OCR Text |
Show (SDiyQIMlrQG Free Press - Wednesday, October 27, 1993 Page 2 Editorial Reminiscing about two years Election is chance for voter to talk back For weeks on end, the candidates for municipal offices in this year's election have spoken spelling out their beliefs, ideas and platforms. They have spoken at nights and news interviews, and they have spoken durcampaigning. They ing have spoken to anyone who will listen and to some who wouldn't. Next Tuesday, the candidates will stop talking and will listen that's the time for the rest of us to speak up. The people of this fine nation never speak louder than when they speak at the ballot box, for that is where the collective will of our society is made known in a manner that, barring a tie, brooks no argumeet-the-candida- te door-to-do- or ment. Elections held on a municipal basis are particularly interesting and invigorating. It is a chance to clean house, strike off in a new direction, or express support for the status quo. And the views expressed are those of your friends and neighbors - no national trend is going to sway the voting for a local mayor. after all the talking by the candidates is over, Tuesday is your chance to talk back. And the more of us who speak out at the ballot box, the clearer the message the louder the collective voice of the So full-tim- public. North Utah County communities are facing some of the most extreme pressure they've ever experienced, with growth booming and threatening to boom even more. The mayors and city council members elected Tuesday will make crucial decisions about how and where our cities will grow, how will road and park construction keep up with that growth, how will city services be developed to make the growth possible and, most importantly, how much will all of this cost and who will pay. No vote cast by any one of us will have more direct impact on our lives than a vote in our own city elections. Since there are fewer voters, each vote counts more. Since the mayor and city council members make decisions about things that happen in our communities, their decisions affect us in a y fashion. very real, The point, of course, is that each of us should vote in Tuesday's municipal election, selecting the candidates who we feel would represent us best. If we are not certain who that might be, there is still a week to learn about each candidate and his or her views, so that the voice emerging from the ballot box is an informed one. Nov. 2 is our chance to talk back. Get out and vote. day-to-da- Music plays important role in the drama of our lives One of the weaknesses of getting old is to say, "if I could have my time over I would do things differently." This thought came to me on evening as I watched John Williams lead the Boston Pops Orchestra. Being of Welsh ancestry and a lover of music, I envied Mr. Williams as he controlled that famous orchestra. I dreamed that if I could lead my life over I would become a leader of an orchestra and fill the world with lovely music. It was not to be, but the love ofmusic has been part of my life. I think of a few musical events that stay in my memory. One of the most dramatic was the sinking of the Titanic, that luxury ship that struck an iceberg and went to the bottom of the ocean. As it was sinking, a Welsh male chorus, who were going to America to present a series of concerts, stood on the deck with water sloshing about their feet and sang that beautiful hymn, "Nearer My God to Thee" an died with these words and music on their lips. Those moments were so dramatic and beautiful and the faith of those men so great that I get a lump in my throat as I think about it. I was when my father took me to a football game at Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. It was a rugby game, England versus Wales. The competition between these two teams was terrific. As the game progressed, when the Welsh team needed some encouragement, the 65,000 people in the stands would sing. They would sing hymns. Even yet in my memory I can hear the words and music of the hymn "Cwn Ron da," which was sung in Welsh. In English it was time and space. e But Sunday, when the missionaries spoke in church, I was reminded of my own pleasant experiences in Japan. The memories came back when they spoke of the towns where they had served prior to being assigned to Lehi. They spoke fondly of Springville, Price, Moab and Vernal; I thought of Nam to and Hiroshima, among others, where I spent a portion of my life. I spent seven months in Hiroshima, focal point of the southern end of Honshu, Japan's main island. Many people asked about its condition, having been obliterated in the second world war. But the rebuilt city is beautiful, an ironic memorial to the horrors of nuclear war. One of Hiroshima's "famed attractions" is a sauce designed for one of the most delightful food items called The cook takes a crepe-lik- e batter and spreads it on a large griddle. To the side of the circular batter, he sautes cabbage on