| OCR Text |
Show Comment Citizen Wednesday, May 29, 1991 - Page 2 Editorial Pact is good move to better library service Several ofUtah Counties libraries have gotten together and done what many said couldn't be done -- come up with an agreement which will allow library patrons from one city to check out books from a library in another city. The agreement calls for a $2-per-item fee. But for the first time, a cardholder in Lehi can go to Pleasant Grove and check out a book, instead of settling for the lengthy wait that usually accompanies an inter-library loan. The agreement is the result of hard work by many area librarians, and represents an act of trust by the participating libraries. It is a tough decision for many of our small libraries librar-ies to open themselves up and allow-outside allow-outside patrons. In fact, no everyone was willing to participate in the experience of expanding ex-panding library service through the county. Orem and Santaquin, as yet, have decided not to participate. What's in a name? More than we think Well, folks, another expert has been heard from. He is Leslie Alan Dunkling. a former teacher and now one of the great experts on names. He makes this statement: Our first names are not merely names, frequently they act as our ambassadors, representing us to the outside world. They are a part of our personality as others see us often as we see ourselves. I have always believed with Shakespeare who wrote, 'What's in a name, but now I must change my thinking. For example, my father was a religious man. His oldest son he named after an Old Testament prophet. The next two he named after leading lights in the New Testament. I wonder what he was thinking of when he gave me a New Testament and an Old Testament name. My second name is Joseph, Jo-seph, after he of the many colored coat. Then he gave me my first name, Thomas. What was my dear old dad thinking of when he gave me this name? For the Thomas Tho-mas of the New Testament was Known for one thing, a characteristic to doubt. I realize that first names in some instances in-stances can affect our lives. I have written about my boyhood friend whose parents named him Chumley. All of his life he was called Scrummy. and the name fitted his personality and physical appearar.ee. I can't help but think that if his parents had given him some sexy or glamorous name it would not have changed old Scrummy. I once had an acquaintance with the name of Algernon. With a name like tha: you would expect to see a little gentleman, but Algernon was the mear.es:. toughest kid you ever saw. Now, w as it the name his parents gave him that shaped his personality or was it because his father was a boxer ar.d loved to visit the village pub ar.d qua? the ale? There is a possibility tha; a firs: r.am.e can give you confidence. To illustrate. A young hov was arrly.rg for a job. 'What's our name? asked the store manager. 'Ford. replied the lad. 'And your firs: name" inquired the manager. 'Henry. 'Henry Ford, eh said the manager with a smile. "That's a pretty w ell-knowr. name The boy kwked pleased. 'Yes sir. i: should be, he replied proudly. Tve beer, delivering deliver-ing groceries around town for two years The biggest Saddam Hussein appears human. He is sub-human. When he withdrew from Kuwait City he ordered kerosene dumped into the city's water supply - for no earthly military mili-tary reason. When he torched the oil field he did it with malice, systematically. A scorched-earth retreat car. be militarily mili-tarily useful. Setting the biggest fire that ever was w as not a "military act; it was the pure-meanness pure-meanness mischief of a pathologio&l psychopath. psy-chopath. Dr. Henry W. Kendall, Nobel laureate in physics at MIT, and Dr. R, L Garwtn. a physics colleague, have been mobilirirg our best scientific brains to see if there is not some better way to fight such fires. They found the challenge to be monumentally monu-mentally complex. For example, when I asked about the potential for extinguishing the fires with explosives, Kendall explained that these wells are infinitely more complex than a pipe in a hoJe. Each may involve six to eight concentric pipes reaching different depths under varvir.g pressures. Also, Saddam Hussein surrounded each well with an assortment ofmir.es - different dif-ferent makes, different depths. Some explode under pressure. Some you must Likewise, HYU's Harold B. Lee Library is still considering whether it will participate in this coalition of community libraries. The agreement with allows inter-library inter-library card privileges is a step forward for-ward for library service in Utah County. And those responsible -chiefly the Utah County Library Association - are to be commended for continuing to find new ways to meet the needs of area residents. But the agreement still leaves out the people who live where library service is not available -- county residents resi-dents and the residents of Highland, Alpine and similar communities. These individuals still must pay non-resident fees to use town libraries librar-ies that are largely supported by property taxes. So while the new agreement is commendable, Utah County's library needs still face the challenge of making library service available to all county residents. browsing N By TOM GRIFFITHS K now. So. w hat's in a name? The experts might say that a name can influence our lives, but I say many more things car. affect our destinies thar. a name. As I wn:e this bi: ofnor.ser.se there is a thunderstorm going on outside. Priceless. God-given rain is falling. Thunder is echoing echo-ing through cur valley. One cannot escape having a feeling of gratitude. I must walk outside ar.d feel the rain in my face. As to the thunder, when I was a young boy I w as afraid of it. One time when there was a particularly bad thunder stem got :c on 1 wen: ?r coi 'Mam. I said. 