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Show 1)KWJ'lf!Pfri'i (2MlEltQiyQG Free Press - Wednesday, August 17, 1994 - Page Don't complain, you may have to do Editorial Students should start planning for future now With school starting next week, now is a good time for our local high school and junior high school students to start thinking about the coming school year - and years beyond. College was once thought to be a prerequisite for success for up and coming students. With our diversified lifestyle, there are now many roads to success, and they don't all lead through a university door, but they do involve education beyond high school graduation, either at a vocational school, a community college, a business school or a trade school program, or training in the -- ers. Grade 10 (Sophomores) Check requirements for college admissions and scholarships with your school counselor. Consider all possible education and training options. Grade 11 (Juniors) In October take the tests that could qualify you for National Merit Scholarships, which are awarded in the fall of your senior year. Get a sample ACT or SAT test booklet from your counselor. Take a prep course if necessary. Then register and the ACT or SAT test or post-seconda- ry - both. military. Write for college brochures and The Utah System of Higher Education has set down the following applications. guidelines to help students work Grade 12 (Seniors) the harder and smarter. This "College Register and take or Countdown" starts with grade 6 ACT andor SAT. Meet with an advisor early in through the senior year in high school - and sets down some goals the year for college counseling. Return college admission applifor those who will be walking through our school doors next cations and financial aid forms by their deadlines. Wednesday. Check with the high school counGrades 8 Students should work for good seling office or colleges that intergrades and be involved in extra- est you for available scholarships. Make sure teacher recommendacurricular activities. tions are sent. Grades 9 (Freshman): Your hard. Planning ahead for education can grade point Study on a lot of time and effort. Missis save based the (GPA) grades average and deadlines will mean tests this earn ing year. beginning you school missed courses Find out the high opportunities. School starts required for various universities you next Wednesday, but now is not too might be interested in, and plan early for high school and junior high your classes accordingly. Many jobs students to start taking a serious of the future will require training in interest in their future higher math, science, English and comput re-ta- -- 6-- Journal entries give a look into the past I don't know why I picked up my journal and started to read what I had written. I turned to a page that said November 1, Browsing 1978. "Dear Journal: I must apologize for my neglect of you. Since I wrote last, life has been quite hectic. "My beloved wife has been sei lously ill and for a while I thought she might be leaving this world, but our prayers were answered and she is much improved. However, she is now a dialysis patient and will be the rest of her life. "It is very difficult to sit down and write when your mind is upset, but I am more tranquil now so I can proceed. "Today has been somewhat of a special By TOM GRIFFITHS day. I met with the manager of the Deseret Book Company. They are going to examine my stories with the possibility of publishing a book of short stories. I scored another hit, "Snow is falling and it has continued if it can be cal led that. The editor of the 'New most of the day. About eight inches on the Era' magazine called and told me they had ground. Winter has come early this year. "Now, I must confess that I do not care bought my story, 'I Remember Jim' and it will be published around the first of the much for winter any more. I do not like the cold and the wet. With age, gone is the thrill year. "I am glad I can use my talent in the of skiing, sleigh bells and stuff. That is for service of my church. the young at heart. "To me winter is the time of a warm "Sunday, November 12, 1978. "Had a lovely experience today. I was home, a fire in the hearth, good music and invited to attend a ward up in Alpine. A a book, and perhaps to take a pen in hand story I wrote that was published in the and write." Well, dear journal, today is August 9, January 1975 issue of the 'Ensign' magazine was included in the church Sunday 1994. It's quite a spell since my first entry. The story School manual for My wife has been a dialysis patient for 16 was titled 'Persecution 1924.' I was asked to years. What a courageous woman she is. As for me, I am considered the oldest relate the incidents in the story. "It was a thrill to look into the faces of columnist in the county or even in the state. those young people, to see their interest and When will be the closing date of my to feel their spirit. journal? Only One knows and He isn't "Monday, November 13, 1978. if- Will 2 - 4 You probably Won't hear me complain anymore about the paperboy or the mailman, or almost anyone who delivers things to me. That's because I've had the experience - not the privilege or the opportunity, but the experience of being the paperboy for one of the large daily newspapers. The experience was exten ded to me from my nephew, Tony, who went with his mother to see their sister during the time she gave birth to her second child. Recognizing this important event for these members of my family, as well as being grateful for their help to us many times, we quite readily agreed to fill in, even though this was a morning route and we're not morning people. -- Thinking about applying the payment he offered toward the purchase ofschool clothes for the kids also increased the incentive; it also provided the dangling carrot to get my kids to help me. A few days before he left, Tony came up to our house, and we entered each name and address, plus delivery instructions, into the computer to track each stop. We then mentally "drove" the route, and assigned each name a stop number. Sometimes I would want to put the stops in a slightly different order so we could be most efficient and not have to backtrack. That sometimes grated on Tony, who is used to delivering the papers his own way, which may not be the most efficient, but probably works for him when he does the route alone. After all of that preliminary work, we felt fairly confident that