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Show ' GDfflft7Dui Citizen Wednesday, May 26, 1993 - Page 6 Editorial Commencement is truly a beginning This week hundreds of North Utah County high school seniors will join their fellow 17- and 18-year-olds in high school graduation ceremonies designed to recognize their completion comple-tion of 12 years of school. Even more than a conclusion, however, how-ever, graduation is a beginning --that's --that's why this week's ceremonies are called Commencement. High school graduation in our society, so-ciety, more than anything else, is the rite of passage by which we recognize recog-nize a person's entry into adult society. soci-ety. Because of that, speeches at this week's Commencement ceremonies will be filled with advice and aphorisms apho-risms about success and the realizations realiza-tions of dreams through hard work, high hopes and improbable idealism. Most of thise speech-making, however how-ever well intentioned, aims so high that it fails to connect with the earth-bound earth-bound audience who will is extremely relieved at the thought of not having to endure another day of attending hours and hours of class, followed by additional hours of homework. It is kind of a shame that all of this will go by the wayside in the name of celebrating the end of slavery to the regimen of public education. Graduation Gradu-ation is, after all, an important event. The story of the boy who loved the wind in his face There is an interesting article in this nriAMMiImM month's "Readers Digest." It is a real tear IflJ U L JS Q UU J Jtri Mri . L l itr aubliui is o nuiiiau iru a plane waiting for it to take off for California. However, before it left an eight year old boy got on and sat down beside her. The plane took of and as it climbed into the sky the little boy was crying. "What is the matter?" asked the lady. Tearfully, the boy replied, "I want my Mommy. I want my Mommy." As the flight continued, the boy told his story. His mother and father were divorced and the father was awarded custody of the boy and he was on his way to join his father. I am sure there are many similar cases throughout our own land and all of them sad. My story is about a boy about eight years old but the conditions are slightly different. It was a late spring day just 15 years ago. I was mowing my front lawn when this boy came tearing down the sidewalk on his bike. He turned into my driveway but he was going so fast he couldn't stop and fell onto my la wn. He got up smiling. "I'm Rod," he said. "I live up the street a-ways." After I made sure he wasn't hurt I asked him why he rode so fast. "I like to feel the wind in my face," was his reply. From that day on we became friends. Several days a week he would ride down on his bike hell-bent-for-election and my advice ad-vice to slow up went for aught. But I enjoyed the boy. I always had an apple, an orange or a piece of candy to share with him on his visits. His clothing was saturated with tobacco smell but I couldn't blame that on Rod. I was bishop of my ward and I became close friends of this boy who was as carefree as the north wind. Then one day as I sat in my office doing some paper work on a Sunday morning a boy came running up. "Rod is in the irrigation pond. He is drowned." Let's fix what's broken in health care While our First Lady contemplates how to provide health care for all Americans, Ameri-cans, many Americans are seekinghealth care outside the United states. It's cheaper. Whole hospitals that might be located in the United States are locating elsewhere. else-where. It's cheaper. New England Journal of Medicine notes that 7 percent of U.S. doctors have within the past five years sent patients outside our country for treatment that is not available here. Paradoxically, nearly one-third of Canada's doctors have sent patients outside out-side Canada for treatment, mostof whom come to the United States because there is such an interminable wait in Canada for radiation oncology, iv." services, brain-injury care. At Falls Memorial Hospital, International Interna-tional Falls, Minn., 75 percent of patients in the drug and alcohol dependency unit are Canadians. Canada's problem, unlike ours, is a degree of socialization in medical practice that has "overwhelmed the system Our problem does not relate to the From this point, the lives of these students will diverge drastically. Many will go on to college, where they will exchange the hourly demands de-mands of high school for the intellectual intellec-tual demands of higher education. Homework? They ain't seen nothing yet. Others will enter the military, where regimen becomes the means and the end Most will enter the work force as soon as they can find a job, if they haven't already. Marriage becomes a more acceptable accept-able alternative, although, to be sure, several of the members of the Class of '93 are married. Indeed, all of the experiences of life await the Class of '93. Much more important than graduation, gradu-ation, however, is how the graduates gradu-ates react to what awaits them. For achievement in high school is no guarantee of success in life. Indeed, the very yardstick by which we measure mea-sure success changes drastically after af-ter graduation. The challenge now is for these young men and women to measure up in their own eyes and to pursue their own goals. Congratulation to the Class of '93. Now the real adventure begins! i r By TOM GRIFFITHS I jumped into my car and drove over to this pond. There was a chain link fence around it but the kids had dug a hole under it for access to the pond. Then some foolhardy fool-hardy kids had built a rickety raft to sail on the pond. This was where Rod and his pals were on Sunday morning. They had paddled the raft into the steep bank and while clambering ashore, Rod fell into the water and not being able to swim, the pond claimed his body. I arrived at the pond just as a diver was bringing the body of Rod out of the murky water. He looked like he was asleep. Speaking at his funeral was one of the hardest tasks of my life. I could only trust his future life to He who loved little children. chil-dren. A few weeks ago I met his mother. She and her husband had been divorced for several years. She had tears in her eyes as she spoke to me. "Just think that if