'What is thunder, ar.d why does it frlghter. rr.e Her answer w as no: :he leas: bi: scier.-tific. scier.-tific. but I have though: abou: i: many times. 'My son, she sac. 'thunder is ire rr.eirod by which God talks to :he wicked people. Firs: comes the .igh:er.:rg from the heavens heav-ens to sho his power, then he speaks with a loud voice. She w en: to a cupboard and brought out the family bible. She :urr.ed :o Psalms 15. and read. 'The Lord :hundered ir the heavens, ar.d the highest gave his voice: hail stones and coals of fire. Yea. he sen: ou: his arrow s and scattered them: ar.d he shot out lightnings, light-nings, ar.d discomforted them. So. cu see. she said. if c-u are not wtcked there is nothing :o be afraid of w her. i: thunders. The hills and trees are washed clean. The rain crocs dripping from my trees look like tears of vy Indeed the world is g.vd even if you do have an odd name fire the world Paul Harvey News Tub at $Tix-.i t-ass over a certain nunc? c tore they excloce The on-s :e scientists came a ay -.ti enhanced respect for such fire fixhters is Houston s legendary Red Adair, ret a mine field is a uricue rr.c.er-. r.o: usually usu-ally me: in that rrcx'e-ssicc- Access to each well must sccre-S: re cleared. Presently, the most rrctrisir.g tech-r.ue tech-r.ue mvcle ar. er.crmcus"veA:'rlior, a powerful machine capable cTcCastir-g a clean strip of desert 30 feet wide and a foot deep, deto- atir.g or tossing aside any and all explosives. And there is e: a more sinister rrcib-lem. rrcib-lem. A burning well is a lesser ecological Fat-free foods are also fun It seems like the most innocent subjects will make some people angry, and the subjects sub-jects you think are powder kegs simply can't stir anyone to action. I mean, a few weeks ago I wrote a column col-umn about the four food groups. It was all tongue in cheek, if youll pardon the expression, expres-sion, and written strictly for fun. But I got a call from a close relative of our publisher (his mother) who read me the riot act for failing the appreciate the unhealthy un-healthy state of the American diet -- and for not recognizing that I was ridiculing the very people who would like to see things changed. I joked around the office that eating too many vegetables must have a detrimental effect on the sense of humor -- but not very loudly. It came home to roost, as all things do, when I threw my weekly tempest in a teapot as deadlines neared. The entire office of-fice threatened to confiscate my sunflower seeds until my sense of humor returned. Then last week I wrote what I thought was the kind of column that would get some reaction -- poking fun at our local city governments. It, too, was written in fun, but I expected a lot of reaction. And I heard nary a word. Go figure. Anyway, back at the salad bar, I have been trying to take to heart some of the advice I received in the wake of my anti-health anti-health food column. The experiment goes poorly. I love food. I enjoy cooking it. I love to eat Wouldn't a near miss be a Sometimes the best things that happen to us are completely unexpected. One of my most recent delights was only a relative surprise, but it sure has been a pleasure. A member of two book clubs, I had been very carefully watching the budget and having to check the "Do not send" box for so many months it was painful. But the time came when the latest novel by one of my favorite authors was finally available. Announced at the same time was a book entitled "Crazy English" by Richard Lederer. How could someone who makes a living with words pass by such an offering? How could such a cheapskate miss the chance to save shipping and handling fees by ordering two books at once? So I went ahead and closed my eyes to the cost. When the shipment arrived I found out they did not come together and save me any money. But what I spent was well worth it. "Crazy English" is an absolute delight not only for writers, but for anyone who has ever read or spoken the English language. The author asks, "In what other language lan-guage do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway? In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? 'In what other language can your nose run and vour feet smell?" Ten rules to get through adolescence By JOSEPH WALKER Well, it's finally happened. We have a teenager in the house. It's not like we didn't expect it or anything. any-thing. I mean we've known for 13 years that it was coming and we've tried to prepare ourselves. But it wasn't until I saw Amy talking to that 15-year-old boy at church the other day ar.d I noticed that he was a little intimidated by her that I began to fully appreciate w hat was happening in our lives. And frankly. I'm a little scared. Don": ge: me wrong - Amy is a terrific girl w-.:h a strong sense of values. But she's also imperfect, which means she's going to make mistakes from time to time. And so Tve been thinking. At age 13, Amy hasr.'