would be just junk food at best; rather like fries served up at the library. (It made sense when I thought of it)
Waiting to rescue Ms CPB from her downtown workplace I get to observe a bit of street life, some very poor drivers with really expensive vehicles, and some interesting folk.
License plate on the back of a Lexus: ERUDITE1. Now, I wondered how hard it was for those folks to live up to that pronouncement; it surely didn't describe the car. Ms CPB's comment was: If you have to proclaim it, you don't have it.
The folk on the street where I usually wait is full of bankers, ITs, lawyers and various Admins scurrying in and out of the building. The odd urban vagrant slouches by occasionally, and lots of lost tourists looking for the way back to the colonial part of town. Walk down the street for six-seven blocks, and you will pass some old shops and cafes; some really trendy pizza, blues, deli joints wedged in with the performing arts center, micro brewery, and other shops that think they belong in the modern city scape.
Sometimes I have to wait around the corner. We are now in the guts of town. The old Woolworth is long time closed. There is a Historical Marker on the corner recalling the sit-in that took place there many years ago. On the next corner is the new city bus station. Between the Woolworth and the terminal are the necessities of urban life: the pawn shop, the barbershop, the magazine, tobacco, and snack shop. Life on that side of the street is a lot grittier than on the side where I'm parked. I rather like this part of town (in the daylight).
I recently had a job where I scored writing tests required by the state and written by 10th graders. I have come to several conclusions about schools and 10th graders. Spelling is no longer taught. Penmanship doesn't exist in any form in any grade. You'd think that teachers would insist that students write clearly, if only to make grading and correcting papers easier. The words there, they're, and their are ok to use interchangeably. Also allowed, and aloud and any other homonym that you care to name. Sentences and periods or full stops are optional. I cannot publish anything more detailed, 'cause, again, I had to sign a confidentially agreement. It is enough to say that 10th graders can be an opinionated lot when pushed. Most papers I scored demonstrated some thought, and some abandoned thought for just spewing out the parents' prejudices.
Most folk driving past my waiting place downtown have a phone in their ear. Who do they talk to all the time? What did they do before cell phones?
I have run out of fries.
BRB is Write (and still naive, but that's another post)
I was going to call this post food for thought, but it would be just junk food at best; rather like fries served up at the library. (It made sense when I thought of it)
Waiting to rescue Ms CPB from her downtown workplace I get to observe a bit of street life, some very poor drivers with really expensive vehicles, and some interesting folk.
License plate on the back of a Lexus: ERUDITE1. Now, I wondered how hard it was for those folks to live up to that pronouncement; it surely didn't describe the car. Ms CPB's comment was: If you have to proclaim it, you don't have it.
The folk on the street where I usually wait is full of bankers, ITs, lawyers and various Admins scurrying in and out of the building. The odd urban vagrant slouches by occasionally, and lots of lost tourists looking for the way back to the colonial part of town. Walk down the street for six-seven blocks, and you will pass some old shops and cafes; some really trendy pizza, blues, deli joints wedged in with the performing arts center, micro brewery, and other shops that think they belong in the modern city scape.
Sometimes I have to wait around the corner. We are now in the guts of town. The old Woolworth is long time closed. There is a Historical Marker on the corner recalling the sit-in that took place there many years ago. On the next corner is the new city bus station. Between the Woolworth and the terminal are the necessities of urban life: the pawn shop, the barbershop, the magazine, tobacco, and snack shop. Life on that side of the street is a lot grittier than on the side where I'm parked. I rather like this part of town (in the daylight).
I recently had a job where I scored writing tests required by the state and written by 10th graders. I have come to several conclusions about schools and 10th graders. Spelling is no longer taught. Penmanship doesn't exist in any form in any grade. You'd think that teachers would insist that students write clearly, if only to make grading and correcting papers easier. The words there, they're, and their are ok to use interchangeably. Also allowed, and aloud and any other homonym that you care to name. Sentences and periods or full stops are optional. I cannot publish anything more detailed, 'cause, again, I had to sign a confidentially agreement. It is enough to say that 10th graders can be an opinionated lot when pushed. Most papers I scored demonstrated some thought, and some abandoned thought for just spewing out the parents' prejudices.
Most folk driving past my waiting place downtown have a phone in their ear. Who do they talk to all the time? What did they do before cell phones?
I have run out of fries.
BRB is Write (and still naive, but that's another post)
posted by brbiswrite at 2:21 PM
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