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Show comment Citizen Wednesday, Sept 21, 1988 - Page 2 Sex education policy meets The Alpine School District has taken a positive step to further education about one of the most pressing health problems facing modern society -- AIDS. A proposed policy that spells out how teachers in the Alpine School District will teach sex education addresses this critical issue m a way that should benefit the students without distressing their parents. That's quite a trick. Any time a school district addresses sex education, it must satisfy mandates from several sides. First, the State Board of Education has laid down guidelines telling school districts what can and cannot be taught. As is proper, one of these chief guidelines is the requirement that morality be taught as a critical part of sex education. In line with this mandate, the Alpine District's basic approach to AIDS education will focus on abstinence before marriage and fidelity after as the best way to prevent the disease. Autumn air filled with When your father owns the grocery gro-cery store, you don't see a lot of home production around canning time. At least you didn't in my house. It was a lot easier to get canned fruits and vegetables than it was to put them up. But some things just can't be duplicated by mass production especially when the cook's touch is a crucial part of the recipe. So every year my mother would haul out the canner and the jars, and make sure I brought some lids home from the store before we sold out, so she could prepare those items that couldn't be bought. Chokecherry jelly was a favorite in our town since nearby Montpe-lier Montpe-lier Canyon was always thick with chokecherries. And I've never found any jelly with more flavor. Mom also specialized in currant jelly, largely because there was a row of currant bushes in our back yard that was always packed with the small, sour currant berries. The bushes made a great hiding place and marked the rear boundary bound-ary of our yard -- it was where the lawn stopped, although our property prop-erty extended another 50 yards or so. We were free to pick and eat as many of the juicy berries as we wanted; they were edible enough to be fun to eat for play, but sour enough to keep us from eating very many. And Mom figured the more berries we ate, the fewer she would have to worry about when it came From no dog to tale of I've told my children many times, "We will never have a dog. Never. "We don't need a dog; we have six kids. If that's not enough playmates, play-mates, there's all the neighbors with six kids, and all their dogs. "Houses with dogs begin to smell like dogs. "Puppies grow up. Then they bark and eat a lot and they have to be exercised every day. "Dogs cost too much," I said, "So this is one thing we're just not going to discuss. Well discuss hamsters, rats, mice, snakes, but not dogs." We have a dog now, and there wasn't any family discussion. I didn't know I was capable of so much empathy for a puppy. Tamra, Trisa and I were pushing push-ing a grocery cart to the car when Trisa said, "Mom, those kids are giving away puppies." "Yeah!" said Tamra, "They're trying to give them away!" I loaded the groceries in the car. "We don't need a puppy," I said. The girls climbed into the back. I turned and looked at four kids trying to give away three puppies. I walked over to the kids, not because of the puppies, I told myself. my-self. I just like kids. The pups were malamute-chow. "They don't grow too big," a little girl told me. "And they make good watch-dogs and they're good with children and they can stay outside all winter and if we don't give them away by four o'clock, our Aunt is going to put them to sleep." I picked up one pup. I'd forgotten how soft a dog could be. But then, I'm not sure I ever knew. Long before I was born, Daddy fed our German shepherd too many meat scraps. The dog got hot blood and lost all the hair from his middle Ambulance Editor: TViS letter is in response to Mr. Gray! letter to the Citizen's Editor on Wednesday, Sept. R The American Fork Ambulance is still providing coverage for the little league football games. It was decided, because of the few personnel per-sonnel that we have to cover the city that we would send one EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) to'the games with a jump kit and a liable radio. If there is an Urgency, the EMT can radio for the ambulance and provide care during the few minutes that it takes the editor's column By MARC HADDOCK time to make jelly. I can remember going into the kitchen in the middle of the process, proc-ess, with a strainingcloth stained a bright red from my mother's efforts to make the jelly as clear as it was sweet. But while the jellies and jams were good, Mom's serious canning efforts revolved around tiny pickling pick-ling onions, cucumbers and cauliflower, cauli-flower, all of which were used to make a mustard pickles that was the envy of everyone who tasted it. Making mustard pickles is a chore, as anyone who has tried it can tell you. And most of the work involved those tiny onions. I remember Mom sitting on the back porch in the autumn sunshine up my alley Mm By DEBRA HADFIELD