we would have no problem, not only because the computer placed the names in delivery order, but also because we have been delivering the Free Press for some time. Thursday morning, our first day, we set It turns out that some people are easier to like when they are older. That's the main thing I learned at my high school reunion this weekend. And I really hope they learned the same thing about me. Before I get started, let me clarify something. I promised myself last week that I would not go on and on here about the reunion after I had returned home. I do tend to get personal in this personal column sometimes, but I always do so with the intention of touching a chord of similar emotions in those few who read this. And I felt like the common chords of nostalgia had been tweaked adequately in last week's column, and now it was time to get onto something else. But quite frankly I had such a good time, andenjoyed this past weekend so thoroughly, that I still haveS 't recovered enough to dwell on any other subject at length. It's been 15 years since I shared time with most of the people who showed up it's taken them 15 years to find me and invite me. I got along well with most of them in school - and I enjoyed them much more after having not seen them for many years. A little background seems in order. I come from a small town. There were just over 100 of us in my graduating class. Most of them were in my elementary school and junior high school classes as well. Several were in my Sunbeam class in the Montpelier First Ward when I was three. When you are born and raised in a community that small, you form bonds that go deep - deeper than I ever realized. So it was a hoot to get to the golf course for the scramble tournament, and to watch my classmates arrive as we tried to guess who the other one was. It took some heavy- -- -- Lefifiecs Editor: At the city council meeting of August 9, I brought my concerns before the community of the ongoing problem that has existed in the Wathen Estate subdivision. has been a homeowner My rnother-in-lain the subdivision since it was developed, and it has been my family's privilege to live with her for the past eight years. My work has taken me out of town for a majority of this time leaving my wife and mother-in-lato care for the day to day problems. w -- Band-Aid- Paul Harvey Products Inc. d The Old Testament law was ignored, and Christ was offered a second chance. If we are blowing our second chance, it would be ultimate divine judgment to allow us to consume ourselves with our own excesses. Frequently, you and I have been rewon't work minded that without Now there's evidence that civilization jtself might not survive. While our national leaders chase about the- world like a barefoot boy stomping e. - By RUSS DALY the alarm for 3 a.m. so that we would have time to fold part of the papers and then start delivery at 4 a.m. in order to meet the deadline, as well as to start our own appointments at 8 a.m. You know the thing about "the best-laid plans..." The papers did not come at 3 a.m., nor at not even at 5 or 5:30. We got on the phone to find out what had happened, but our contact's machine answered, presumably because she was still out delivering papers to other carriers. Finally, around 6 a.m ., we received a call from our contact, who told us the delivery person, which turned out to be someone else, had driven past our house and left the home with a papers at some circular driveway" down the street. We spent the next 15 or 20 minutes looking for that home and our papers. Our anticipated start time of 4 a.m. had now turned into 6:30 a.m., which I believe is the expected deadline for delivery. A driver, who had come to help us look for the papers, met us on the street on our way to the first house. She told us to do as many as we could until we had to go to work, then to call her and she would do the rest. From our computer list, we tore off the addresses in American Fork, where she lives, and asked her to do those on her way 3:30 or 4, "tan-colore- d home. ery. The customers are also very understanding and forgiving, because they recognized that we had made the effort to get the papers out and were thwarted in the attempt by someone else's mistake. Each day since then, we made even better progress, probably not so much that we became more familiar with the route, but that we were looking forward to the time when we would relinquish the responsibility to Tony on his return. During the delivery on Sunday, we saw a father and son duo that was delivering their papers. As fate would have it, we were able to commiserate because they were substitutes, too. The family called from Oregon to see how we handled delivery of the much larger Sunday papers, and made the mistake of joking that they would be staying a couple of extra days. We didn't fall for the joke, because it was no laughing matter. We were happy to help m ake their trip possible, but we do have our limits. To Tony's Tribune customers: thanks for your patience with us and enjoy, like we will, Tony's return. To other people who watch for their paper to be delivered: Be patient, for it might be you someday. By MARC HADDOCK duty deductions in some cases - many of us have gained a "little" weight, some have even gained a little hair while others have lost a lot. But if you looked closely enough, you could see the resemblance to the girl who sat next to you in math, or the boy who shared almost every waking hour with you the year you were a freshman. Some of them were harder to recognize than others, but in the end, the faces all looked familiar again. So we played a game of golf using the scramble format where each golfer is not responsible for his shots, since someone else can pick up the slack. Under the format, everyone hits a drive and then you all .hit your next ball from where the best drive landed. On each stroke, you simply take the best shot and move ahead. Our group, made up of mediocre golfers, ended the round at one under par - because most of the time one of us hit a -- better-than-medioc- re shot. And that was fun. And then we went to dinner, and just talked. About 30 class members showed up. We were all friends 25 years ago - and we were still friends. In some cases, better friends than ever. Our poor spouses stood around looking -- for some way to wile the time away while we talked about the odd twists and turns our lives had taken over the past 25 years. Many of us now have jobs that