the griddle and then places it on the crepe. He then adds more batter on top of the cabbage and turns it over to fry the whole thing like a pancake. When its done, he covers it with the famous sauce and slides it over to the edge of the griddle, which is surrounded by Formica counter on three sides. Patrons sit around the countergriddle and eat the pancake with small spatulas right off the edge of the griddle. (When the store is crowded, unlucky patrons have to take a plate to a table and eat the with chopsticks.) But Naruto remains my favorite place. Even though the population was 65,000 at the time, the whole town seemed to be more like a cross between Lehi and American ' I going on in locker rooms for decades -centuries. It was also wrong. That the principal and football coach at the incident is also Sky View down-playe- d the kind of thing that has been going on for decades. But the quick action taken by the school board to cancel the remainder of Sky View's season is somethingnew and should serve as a wake up call for the Neanderthals who feel that physical abuse and humiliation can all be chalked up to "fun" and brushed aside as insignificant. The problem is, most of these folks probably won't wake up. After all, these are the same kind of people who five years ago didn't get sexual harassment and couldn't figure out what the women were all upset - By TOM GRIFFITHS f that old favorite, "Guide Us Oh Thou Great Jehovah." I cannot describe the sound of 65,000 voices, mostly men, uniting their voices in song. I have said many times that music ascended to the gates of heaven and perhaps it descended to the portals of hell and disturbed old Satan. As a family, we sang together. Our father taught us to sing in parts. Several times we sang at the Welsh General Conference which was held at Cardiff. This was a treat for our family because we got a bus trip to Cardiff. I think of a poem I learned in grade school: "I sing because I love to sing because instinctive fancy tells me the language of birds." I have told about my brother, Ivor. He was the baby of the family. As a little boy he would go down into the woods and sing he was the answer to my poem. - about. But their day is passing, as a new awareness of personal rights and wrongs rises up in our society. What happened is this - one member of the Sky View football team claimed he was bound naked to a towel rack in the locker room suspended about three - dis- uneducable, dysfunctional, learning abled or retarded? They told Kristen's parents that their young daughter suffered from an unpronounceable disease similar to cerebral palsy. She had limited muscular control, could communicate with only the most simple sounds, and inoved about only in a motorized wheeldhah. The Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wis., sponsors a nationwide Young Eagles Day. In Stone Mountain, Ga., young Kris ten came to watch and ASKED TO FLY. With her parents' permission, she was e cockpit. strapped into the Within minutes aloft, with diligent guidance, SHE HAD TAKEN THE CONTROLS. She flew around the mountain and over downtown Atlanta. Back on the ground, Kristen could barely contain her excitement..,. , In the weeks since, her father reports, Kristen has abandoned her electricchair. Last week, with a special walker, she went skiing? Kristen has now embraced life with a vigor she had never shown before. light-plan- Paul Harvey Product Inc. 1993 In Church Point, La., they diagnosed Michael Fulkerson as suffering from Down's syndrome and "barely functional." He was able to read only 20 words a minute and was refused admission to public or private elementary school. Tutored privately by Dr. Vearl McBride, his reading improved from 20 words a minute to 1,776 words a minute! Michael "barely functional," they said saw an ad in Newsweek and telephoned the luxury car marker to ask for confirmation of the claims that the car "hugged the road" and that the ride was "smooth as silk." Michael is now 14, a freshman in pub - - we started looking for her house. We con- sulted our map and headed off in the direction of the address. When we got to where we thought we were going, we couldn't find any sign of the area. (Their cities are divided into named sections like the Sugarhouse, Cottonwood and Holladay areas in Salt Lake.) So we asked someone for directions; he pointed us in a different direction. So we went toward the area he had indicated in order to find someone who could be more exact about the specific location. After a while, we asked another person about the address; we were then pointed in another direction. We tried goingthere, and a third person pointed yet another way. We tried finding that address for about two weeks, and were amazed how close we had been the first time. I guess the area was so small that not many people were aware that the district was even there. Another great Naruto experience was entire area. We had been assigned two caddies -older women who thought the four of us