on back. Over the years, several men whipped out pocket knives and teasingly offered to cut off the ugly gray snake of a tail. One man who thought my dog looked too miserable for life shot Shadow in the rear with a BB gun. Shadow died from the resulting infection. He's buried wrapped in red velvet and cotton under what was a pinetree in Yellowstone. I remembered Shadow as I cuddled the pup. I was eight years old again, and Shadow my best companion. When I asked, the girl reluctantly reluc-tantly told me all the pups were girls. I looked over at my car. I couldn't see my girls. I took the pup. As I opened the car door, Tamra andTrisa jumped up from kneeling by the back seat. "Our prayers have been answered!," they shouted. "His name's Penny," Trisa said. "We've named him." "Her," I said. still provides coverage for the ambulance to arrive. Your statement that the money is .L... 1 :mn..r.t tVincl iu ill ' best, garbage. We are compensated x $1 per hour for staying in the city to provide the service while on call. We are compensated $10 for each run when we are called out to provide the ambulance service to the citizens. In exchange, we must attend numerous training sessions to maintain our certification as an KMT. This training has changed extensively ex-tensively from the days of the advanced ad-vanced first aid training. We are At the same time, high school students will be able to get necessary information about how AIDS is transmitted that might have been restricted in the past. Under the policy, all AIDS education will be taught through the Healthy Lifestyle Curriculum which has been adopted by the Utah State Board of Education. An even tougher-to-satisfy group is made up of parents in the Alpine District -- many of whom feel the district should pi ay no role in teaching sex education of any type. That, they maintain, is a family responsibility. The problem, of course, is that the material is not being taught at home, and as a result, many of our children are woefully under-educated in this important area. That lack of education is of concern to society when lack of knowledge may help in spreading a deadly disease like AIDS. But the policy takes parental concerns into account, scent of canning for hours, paring knife in hand, peeling a layer of skin off of onion after tiny onion. I had thought that shelling peas was a lot of effort for the amount of peas that resulted, but that was nothing compared to how much work it took mom to peel those canning onions. It seemed like hours were devoted de-voted to this simple task before the business of puttingup the mustard pickles could begin. Once the picking process had started, you knew fall had come to the Haddock household. The strong odors of vinegar and mustard mus-tard combined to provide a marvelous marvel-ous aroma that kept our sinuses clear for days. As a kid coming and going, it all seemed pretty easy. The pots and pans would be boiling on the stove during lunch. By dinnertime, a whole bunch of jars filled with yellow yel-low and green would be stacked on the counter. Over a couple of days, just enough mustard pickles wouid be made to last for one year. It was a staple on the family dinner table, served every Sunday, and when appropriate throughout the week. I can't remember a major meal that didn't feature a generous supply of this house specialty. When I was little, one of those vhimsical kid eaters who know what they will or won't like without ever tasting the food, I wouldn't touch the cucumbers or " ' cauliflower only those crisp, tiny onions, swimming in the sweet- '; puppy woes "She needs food," Tamra said. I went back in the store. My boys heard the girls before we pulled up the driveway. "Mom got us a puppy! He was free!" "Her," I said. We had a her once before, a tiny, nippy puppy the children named "She" in honor of her sex. "She" lasted a week. The pup was always dancing at our heels. One morning Gene opened the house door to the garage and ac-cidently ac-cidently stepped down on her neck. We had a funeral and I created answers for questions about the here-after life of dogs. As the boys raced to meet Pen ny, I said, "Don't ever say your mother doesn't love you." In minutes, Penny had two former for-mer mush bowls labeled "PENNY" in permanent marker, a laundry basket with one side cut away for her bed, and eight pairs of hands taking turns stroking her back. Nathan and Neldon looked up "malamute" and "chow-chow" in the encyclopedia. Both breeds are strong and intelligent. I prefer intelligent dogs, although al-though nothing brought more laughter, when I was a child than sneaking peeks from our bathroom window at our neighbor trying to train his dumb hunting dog. "Sit!," Dennis would yell at the dog, "Sit!" The dog ran away all around the house and sneaked up behind Dennis who was still yelling, yell-ing, "Come back here! Come back and sit!" When Dennis took the dog hunting, hunt-ing, the dog ran off at the first shot. After a search, Dennis came home without his pheasant and without his dog. The dog was smart enough to find his way home several days now trained to provide life-saving treatment at the scene with the hospital's approval. These treatments treat-ments are such items as anti-shock trousers, intravenous fluids, and most importantly, cardiac defibrillation lor patients in cardiac arrest. As an advanced EMT, I have had to give up many other activities in order to maintain my training. I have spent as much as 80 hours and more per year in furthering my training to provide the best care possible to the patient. tough set of criteria sour mustard. In fact, at times I would have to open a fresh jar just to dig for onions. 