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Show AA)lArDIn Citizen - Wednesday, May 6, 1992 Page 2 Treasure of historic homes often hidden Editorial Bond vote expression With last week's "Yes" vote for both a $30 million building bond and a 2 mill voted leeway, voters in north Utah County have said they are putting put-ting their trust in the system. In this case, it is the first time in a long time. No one can remember the last time the Alpine School District passed a bond election that would increase property taxes. And district patronshave never approved a voted leeway before -- despite three attempts at-tempts in the last decade. By voting "Yes," local residents have acknowledged that we need more schools -- and more money to run those schools. This is a major commitment, considering the recession reces-sion and the ever-growing tax burden bur-den we all face. The "Yes" vote comes after years of frustration with overcrowded junior jun-ior high schools - and years of watch-ing watch-ing our local students have to do more with less. The vote was a strong comment on the interest and concern local residents resi-dents feel for public education. It was also a message that the school district's patrons are putting their trust in the Alpine District officials to make the best use possible of these precious tax dollars. It was quite a vote of confidence, Bits of school remains fresh A few mornings ago I walked out on my patio which is located on the east side of my house. It was early. The sun had not rose above Timp. Then in a tree a short distance away, a bird sang. No, it was not a robin. I know the robin's song. It was a tiny song bird. As I listened, my thoughts went back to my early school days and a poem I had learned. I think it was the first poem I memorized. These were the words of that poem: "Oh sing again my pretty bird, the morning morn-ing sun is glistening. A sweeter strain was never heard. Enchanted I am listening." My early school days were not too pleasant. pleas-ant. I was the only Mormon boy in the school and took a lot of ribbing. It wasn't unusual for some kid to remove my cap to see if I had horns. It was a belief in those days that Mormons had horns. However, there came a time when things changed. I reported in this column some time ago of my fight with Pooky Davis, the school bully. It happened one day at the pasture by the reservoir. I had my bucket and little shovel to gather horse manure for our garden. gar-den. Pooky and two of his pals came along and were going to have a bit of fun at my expense. Pooky called me a dung warrior which didn't bother me, but then he made a mistake. He made a rude remark about my Mom. That made me mad. My father had never gave me instructions instruc-tions in the art of fisticuffs. But he did tell me that if I ever got into a fight be sure to get in the first blow. So I let Pooky have a good one right on the nose. When I drew blood he lit on me with fists flying. Yes, they hurt, but I fought back with everything I had and soon I had Pooky on the ground. I stood over him and waved my little shovel in his face. "Damn you, Pooky," I said. "I don't care what you call me, but if you say anything against my Mom, 111 smash your brains in." And I meant it. The next day word got out that I had fought with Pooky and whipped him. Sud-"atefliy Sud-"atefliy Ffcas respected. I didn'tfet itgo tomy head, but it was nice to be accepted. Hard wood is Twice each year the furniture capital of the world is the Great International Home Furnishing Center in High Point, N.C. Buyers from all over the world converge. con-verge. I was invited to address this spring's marketers. Purposely I went early. Tom-Tom Lentz came down from Blowing Blow-ing Rock to meet me at the airport. I said, "Where's the good stuff?" He knew what I meant - barbecue! Barbecue is ribs in Memphis, sliced in Dallas, shredded i South Carolina, chopped in North Carolina. Ours was chopped with a mostly vinegar sauce. And with hush puppies and a regional soda pop called Cheerwine. For a luscious half-hour we were in hillbilly heaven. Twice a year -- April and October -sleepy High Point's 10,000 homes host 55,000 visitors. Eighteen hundred furniture manufac- was of faith given government's recent track record in handling the public's funds. Our confidence in government's ability abil-ity to spend our tax dollars wisely has been erodingfor years. The massive mas-sive federal budget deficit, and the inability of our federal officials to get any kind of control over the national debt, has shaken our trust. Add to that the Savings and Loan bailout, and the House Bank scandal. Trust in government to handle our money may be at an all- time low since the depression. Despite this, Alpine School District Dis-trict residents have told the district, unequivocally, that in this case we are trusting them to spend our money wisely and prudently. It doesn't mean we don't want continued efforts to find the best ways to teach our children at a cost we can afford. We want the district to continue consolidating services, and increasing school productivity. We want school officials to find better wavs to use new technology. We want this sacrifice to mean something. Last week's election was