were the funniest people they had ever met. Only one of the four of us had been golfing before, so we mostly just played around, not taking the game seriously, but we had a great time. I also recall the coming of a bread store to Naruto. Not just any old bread, but the famous Yamazaki bread, and not just any old store, but a super store, where they sold theirfull lineofregular and specialty breads. Bread in Japan is expensive six slices cost about one dollar. Since the Japanese people discard the crust, and since we were on a limited income, we would ask them to provide us with the heels, or "ears" as they call them. Not only did we enjoy buying their specialty breads, such as a double sided bun filled with chocolate filling on one side and vanilla on the other, but we were fortunate enough to get Yamazaki crusts for our - bread. When I first returned home, I thought those memories would never fade since they were so enjoyable. And I wanted to go back, just for a visit, from the minute I came home. Some of the memories have faded, and the chances of going back seem remote, but occasionally some thoughts come back and I enjoy the reverie. Editor's i By MARC HADDOCK feet above the floor. Then, to add tohis humiliation, his homecoming date was dragged into the locker room to witness the spectacle. Sky View football players said the event was fairly common - and anybody who spent much time in the gym as a kid knows -- that. I vividly remember the degradation that some students brought to the locker room as part of theirmachocharacter. Once Ihad to sneak out into the gym clad only in a towel to retrieve my clothes, which had been scattered around the gym by my unknown assailants. At the time, I found the incident mildly embarrassing; looking back, it is mildly humorous. It's the type of incident that label. It was justifies the also protected by a type of code of silence that protected the perpetrator as well as the perpetratee. (He didn't want to get caught, and you didn't want anyone to know anything like this had happened to you.) But there were kids who simply did not grasp the idea that this kind of activity can escalate past the point ofhumor to the point of cruelty. The problem was they thought the cruelty was fun - kind of like torturing -- stray cats. Nevertheless, the code of silence was state-wid- e still enforced keeping the victims from ever confronting his tormentors. And in the Sky View incident, although the guys who were victimizing their team mate may have thought they were having great fun, the cost was far greater than it at least to the victim. That is, was worth it was as long as the victim kept his mouth shut. But instead of honoring the code of silence that has protected this kind ofhumiliation for decades, this boy spoke out, and his parents spoke out. And when they weren't satisfied with the response of the school officials, they took their case to the board of education. And thank goodness someone finally said enough is enough. By cancelling the rest of Sky View's season (one game and at least one appearance in the state playoffs), the school district sent a message throughout the state that hazing is wrong and is adequate reason to cancel a football season. Finally, the cost was greater than the fun was worth to the victimizers as well. By affirming the school district's decision, Judge Ben Hadfield said, in effect, that no one has an inalienable right to play football and that human dignity is more important than sports. That message was sent to all the parents who didn't get the point the first time. The judge even labeled the parents' request to keep the season alive as trivial. Good for him. After all, this is the type of punishment that kids who love football can understand brutalize a teammate and your season is over - for everybody. Maybe next time someone pulls out the athletic tape and organizes a gang to humiliate another kid, the mob will think twice, put down the tape, get dressed and go - - -- home. Negative campaign impugns city officials Editor: I'm proud to be a citizen of Lehi city, but I'm concerned about the negative insinuations in the Citizens Party advertising, claiming they want to bring "Honesty and lic high school. His most recent report card was all "A's" - except for one "B." This is the boy they said "could not learn." Dr. McBride has been a special education teacher for 50 years. He has taught the blind and the "retarded" from Hong Kong to Florida, from Alaska to Samoa. He has seen strange and marvelous things. In New Iberia, La., a reading class of 27 students diagnosed as having some form of learning disability responded with guidance to the point that 26 can now read well and rapidly. One little girl, age nine, labeled with Attention Deficit Disorder, now reads 12,000 words a minute. Her sister, 13, dyslexic, reads 23,000 words a minute. Our nation's statisticians insist that a third of our nation's population is "illiterate." They don't have to be. Dr. McBride says our