1 I outgrew that. I've eaten other mustard pickles. pick-les. Once a case of mustard pickles came to the store -- and I was surprised to see that other people might eat this type of food. I had never eaten it anywhere but at home, and here it was, produced for the masses. It was very disappointing, until I tasted some of the commercial product. This nasty stuff was not the delectable condiment created by my mother. Let them eat it, I thought. Z'1 " After I tefthome, I took a supply of mustard pickles with me receiving re-ceiving a fresh supply each fall when mom would go to work in the kitchen again preparing her specialty. spe-cialty. And I never ran out until my mother ran out of steam. I've found other suppliers including Ann Shields, who puts up a mean batch of mustard pickles. But it isn't Mom's. Nobody else's cooking ever is, is it? We never went hungry in my house, and most of our food came directly from the family-owned store shelf. That's just the way grocers and their families eat. .r But some things you couldn't buy in the store, because no one else could duplicate it. . And right new, one jar of Mom's pUBtard pickles , would be priceless, price-less, as is the memory. later. According to the vet we took Penny to for shots, she isn't as smart as the encyclopedia suggested, sug-gested, which explains why we're having a challenge training her, although the real problem is probably proba-bly too many feedings from our sympathetic children. "If she eats, she poops," the vet said. "It's that simple." I guess our house smells like we own a dog now. Penny has grown a lot since we brought her home in August. The vet says she will be a good-sized dog. I guess Penny knows that already. al-ready. She ch ases after the big dogs in our neighborhood. She chases them much more eagerly than she follows me when we go jogging together. I like to have her along when I go jogging at night, even though it's a challenge to keep track of her in the dark. The other night in our park, I thought she was behind me, then somehow she was ahead of me, dashing for the weeds along the park border. Afraid I'd lose her, I raced to catch up and grabher. Just before my hands touched her back, I realized the animal was a skunk. "Oh, no!" I screamed, certain it was too late for skunk mercy. "Run, Penny!" I yelled, racing back the other way. ' We didn't get sprayed. Maybe the skunk was running too fast to bother. Our free dog is costing us more than a penny. Shots will cost us $100 this first year, spaying $60 and food $120. ' With an investment like that, I guess it's time I learned to never say "Never!" at local sports events , When you started with the ambulance, am-bulance, the training was provided by the city, at no cost to you. in compensation to your providing the service. Now the city requires a person to already be EMT certified before applying to the ambulance. The KMT course is currently $:J50 to $400. The cost is coming out of the individual's own pocket. Shouldn't these individuals be compensated for their expenses? According to past 1 ambulance members, they often had only one member to cover the city during the dav. With the enormous amount of allowing parents to review material and to withdraw their children if they feel the material is contrary to what they want their children to learn. Even more, the policy recognizes the home as the most important source of any sex education, and recognizes the home as the place where standards are established. Finally, the most important consideration is the child. The policy spells out what children will be taught and at what age --with material suited to the child's grade level. Throughout, the policy strives to maintain human dignity while dealing with one of the most basic of human processes. The proposed policy may require minor word changes to overcome some sexist language, but it is a strong step in the right direction towards meeting the needs of society, in informing inform-ing our youth about AIDS, while meeting the needs of the family as well. It is a positive step in the right direction. Today's education terrifies adults I know no w I was born fifty years too soon, because in the little school house I attended as a boy we were taught the three R's: reading, writing writ-ing and rithmatic. We did learn them and we learned well. I remember our quarterly exams, ex-ams, They were frightening. On examination day the school board sent their own examiners. They even brought their own test papers. On this day the teachers were invited in-vited to stay home. Only the headmaster head-master came to school. On examination day none of our fellow students checked our papers as is done in our schools today, they were checked by the examiners. At the conclusion