a good indication that north Utah County residents value education - and they are counting on the school district to use this vote of confidence wisely. days' poetry in the mind lOnAHIlP MM mi g ww i3 1 Ml !MI r, '" , ?, , 1 By TOM GRIFFITHS By' It was about this time that my mother died. I stayed out of school for a few days and when I returned, Mr. Phillips, my teacher, invited me to have lunch with him. We went to a vacant room and I shared his lunch. There was a meat sandwich, a piece of cake, and an orange. He peeled the orange or-ange and gave me half. There were no spoken words except when it was time to leave. Then Mr. Phillips put his hand on my shoulder and said, "It's sorry I am about your mother. I know you will miss her." Miss her? Would you miss the sun if it failed to come up, or the moon if it failed to show in the heavens. I missed her then and I miss her now. Well, those school days were many years ago but once in a while, like the poem about that bird, things come back to me, like The Charge of the Light Brigade. I once learned it all in school, but now only parts remain in my memory. "What though the soldiers knew, someone some-one had blundered, but there's not to question ques-tion why, there's but to do or die. Stormed at with shot and shell boldly they rode and well, into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell rode the six hundred." Dear Reader, perhaps your children or grandokildrs.can tall you abaut this, bit o. English history. a diminishing resource Paul Hrapuey Hews 1991 Los Angeles Time Syndicate turers compete for exhibit space. At one table were two tables of buyers from Sweden. Nowhere in the world has more gifted wood-craftsmen per square mile than does Sweden, yet they shop here twice a year. One buyer with 80 stores in Sweden told me his customers loved our styling, "Beautiful America," they call it. Inevitably, the ever-growing market overflows the Exposition Center. For ex There is treasure on American Fork's 100 East between Main Street an lOONorth. Not the buried kind, although plenty of folks have been scouring the ground with metal detectors, looking for long lost coins. Others have been cutting up the sod for home use and digging up the trees that are young enough to be transplanted. But it is certainly hidden treasure, because be-cause most of us seem unable to see it, or to understand just what we will lose this week when the bulldozer scrapes away the homes that have been there since before the turn of the century. Some of the treasure is hidden because it was designed that way -- built into the eaves and rafters of these historic homes. Much of it was hidden during renovations, renova-tions, when plaster and drywall, brick facades fa-cades and siding were used to cover up what had become old -- and what has since become be-come history. I knew the homes were old ones -- but I failed to understand how old, and how important, until I spent a few hours last week with the people who were trying to salvage what they could before the lots were paved over and construction begins on the new Albertson's planned for that venerable block. The people who are trying to save what they can from the old buildings bring a passion to their work. And after a little time with them, this passion for our past becomes be-comes infectious. Among the treasures that will be torn down is the William Greenwood home at 66 N. 100 East. - the oldest home in American Fork still on its original site. The main part of that home was built around 1870 -- and it is something of a marvel that people have Travel by auto Get ready, get set 7:30 a.m. Let's go! Time for the lemming-esque travel day to begin! See all the colts, dashers, eclipses, and various other versions of horsepower head to the fastest road they can find. See those so anxious to join in with the others that they turn in front of an oncoming oncom-ing car which is going 50 mph, and proceed going 20 mph. Please observe that there are nocars behind the 50 mph car for 10 blocks. This phenomenon is caused by these vehicles wishing to be as close to others as possible. They all want to be part of the group, and if the slow vehicle turned in behind the fast one, he'd quickly be left behind. If he's in front, he can control his companion traveler. Notice all the vehicles rushing to the fastest roads they can find the freeway. Notice the numbers posted beside the road. The big black ones on the white signs. Notice the numbers printed in each vehicle. The ones with the orange pointer vacillating vacillat-ing between them. Notice that the pointer doesnt rest on the same numbers posted on the signs, but rather on the number thatthe pointer in the vehicle in frontof them is on. Why is this, an observer may ask. Who knows, one may answer. Perhaps it's easier to let an unknown un-known entity way out in front who is either iate to work or dragging to avoid an unpleasant un-pleasant confrontation determine one's speed rather than think it through for oneself. one-self. After all, if it gets too annoying, one can choose a different lane. Oh, my. Here are some hazard signs approaching, which indicate construction on the road ahead. This is an interesting phenomenon. You will soon notice that as lanes