nation needs only enough men and women teachers willing to think thoughts they have never thought before, and hundreds of thousands will prove they can do what they have not been allowed to do before. -- gujs IS - -- Have they mislabeled your child? Have they labeled your child usually did the asking. So the next time we had a free evening, If nothing else, the incident this past week at Sky View High School in Smithfield has focused the attention of the state on "hazing" or harassing or just whatever we can finally call what went on the football locker room. I guess "pranks" are what most people would call it. "Harmless fun," some might say. "Just a case of boys being boys." That's how the incident was typified by some of the key players. But whatever it might be called, odds are pretty good that it won't happen again anywhere in Utah that is, not if the boys involved want to play another football game What happened in that locker room is similar to the kinds of things that have been Q fJU SflHl Q Fork. We lived in a two-stor-y house on the outskirts of town, but the road in front of our house joined one of the two main roads of the business district not far from where we lived. As we rode into that area one day, we woman were approached by a middle-age- d who asked us to come to her home. We were very excited at the prospect, because we fimA Hazing incident sends message The that season. - ByRUSSDALY Japan we were invited to eo eolfine. Golfing is an expensive habit in Japan. At the time I was there 15 years ago, eighteen holes seemed to cost about $150, including lunch, if I remember correctly. We were met at the bus stop by our benefactor, who told us that everything had been taken care of and to have fun. The bus took us up to the top of a mountain, where they had designed the most beautiful club and course overlooking the til I thought the memories had faded, the experience clouded by distances of both in Integrity" to our city government, and that they want "to place city government back into the hands of the citizens of Lehi." They imply that it does not exist. I have worked with every member of the present city council, as well as some present candidates, and I know and respect all of them on both tickets, and I have never once felt that anyone of them have, or would, put their own interests ahead of those of the city. We have not always agreed on issues, but I've always felt the differences were not questions of honesty or integrity. I believe that candidate should run on theirmerits and ideas, andon a platform, and not on the premise of ut "character assassination" and innuendoes about their opponents. We've all known that Lehi was "an explosion waiting to happen," as is all of Utah County. We sit between two major cities on the Wasatch front and Lehi will continue to grow. No council has ever experienced the kind of growth we are experiencing, and we have never had leadership better equipped to handle it than we have now. In 1991 the council adopted a long overdue and updated Master Plan for the city, and during the past year a moratorium on development was adopted while they studied and our zoning laws and infrastructure needs, and made appropriate decisions and changes. fine-tune- Lehi d has capable, knowledgeable and dedicated professional and legal help, and elected officials. They should be praised. We have the privilege in this great country to vote our conscience. As for me, I think there may be a better time to replace those who are now in the heat of the battle, who know firsthand what's happening, and who are committed to handling this growth and change in an orderly manner within the framework of city laws and ordinances. Our attitude that we must keep the world out and stop change is narrow and Who of your new neighbors would you ask to leave town? Which of them do you feel superior to, or that they should not have the privilege of living in what we all believe is a great place to live? Our family came here over 20 years ago because we wanted to live in this nice community. We have tried to be good citizens, and always make a positive contribution to Lehi. In the past three years wehavehad eight new neighbors move into our neighborhood, We love and respect them all. Who of us is not happy with the new interchange, or the new library, or the senior citizens building, or the Public Safety or Administration building, or who of us is not proud of the new look of some of our private business, such as The Colonial House, the Colonial Manor, the Back Station, or Western Tack and Togs, etc? Who is not nappy with our cultural activities, our museum, the swim pool, or the Roundup celebration and festivities? Why can't we appreciate the efforts of our elected officials and city employees who are doing all in their power to have Lehi continue to be a great place to live? I do! I think we all should, and I hope this thinking will help us all avoid the implications made in so many political campaigns. -- Guy Cash |