Rod had lived he would be a young man of 23." She hesitated a moment, then added. "If only he had gone to Sunday School that morning." Thus ended the story of Rod, the boy who loved to feel the wind in his face. 1991 Lm Angeles Time Syndicate high cost of medical care in the United States. Canada's much higher costs for care are hidden from view, buried in each individual's higher taxes. United States citizens see their hospital hospi-tal bills. Somethingcalled Human Growth Hormone Hor-mone (hGH) promises to retard and perhaps per-haps even to reverse aging. But it will take so many years and cost so many millions to seek and get FDA approval that a rejuvenation and longevity institute insti-tute is going to locate a new facility "across the river" in Mexico, the mainmost purpose pur-pose of which wil 1 be to make hGH therapy available to Americans. A letter to my A letter to my daughter on her graduation gradua-tion from high school. Dear Shannan: I promised myself I would never do this to you in public, but the compulsion to write this is greater than my self-made promise (that's how I got into this business), and, as a writer, having written, I am compelled to publish. So I apologize for any possible embarrassment embar-rassment in advance of havingembarrassed consider it payback for all those goofy notes you leave on the chalkboard in my office making fun of my age, my lack of order, my sense of humor and my hair color. (You get partial credit for all the gray, by the way.) First of all, I'm not surprised you are graduating -- just that you are graduating so soon! Isn't that the cry of all parents who cannot believe that time has soared by at a speed that leave us breathless. Not to be trite, but it seems like just yesterday you posed for a magazine cover wearing a mortar board and surrounded by scholarly works. (You were supposed to be reading out of one of the volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, as I remember.) You were about six at the time, and understood under-stood little of what you read, I'm sure. But, hey, you looked like you knew what you were doing -- and isn't that one of the keys to getting through all that schooling? You were always the friendliest kid I knew, greeting everyone (and I do mean everyone) in church with a cheery "Hi" A few creative Attention: parents of college-bound students. stu-dents. I have found a way to enable our kids to obtain the education they need. From before the day they're born, kids take center stage in the lives of their parents. par-ents. You plan, prepare and explore possibilities possibili-ties for everything between their care and feeding to their education andcareer choices. Although 18 years seems to stretch out far ahead of you, the experts indicate that it's never too soon to prepare. Financial analysts tell you to set aside X number of dollars each payday to enable you to pay for that baby's college training. It all sounds so easy, but when you are facing the transition to a one-income family with suddenly double expenses, things aren't that simple. It becomes a very important priority to put food on the table. Saving for the future just has to take a back seat to more immediate imme-diate needs. As the family income adjusts, so do the capacities of the children. Feeding teenagers teenag-ers is a far greater challenge than feeding infants. At least babies only eat every three or four hours. And they do sleep at night occasionally -- more than teenagers -- but that's a whole different story. Assuming that most of us have not been able to follow the analysts' advice, and we're looking at the high costs of college fees with fear and trepidation, there is hope. It's not with high grades and scholar- Letfttecs Go tide ecOifioc Someone cared enough to Editor: I write this because SOMEONE THERE CARED! I share this story even though some of the details are not clear. On the afternoon of May 17, in a period of only minutes, our three year old son wandered into the front yard and into his grandmother's car parked on the busy street of 100 East in American Fork. Somehow hem anaged to take her car out Many helped Editor: This has been a very full and exciting year at American Fork Junior High School. Once again we were faced with serious overcrowding that could have depleted our energies and made m any valuable program s and achievements impossible. The proposed longevity center at Playa del Carmen, Mexico, will be part of an already existing five-star resort com plex on the Gulf. It will be fashioned after similar clinics clin-ics in Europe but will be much more accessible and much less costly. The inclusive cost for a visit to this El Dorado rejuvenation and longevity institute insti-tute is expected to be $3,500 for three months. One could spend that much in a comparable com-parable state-side facility in one week. There are many drugs that are considered consid-ered safe and effective in Europe and Mexico that are not approved for use in the United States. Our bureaucrats are paranoid since Thalidomide. The safe thing is to "just say no" to anything new until it has been exhaustively re-re-retested. The FDS recent years has expedited and accelerated the testing process to a degree, but the proving of anything new still costs more millions than it costs for the manufacturer to establish a separate clinic south of the border... A practice that now appears inevitable, inevi-table, for better or worse. daughter, the The Editor's Column By MARC HADDOCK even before you turned one. You have always al-ways seemed to make friends effortlessly by being a good friend yourself. And you were always bright from the inside-out, glowing with good humor and basic human warmth that so many of us go without. I have never looked at you when I didn't feel uplifted by the radiance of that inner brightness. It still takes my breath away when I run into you unexpectedly. Like any parent, I always thought you could do anythingyou set your mind to. But you always surprised me with your choices, although they were good ones. They just weren't the ones I would have picked. I'm really glad I wasn't making the decisions. I expected an athlete a basketball player, a sprinter (literally following in her father's footsteps), a volleyball player. I got a "band fag." It has never been a disappointment. Your