I recently took my sons on a day trip to Olvera Street in Los Angeles. My oldest, Bobby (left in the photo), had never been on the Blue Line or the Red Line trains. Neither Bobby or Darrell had been to the historic L.A. icon.
We had a good excursion, ate great food, took in some sights and, frankly, I burned their young candles at both ends. Before boarding the glider express back to the beach without waves, I started citing one of my favorite dead tree scrolls about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget crisis; the one he saved us from getting into when California struck real estate gold of '49er proportions a couple of years ago.
I figured they would be interested. Bobby is a community college student planning to transfer to a yet-to-be-determined California State University. Because he has to work a campus job to help with his books, I thought the irony of the Educ-Hater's dual scheme to offset the emergency and bust the education lobby would strike a nerve.
I knew Darrell wouldn't be overly interested in the politically-loaded plot, but then again, dust never worries about the inevitability of the vacuum cleaner and grass in the shade doesn't fret the sun's return. Little does the teenager know, the increased financial woes Arnold's assault will cause will be his inheritance in a very short time and will last a very long time.
The pulp I read to them must have appeared to be pure fiction; and not good lies at that. Within a few minutes of my tirade about the "Gov 'roid nor"-gone-amok, they were studying their arm freckles, accompanied by sound effects that only the woolly mammoth should make.
It's understandable that young men aren't utterly absorbed in their father's work, especially if the geezer's a journalist and they're into music. After all, I write about boring politics at the boring student level all of the time. "Dad's ranting politics again," they seemed to snore in unison.
Who cares if some musclebound actor wants to destroy the future of California public education, despite all the promises he made to the contrary when he was pandering votes waaay back when? What's a 10 percent slash in education here, or a 10 percent spike in tuition there among friends, right?
If Arnold succeeds in splitting the state's educational lobby into three self-preservation oriented, demonize-the-other-guy factions (the university, community college and K-12 systems), as I warn in the Jan. 28 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner (as well as several past editorials), they'll still have Sallie Mae and other eager student lenders to fall back on, correct?
As I warned them that they won't always have a dinosaur's wallet to drain, they contemplated their freckles with louder aplomb. The lady sitting between them and I laughed and laughed. I wiped the tears from my eyes. They were not tears from my hearty amusement, but rather from dread. Then only she (Charlotte) laughed.
Each time I read the governor's, CSU Chancellor Charles Reed's and/or The Beach's President F. King Alexander's spin magic that the CSU parchment is still the cheapest in the land, I cringe and ask myself, "What are these used car salesmen's yarns gonna cost me and my kids this time?"
My sons aren't the only students who will suffer if the Educ-Hater has his way. They will have plenty of company. Poverty, struggle, pain and suffering all love company. Yawn, young people. Sleep while you can, because you'll need to work several jobs at a time to pay for the governor's forgotten promises.