didn't even exist in the most vivid imagination when we graduated many working in various aspects of the computer industry. We had lawyers and military officers and school district superintendents and just about everything else you can name. Most of us live on the Wasatch Front, even though we still claim to be natives of Idaho. And everyone there seems to have reached a degree of comfort about who he or she is, and what he or she has accom- plished. If we had failed to reach the idealistic goals of our youth, it didn't seem to bother most of us any more. If we had reached those goals, so much the better. As I said before, I found some of these people much more likeable in middle age. And I'm pretty sure they found me the same. Scott Loveless, our old class president, took us back. Dale Munk, our old studentbody president, brought us up to the present. Maxine Arnold sang a song, and so did I - singingfor the first time ever in front of these people with whom I grew up. I looked, they told me, a lot like my father. But Mario Krogue spelled out the differences quite drastically when he said, "Your song was good - but it wasn't as good as your dad." I knew that all along. For my part, it was a joy to sing for my classmates, a joy to play with them, and pure pleasure to renew acquaintances that go back to my very, beginning. A week ago I wasn't looking forward to a reunion. This week, I can't wait for the next reunion in 1999. -- 25-ye- ar Respect for neighbors, community is important -- 1994 -- to the esiifiop ants - seeking to remedy 40 internecine wars one at a time - what the world s needs more than is a light- -- Twohundred thousand Americans will suffer heart attacks this year, and half of them will die from inhaling second-hansmoke. This does not include the larger number of smokers who will die from heart disease andor lung cancer. Might the worldjust die quietly and by its own hand? If indeed the angels are watching this rebellious planet to see if man without God can m ake it on his own, the evidence, by now, should be overwhelming. Drunk drivers are killing themselves and others at an accelerating pace. While much of the world is starving to death, many of the rest of us are eating and drinking ourselves to death. someday Mirnenlmislv. we were able to complete all but two dozen of the remaining 190 papers by 8:30 a.m., but, unfortunately, not before subscribers had started calling. Shortly before he left on vacation, Tony had included a note with each paper inform ing his customers of the change, and gave our phone number if any problems occurred. His customers are very particular about their paper, and very attentive to detail, because we heard from many of the people who were concerned about the missed deliv- Time wears off some of our rough edges The Editor's Column Urv the world end with a whimper? The disease AIDS is spreading so fast across Asia that it is decimating the population and escalating at warp speed. Asia's large commercial sex industry is curtailing the growth of legitimate industry, threatening to throttle 20 years of promising progress in that region. What if the world were to end not with a bang - but with a whimper? it house. It may sound like an impossible dream with our own house in such disarray, but the most useful service we could render the world is to revert to what we once were a good example. For 150 years, the fledgling United States led the world by example. Watch-ingou- r example, England initiated sweeping democratic reforms. Watching our example in individual the French liberty and threw offtheyoke of their dissolute kings and rapacious aristocracy. Watching our example, Mexico, Central America and South America freed themselves from Spain. Everybody everywhere was going our way! We sent them no guns, no butter and ' no money. What we had done was mind our own business so well that we were a lighthouse for the world. To do that again, we'd have to be a worthy example, and we are not now. Mr. Mick Elkins is also a homeowner in the subdivision with his home directly ophome. Over the posite my past many years, an ongoing history of problems has developed with Mr. Elkins. He has developed a life style of nonconformity that is reflected in this home and property. At the council meeting, I confessed my lack of knowledge concerning codes, covenants, and ordinances that govern the subdivision, but I personally feel that Mr. Elkins' home does not come up to any minimum standard that should be enforced. Other homeowners at the meeting also expressed their disappointment in the persistent, general conditions of Mr. Elkins' home and property. When Mr. Elkins took the floor to defend his lifestyle, he used two current defenses. First, that he is a victim of circumstance, victimized by the city and its past dealings with him, and that he is also victimized by tragedies in his personal life that have brought this problem to an impasse. His second defense was to attack other homeowners in the neighborhood for supposed wrongdoings that are similar to his mother-in-law- 's own. If indeed Mr. Elkins is a victim of circum stances, I cannot judge, however, for the many homeowners near this residence, they have now become the victims of Mr. Elkins' disorder and lack of maintenance that projects beyond property lines. As for other alleged violations voiced by Mr. Elkins, my lack of knowledge of these details leaves me no way to form an opinion. There are times when persons act under the premise that it is easier to get forgiveness than permission, however, because of the history at this residence, it is imperative that permission first be obtained for any work done, and also that close supervision be maintained to safeguard Mr. Elkins and the neighborhood. I consider myself a person who prefers to let people live a lifestyle of their own choosing and hope to also be granted the same opportunity. However, in this instance, a certain amount of conformity and community respect is appropriate and expected. I have no animosity toward any person, but this should not be construed by Mr. Elkins or the council as a lack of commitment or determination at seeingthis issue resolved. This comm unity is where I want to raise my family and resolving this issue will help to make it a better place for everyone. -- Douglas C. Peterson 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. Please send letters to Editor, Newtah News Group, P.O. Box 7, American Fork, Utah, 84003. HP |