. quite arrived at the point where she totally tunes Mom and Dad out. Maybe now is the time to debunk some of those rr.yths that plagued us all through adolescence. adoles-cence. If I could imprint anything on Amy's mind to help see her through the next seven or eight years, it would be that she remember remem-ber these 10 sirr.r'.e truths: has seen menace than a gus.rir.g we. which mav create a .ase o: oi. cozens o square mi.es of oil up to four feet deep. When that lake of oil congeals under a siim of tar, explosive gases are trapped ur-ierr.-eath with the potential to convert t disaster into a catastrophe. Ar. d rorccy has ever before had to deal with ruiTjesw eeping underneath a lake of cC Seversl nations are competing with an ts.sortrr.er.: of techniques for dealing with ths pr-asler-., each hoping to win some I'lirratrve car. tracts. Their are 15 leasts now working in the b-irning fields, and The Union of Ccocerried Scientists as well as our federal fed-eral go1 emment are presently most confident con-fident cf the or.hodoi techniques em-ry em-ry traditional oil-field fire fighters, fight-ers, w-.th some additions, will get the fires C'-t- The subject of war reparations is on the rack burner for now, but somewhere ? ifle road ahead the respor.sibib.ty for these fires and the astronomical costs of retmg them out and their grave costs to the world er.rirocment Saddam Hussein should have to pay. It's a sorry audit of the "wages of sirs if this post-war reconstruction ends up costing us core than it costs him. The Editor's Column By MARC HADDOCK Qk it. If it's chocolate and nearby, it is endangered. endan-gered. And I like meat and potatoes and vegetables vege-tables and Mexican and Italian and oriental orien-tal food. Steaks, hamburgers, ham, spicy, bland, it doesn't matter, I love it. Being married to a food editor helps. We are trying out new dishes constantly. I like to help in the kitchen and at the kitchen table. We travel to events where food is an important element of the festivities. (This weekend it was the Scandinavian Festival in Ephraim where I managed one too many meatballs in the all-you-can eat smorgasbord. smorgas-bord. Before that, we cleaned up the Dutch ovens in a cooking demonstration. Next week-end, who knows?) But I recognize that age requires a change in eating habits unless one is interested in spending a lot of time with his or her doctor. So I'm willing to try most things. But frankly, most of the non-fattening Barb's Wire By BARBARA CHRISTIANSEN He questions some standard phrases such as: "A near miss." In reality, it's a collision. If you have a close call it's a near hit. "Between the cracks. If something fell between the cracks, didn't it land smack on the planks or the concrete." "Head over heels in love." The standard position is with our heads over our heels. If things are reversed as in the case of the love-smitten, they could be said to be heels over head. Lederer doesn't stop there. He includes an entire chapter on oxymorons oxymo-rons -- those wonderfully simple phrases that contain contradictions. "Working vacation," "baby grand," "open secret," freezer burn," "random order," accidentally on purpose," "plastic silverware," silver-ware," and "industrial park" are just samples of the beginning. He includes a chapter on non-logical rules of the language and illustrates his points by a conversation with Farmer Eben Pluribus. Spelling rules with their many excep 1. Everybody isn't doing it. Whatever "it is, from drugs to drinking to cheating on tests, there's always someone you admire ad-mire who isn't doing it because they choose not to. Emulate that someone. 2. Bad things don't only happen to "bad" kids. You don't have to be looking for trouble to find it . Lots of "good girls get pregnant. 'Good boys can get in accidents while showing off in Dad's new sports car.. 3. The world doesn't owe you a thing. That teacher doesn't have to give you a good grade unless you earn it. Your boss doesn't have to give you a raise unless she feels you deserve it. You have to take responsiblity for your life, and make it happen. 4. The answers to life's most important impor-tant questions can't be artificially induced. Although many have tried, nobody no-body that I know of has ever found lasting peace and happiness in a bottle, or in a syringe or in the back seat of a car. 5. You aren't as invincible as you think you are. Is there a junkie alive -- or dead, for that matter - w ho didn't think he would be immune from the strangie-hold of addiction? addic-tion? Is there a teenager with a sexually transmitted disease who didn't figure these things always happen to someone else? & Popularity isn't all it's cracked up Letter to the editor Greenwood Elementary is underrated Editor It's all ever fir me' My teaching career is over as of May 31. I would like :c express some observations observa-tions based cr. my 3;. ears cf teaching experience. expe-rience. Many trr.es