of vehicles must merge together, the speed reduces. A slight reduction can be JLefttecs tfo tide ecafifioi? Is anyone really serious about improving education? Editor: I have heard a lot lately about people tryingto improve education all around the United States. I am still in school myself. Is there anyone seriously trying to improve education locally? I have found that in most of my classes, for the first half of the year we just review what we learned the previous year. This might be fine for some, but is really very boring for most. I admit that there are those who need the review, but there are also a lot of people who dSn't nd feet'their'Time is being ample, at the corners of Commerce and Wren, twice a year a la w office moves out so that a merchant can move in. Visiting hundreds of artfully designed rooms, called "galleries," one who treasures trea-sures beautiful wood worries about our nation's inevitably limited supply. And that trees by the shipload are being exported to countries that we cannot can-not buy raw wood from. Thus, despite our nation's best efforts to replant what we harvest, our supply for things like furniture will be exh austed within a decade. Anyway - you'll want to know that the furniture business is prospering again. Buying at this market was up substantially. substan-tially. Twenty-five hundred new retail furniture stores will open this year. And on Wall Street, furniture stocks are up 23 percent this year. Yet High Point re-reminds us that the fruited plains and the purple mountains' majesty are going to be left naked if we don't get smart. The Editor's Column By MARC HADDOCK lived there right up until the week before its demolition was started. Other homes along the same street are almost as old - at least portions of them are. That's part of the problem with seeingthese homes as important. Several of the homes have used the original adobe structures, and added new fronts in the 1920's or 1930's. So now instead of looking like historic homes from the 1800's, they look like run down homes from the 1930's. But for the people who know what to look for, the treasure is there. Ronald K. Myatt of Heritage Preservation Preserva-tion and Recycling is one of those who knows what to look for. For the past few weeks he has been tryingto salvage what he can out of the old homes before they are razed. Monday he was in what is known as the "Footloose" home, pulling out molding and banisters and marveling at what was to be destroyed. Up until Friday, it had been hoped that this house could be moved. That would have been something to see. The roof would have been cut off and the building cut in half to is lemming-esque experience Sscoueries By RACHEL C. MURDOCH expected, of course, particularly if the road is crowded, since more vehicles are crowding crowd-ing into less space. Ah ha, here we find that traffic has completely stopped. Now it's going along at 20 mph. Why is traffic on a freeway traveling travel-ing at 20 mph, one may ask. One might ask that Particularly when one gets to the point that the construction is taking place, and one finds that, while traffic is confined to two rather than three or four lanes, there is nothing near the two lanes requiring that speed be down to 20 mph. While occasionally one will see workers close to the traffic, which would indicate that slower speed and more caution is required, re-quired, most often there is nothing around that would necessitate such slow speeds. Somewhere up the line, one vehicle decided, for whatever reason, that 20 mph was a safe speed, thereby requiring that every driver behind him for miles also choose that speed. Oh, stunning! Here we have a traffic accident. This is truly fascinating. Notice that traffic is stopped for moments. Luckily, Luck-ily, this one isn't serious, and the cars are quickly moved off of the road. Please, take a seat, kick off your shoes. This is going to take hours. The initial vehicles near the accident must obviously slow down or stop, and then speed up only slowly. Then there's something called a queuing effect anyway, it means all the cars behind them for miles must also slow or stop. See the traffic back up from 10600 South to the to,' of Point of the Mountain in a wasted. Then there is the studying of a certain area of the class, and then just dropping it until the next year. The material mate-rial is not applied and is soon forgotten. It makes me wonder what our country's future is going to be like when it is run by ill-educated ill-educated leaders. I have seen all of the statistics on how well our students have done compared to foreign students. There are a lot of countries ahead of us, and I am not surprised that I did not see Japan on the list. I think one of the many reasons our education is not very good is that afew of the teachers are too nice. For instance, I had a math teacher who allowed students to cheat and graded on a curve. All of those who did not cheat got grades worse than normal Hospital is jewel among us Editor: Life is indeed a precious, yet tenuous, thing as I learned from personal experience recently. Having suffered for a few days with what was thought to be flu, I was rushed to the emergency room of the American Fork Hospital Hos-pital in what