devotion to the march-ingband, march-ingband, to your unit, to your friends in the ideas on college financing BcacOa's UJice By BARBARA CHRISTIANSEN ships. It's not with athletic ability. It's not with full-time and part-time jobs for both you and the students. The answer is in the mail. Get your kids to register for and take college entrance exams early. With good scores on those tests, your student will be deluged with a virtual mountain moun-tain of mail from colleges all over the nation. na-tion. Places you never even knew existed become be-come a destination of delight, according to the brochures your kids will receive. The pamphlets will detail all the lovely sites of Podunktown, and extol the virtues of living in that wonderful community. You'll see color photos of the back-to-nature look, complete with waterfalls and the rain forests surrounding the campus. For those who crave a little more excitement, excite-ment, Megalopolis is the place. The bro-chureshave bro-chureshave pictures of the downtown areas and points of interest. Included are calendars calen-dars of cultural events and photos of the rarities on display in the museums. Every mailing you receive will show pictures pic-tures of happy, smiling students. ( Isn't that an oxymoron?) They are posed in clean, organized dorms and appear to be prepar- of gear and it rolled backward. Apparently, he bailed out of the window after realizing what was happening. He then followed the car down the street, screaming. Two very special young men aware of the situation, reacted as true heroes. They got off their bikes, jumped in and stopped the moving car; then brought our young son home. My sister met them in the side yard and gathered a' very frightened young child into her arms. to improve AF But instead we had one of our best years due to help from the following area businesses: busi-nesses: Goodtime Video, Bank of American Fork, Bromley Farms, Pony Express Pizza, Covenant Recordings, Arbys Restaurant, Trafalga, Sunrise Video, Tour West Travel, McDonalds, Sounds Easy Video, Bruce Bowen - CLU New York Life Insurance, Hardees Restaurant and Magleby's Muffins. Muf-fins. Many hundreds of students received Say no to more taxes Editor: The government has told us when to say no! We must say no.. .to unsafe sex! We must say no...to drinking and driving! We must say no.. .to drugs! Now it's our time to tell the government no.. .to more taxes! Policy on letters to the editor We welcome letters to the editor. edi-tor. All letters should be typewritten type-written and double spaced. Letters Let-ters must also be signed, and must include the writer's name and telephone number. Please send letters to Editor, Newtah News Group, P.O. Box 7, American Ameri-can Fork, Utah, 84003. graduate band, has defined your high school experience experi-ence -- and made it a rich one. Watching you march through the years has been a rich experience for me, as well. I expected a kid. I think parents always expect a kid to stay a kid. I got a young woman, who is ready to make the critical decisions based on her own judgment. I'm gladthatyourjudgmenthas always been so true. I expected a teenager who would stand on one side of the generation gap making judgments about those on the other side, and instead I got a friend who shares my quirky sense of humor and a love of puns. You have been, at all the tough parts of life, a pleasant surprise, and a delight. As you graduate, I don't need to wish you success, you are already successful. I don't need to wish you happiness, because you are already happy, nor joy, because you know how to squeeze the joy out of life. I just hope we can always be friends, always stay close, always understand one another. Oh, and, by the way, congratulations. Love, Dad. Just a closing thought on the junior high name controversy in Highland - all of the problems could be solved if Highland would simply change its name to Mountain Ridge, Utah. I mean, what could the school district do? Think about it. ingfor finals surrounded by stacks of readily available research materials. Each one has a listing of its faculty credentials and displays the wonderful, enticing courses available to incoming students. stu-dents. Many of the universities don't just tout themselves and ask the students to send for further information. They actively seek high school juniors and entice them with offers of stimulating, creative workshops scheduled just prior to their senior years. That those courses make a difference in a student's choice of college is well known. My personal story includes attending such classwork during a summer and subsequently subse-quently spending a year and much tuition money at that university. Whatever the enticements, each college spends a great deal of money attempting to lure the students to attend their institution. institu-tion. They enumerate ways they have available avail-able to assist scholars in finding resources to pay the tuition and fees. They have become very competitive in going after the student dollars. What they have overlooked is the fact that for the price of a few postage stamps, a good student can get on any number of mailing lists. The answer to financing high education will be readily available in your mailbox. Save enough brochures and afew trips to the recyclers will net you tuition for several semesters. help a child I do not know who those young men were, I did not have the chance to meet and thank them. I would like to thank them now from the bottom of my heart for caring, and more than likely saving the life of our son. When something like this occurs, many scenarios become very vivid. Thank you again young heroes for being there and caring. -Terree Hoggard Jr. High awards for increased GPA, for exemplary citizenship, for outstanding efforts, for students stu-dents of the day, week and month, etc. We gratefully thank and acknowledge these businesses for their genuine interest, cooperation coop-eration and willingness to make a difference. differ-ence. We hope that we can continue to work with them for the benefit of our children. -The American Fork Junior High PTSA Since 1944 for every $1.00 we have paid in taxes, the government has spent $1.50. Write your congressmen and senator and say no!...more taxes! Enough is enough. -Dwight J. Barrett Orem |