I have heard the statement, Oh, yeu are fn Greer. x School." I am dis turret by the feeling of some that Green w:c may be "second rate." I beg tc drfer wrth those individuals. Pre taught in many schools :r. Apir.e Dis-tr.ct, Dis-tr.ct, I ir. w ticriliber of principals, teachers, teach-ers, lurch wcrkers, custciiars, ar.d resource re-source :e:c!e are dedicated n their work. Tve seen them 'drained from a dav's wors 'acr.ng art children tier. dav. c:-r.sc.ir. nur.crecs o: Policy on letters to the editor We welcome letters to the editor. All letters should be typewritten and doable spaced. Letters mast also be signed, and must include, ths writer's name and telephone number. Pleas send letters to Editor, Newtah News Grocp, P.O. Box 7. American Fork. Utah, 4003. - free foods foods available are no fun. Take the fat-free hamburger a popular fast food restaurant is marketing. I ate one. And it was okay. I guess. But it's not really a hamburger. The meat has stuff added to taste like a hamburger and fat removed to be more healthy. Frankly, there's more to food than taste. WTien you get done, you ought to feel like you've eaten something. With the fat-free hamburger, the stomach stom-ach was full but the palate was unsatisfied. My stomach wanted real food - and now. A few days later we were in the grocery store and were offered a sample of a new lite" salad dressing. I took a bite and experienced that same sensation - food with the right taste but none of the integrity integ-rity of real food. "It tastes like a McLean," I told the salesperson, who laughed politely but without with-out humor. I didn't buy any. Since then I've tried lite this and fat-free that: Low sugar ice cream bars that feel insubstantial when you bite into them, diet sodapopthatleavesyou thirsty and bloated without any of the sugar kick you wanted when you got the drink, sugar-free gum that doesn't let your teeth tingle, but just makes your jaws tired. I'm willing to try anything. But this new food is no fun. I've decided the only answer is to start eating less, and liking it less, as well. But if they keep taking the fun out of food, I just may stop eating at all. And then where will I be? collision? tions take a good licking from Lederer. He quotes from T. S. Watt's poem: "A dreadful language? Man alive! "I'd mastered it when I was five. "And yet to write it the more I tried, "I hadn't learned at fifty-five." He takes readers on visits to the language lan-guage zoo, giving nearly 300 comparisons to animals in a short section. "Wall Street bulls and bears make a beeline for the goose that lays the golden egg, cold fish and hotdoggers, early birds and night owls, lone wolves and social butterflies, young lions and old crows, and lame ducks, sitting ducks, and dead ducks." Other comparisons lurk in the corners of our cupboards and refrigerators. "As we chew the fat about the food-filled phrases that are packed like sardines and sandwiched into our everyday conversations, conversa-tions, 111 sweeten the pot with some tidbits of food for thought guaranteed to whet your appetite." It's a wonderful book, with so many different approaches one never tires of the concept. After all, where but in English do a slim chance and a fat chance mean the same, but a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? I recommend it heartily to anyone who wants anythingbetweenabrieflight laughing laugh-ing look at our loveable language and a serious but enjoyable learning endeavor. I just wish I had thought of it first. to be. When it comes right down to it, popularity tends to be about conformity and living your life according to the standards stan-dards of whatever group happens to be "in" at the moment. Why not just live your own life, and let people accept you for who you are. Youll be happier and less stressed. 7. Experience isn't necessarily the best teacher - unless you re going to throw the experiences of others into the equation. You don't have to stick your hand in the fire to know that it's hot. And you don't have to experiment with drugs or premarital sex to know they're dangerous. Others have already al-ready proven that. Trust them. 8. There's no such thing as "too far gone." No matter how many mistakes you've made, if you sincerely want to change and are willing to pay the price, you can do it 9. The sun really will come up tomorrow. No matter how bleak things may seem from time to time, they'll get better. 10. Somebody does care about you. It may not always be the people you want to have caring about you. But there's always someone who is there - and who cares. They're the ones you've always been able to count on. That won't change. No matter what. Not even for a teenager. Tve seen lower grade teachers hold children chil-dren close for the T.LC they need for achieving. I've seen upper grade teachers give pats on backs and hand shakes for work well done. Tve seen tears, runny noses, skinned knees and elbows wiped more than once. Pve heard teachers say to kids: "YouVe great," fantastic," "hang in there "good job. Tve seen children taught values that may have escaped parents. Greenwood teachers not good? They are temfic! Pve taught with the greatest and Pm proud to have been one of them. --Gen Em a 6th Grade, Greenwood |