of the day when the results were known it was very evident if the teacher had taught and the student had learned. But now look at what they are doing to the poor kids. They are giving them a computer. A university professor makes this statement. "It's amazing how quickly kids overcome any fears about the computer. Within hours every child could perform computer com-puter operations which would terrify ter-rify most adults." I don't know about you, but I am too old to be terrified by my kids or grandkids. Can't you imagine a kid coming home from school and you ask him the old routine question. "Well son, How did you do in school today?" He doesn't answer, he just whips out his computer. He presses one button after another then he answers you. "Today I learned how to draw a square. The computer told me to draw four lines of equal length and four 90 degree angles. By doing this I have a square." Frankly, I must confess I would be a bit terrified. However, I don't panic. I ask the brainchild to crank up his computer com-puter and give me the answer to the question." What does it take to rake up the leaves on the lawn." "Oh, Dad," he said, "they don't teach you that in school." "Very well, son, then try this one. The State is claiming a several million dollar surplus, start pressing press-ing buttons on that computer and tell me why the Tax Commission needed to double my property taxes? So the kid says, "Dad you don't seem to understand, if I make a mistake on this computer I just Signs are lovely sight Editor: What a lovely sight to see the two new "Welcome to American Fork" signs which grace the highways as we enter our fair city from either the south or the east. I congratulate whomsoever is responsible for putting them there, whether it be the City Council or members of the civic clubs. Those signs add dignity and warmth to our city. Now we need to look to the yards along the roads and streets on either side of the highways. Some businesses and property owners have planted grass and flowers to beautify the land. But, sorry to say, too many others have let weeds compensation we receive, we are, still not able to cover all of the 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week service as we would like to provide. The money is little compensatirtn for the numerous hours that many of us are into the service. I myself have been providing more than 8o hours a week of coverage, on top of working a regular full-time, job. Several other EMT's are putting in the same amount of time also. During the past several months we have been down to 12 members to provide coverage of all the hours required. This has spread them browsinq press a button and it erases the error and I can start over." As I said, I was born 50 years too soon, for it looks like the future is going to produce a generation of brilliant kids and a generation of terrified parents. Another professor wants to liberate lib-erate the consumer, namely you and me. He gives forth with a startling star-tling statement. "We spend a lot of time education people in how to earn money, but very little time in teaching how to spend it." He says, "There really isn't a right or wrong decision for a consumer con-sumer to make, basically, if one's decision maximizes one's satisfaction satisfac-tion then it's the right decision." What he says is, "If you buy something and you like it thafs fine and no one else's business." I reckon I should go back to school and learn how to be liberated. liber-ated. Perhaps I could learn why I stand by the meat counter and look at the price of steak and lamb chops and then put a pound of hamburger in my shopping basket. But the good professor shows he is human for he says, "A little bit of impulse buying is good for one's well being, just as long as it is kept to small items every so often." I was in a downtown store the other day when out of the corner of my eye I saw a young friend of mine picking out a nightgown for his wife. My first thought was to go over and liberate him and advise him to buy something practical. But I noted there was a look in his eyes that was far from practical. He held up a flimsy thing you could almost see through and I heard him whisper, "this is the one I want." Just between us, I don't want to be liberated. grow in profusion. Right now is not too early to look forward to spring. In fact, the weeds should be removed right now. Then come spring, why can't we have beautiful flowers planted along the way? I remember with sadness the lovely little spots of flowers we had on each side of the corners of the blocks throughout our town. To replace those flower beds with grass was a mistake. I hope the person on the City Council responsible for beautification will do a better job next spring. -Wanda S. Petersen pretty thin, especially to cover the extra events that we are requested to cover. I urge anyone who is interested in this service to make application to city hall now. There are many rewards, much greater than the money. The personal satisfaction of handling a life-threatening situation. Knowing that you provide the best possible care and a much needed service to the community. -Skylar Dimick Vice President American Fork Ambulance |