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<\/p>\nRead today’s “Mother Goose and Grimm”?\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t think so.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, here it is, for your… enjoyment?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The joke loses something in being a pop cultural reference from September 2007 — an individual’s 15 minutes of fame referenced one year later,\u00c2\u00a0I have to pull the joke out of a cob-webbed memory bank in my head and blow away a bunch of dust.<\/p>\n
I have compiled one or one and a half full postings which are essentially copycats of the comic strip surveyor Comics Curmudgeon<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 They become outdated rather quickly, because they’d require me to save the comic strips.\u00c2\u00a0 As a lark, one of these days I may well just post them — out of context.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s edition of Comics Curmudgeon <\/a>has a Beetle Bailey I wish to make note of, because it takes note of a vital issue of the day — the departure from having grade school kids as crossing guards.<\/p>\n When I was a kid, at the start of the fifth grade the teacher would ask for volunteers to be Crossing Guards during various shifts — before, during, after school.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t compulsory, and it was compulsory at the same time — it was compulsory because of the simple fact that everybody signed up for it and it seemed silly to be the only one not to do so.\u00c2\u00a0 The result, for me, who had no particular interest in this task, is I forged myself to a low priority pick to don the uniform and stop the cars to get everyone across the street — I did it a few times during the year, while a few students won accolades at the end of the year for “being on the front lines just about every week” in various shifts.\u00c2\u00a0 Eager Beavers were they; I assume that their “get at it” quality that had them eager to do this business in their formative experience\u00c2\u00a0has aided them in becoming today’s\u00c2\u00a0CEOs and high priced attorneys?\u00c2\u00a0 At the end of the year, everyone received the prize of a night at the roller rink — where I skated around in circles for a few hours to the tune of a scattering of bad pop songs.\u00c2\u00a0 No harm; no foul.<\/p>\n A few months ago in Portland, there was an accident here in Portland.\u00c2\u00a0 A crossing guard was run over, or maybe a kid they were crossing the street toward.\u00c2\u00a0 I noticed in the Letters to the Editor a certain attitude — Something must be done.\u00c2\u00a0 We need to get the kids off of\u00c2\u00a0the street.\u00c2\u00a0 Adults should be in charge of this task — it’s too terrible for the kids.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0My thought to these\u00c2\u00a0letters\u00c2\u00a0was that if this school policy was changed — and it looked like it was, I was forced to wish\u00c2\u00a0harm\u00c2\u00a0on\u00c2\u00a0through an\u00c2\u00a0unfortunate accident striking one of the new adult crossing guards for at least a lesson in “there is no permaneable safety zone bubble”.<\/p>\n It is a similar feeling I had in 1995 or thereabouts when a kid, seeking the World Record book for Youngest flight, crashed.\u00c2\u00a0 The situation with this kid, aside from his parents living their lives through his accomplishments and pushing him and them being annoying a-holes not deserving, was that nobody should have been flying in the thick fog he pushed himself through, and an adult should have stopped him from flying — but\u00c2\u00a0not stopped him from flying\u00c2\u00a0when the weather came together– and this was\u00c2\u00a0a controversial view which ran in the face of the commentary of the time.<\/p>\n The matter of the crossing guards is a little broader — it is a more routine task and not a spectacular feat.\u00c2\u00a0 They are standing in the middle of the streets in 20 mile per hour zones.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to walk past a school zone on occasion when school was being let out around 3.\u00c2\u00a0 Kids were doing the crossing guard duty.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve walked past the school zone again as of late.\u00c2\u00a0 Adults are doing the crossing duty, wearing the same orange vests.\u00c2\u00a0 This is an abomination — an avenue of responsibility has been taken away from these children.\u00c2\u00a0 How are they going to grow up to be the CEOs and High powered Attorneys of tomorrow if they’re not given this simple task due to a regretable accident or two?\u00c2\u00a0 Why is Beetle Bailey’s Seargant doing crossing duty for a couple of adults when a couple of the kids he’s leading should be doing it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read today’s “Mother Goose and Grimm”?\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t think so.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, here it is, for your… enjoyment?\u00c2\u00a0 The joke loses something in being a pop cultural reference from September 2007 — an individual’s 15 minutes of fame referenced one year later,\u00c2\u00a0I have to pull the joke out of a cob-webbed memory bank in my head […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/justin\/beetlebaileycrossingguard.jpg\")
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