apparently was a life-threatening condition. The next series of events is what prompts me to write this letter. Dr. Jerry Martin and his thoroughly professional and competent staff seized upon the situation, made rapid decisions, which soon stabilized me, then had me moved into the main hospital for further treatment. Policy on letters to the editor We welcome letters to the editor. All letters should be typewritten and double spaced. Letters must also be signed, and must include the writer's name and telephone number. Letters may be edited for space. Please send letters to Editor, Newtah News Group, P.O. Box 7, American Fork, Utah, 84003. make the move. But plans to move the old home fell through - leaving Myatt little time to get what he could of historical value out of the house before it went down. Adobe bricks from the homes - made in the area in the 1870's have been taken to Pioneer Trail State Park, where it will be used to help restore other old adobe homes. You can't get them like that any more, you know. BYU archeology classes have been in the area taking a look at our past in the last few days. Members of the press and others have been drawn to this site where we plan to remove some of our town's oldest homes. Many can't believe it. But really the two or three weeks is better than we have seen in the past. Myatt said his company was only given a few hours inside the old Chipman Building before be-fore the backhoe came to tear it down - and he has spent a lot of time mourning what was lost in the process. This isn't to say we dont have a lot left in the community that is well worth saving -- or which will be saved. The Community Presbyterian Church and the old Second Ward chapel (Now Bigelow Organs), and the Third Ward chapel are examples of buildings that have been saved - at least so far. And some 800 other homes (that's right, 800) in the community have been identified as qualifying for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Sites. So while we watch the passing of these old buildings, maybe it's time to regroup and reconsider, so that we may be able to salvage more of our history before the next time it is threatened by progress. matter of minutes. See the vehicles stopped. See that now, at the point of the original accident, there is nothing left to be seen. Realize that the offending cars are already towed away, and only enforcement vehicles, with observers writing reports, remain. Notice, however, that each vehicle slows as it passes the enforcement vehicles, trying to see what the slow down is all about, and thereby aggravating the slow down further. Recognize that when those vehicles which were stopped 30 blocks back reach the scene in an hour or more, there is absolutely nothing to let them know why they were stopped in the first place. Notice, too, that the traffic going the opposite direction on a completely separate road, also slows and stops. There was no accident in their lanes, no enforcement vehicles anywhere around them, only curious curi-ous folks who push on the brakes, hoping to catch sight of the misfortune of another vehicular operator. Naturally, the vehicles behind them also fall victims to the queuing effect, causing more unnecessary delays. Under normal conditions, it is also interesting inter-esting to note how infrequently any operators opera-tors of motor vehicles use the safety devices installed for their benefit, such as turn signals or hazard lights. It in also intriguing to note that drivers put off turning on their headlights for as long as possible. Why, when light gets low at dusk, do drivers opt for the parking lights? Afraid to commit? Not quite sure it's really going to get dark? Not really sure they want anyone to see them after all? Interesting study, to say the least, and far less aggravating while actually driving in such masses of vehicular motion to consider con-sider other vehicular operators as behavioral behav-ioral studies rather than irritating humans to be yelled at. when the curve was upset. Once this teacher was met in the hall by another teacher. He was asked whether he had a class that period. He responded yes. The teacher then said something to the effect of, "Aren't they taking a test right now?" He again responded yes. "Aren't you afraid they'll cheat?" he was asked. "I hope they do, their grades need it," he said. I wonder how much the students gained out of that class. That is only one of the many reasons students aren't getting very good educations. No offense to teachers; I know a let ofthem try their best and doa very good job. Education needs to be made a higher priority for our future before it is too late. --M. Clifton Here, too, Doctors Robinson, Jones and Thompson were the epitome of professionalism profession-alism and compassion. Among the numerous numer-ous tests I submitted to the technicians, nurses, aids and other support groups were aware of my anxiety and exhibited a spirit of compassion and empathy on my behalf. I was not able to thank administrator Crag Smedley personally, but I want him, as well as the entire American Fork Hospital Hospi-tal personnel and you, the public, served by this wonderful institution, to know how I appreciate this jewel among us. -Byron L. McFarlane |