#46 A Horse is a Horse

Even though I sometimes complain about change, I don’t deplore all technological advances. Far from it, the greatest achievement of the industrial age, and the single strongest reason for our health and longevity, is one of my favorite breakthroughs; the modern sewage system. That first unsung sewage engineer was nothing to sniff at. He took the squalor and pestilence that can only come from chamber pots dumped in the gutter and made possible the squalor and pestilence you can only get when the sewers back up in great cities like New York and Washington DC today.
I’m reminded of a discussion I had once with a little old lady environmentalist at a meeting of a committee we were both on. Now I hate air pollution as much as anyone does. If we’re going to be bangin about in internal combustion horseless carriages we ought to at least be able to figure out a way to keep them from belching noxious poison all over the gull-durn place. But I also recognize that cars have their strengths. Among them the fact that you don’t have to go out to their cold barn every morning at six o’clock to feed them. Anyhow, it was during a snowfall, and people had a hard time getting to the meeting on time because they had to chain up and traffic was bad, etc. The lady, incidentally, had made all her money selling real estate back East, increasing its population density, then had moved out here to get away from the crowds. Anyhow, at the meeting she proclaimed self-righteously: “Back when we had horses instead of cars a little snowfall wouldn’t have upset things as much.”
“No,” I said, “Then again, it’s sure nice not having piles of fly-invested horse dung at every corner.” She just humpffed.
But really, it’s nice not having one of my feet splooching in the occasional apple the street sweeper guy missed. I grant that riding a horse in the snow is not terribly different from riding one in the sun, unless of course, the horse in the course of riding the course happens to trip on a rock so coarse that it breaks the ankle of the horse. But, let’s face it, a horse draggin’ a wagon is just as bad when it comes to slipping, sliding, and skidding into oncoming traffic. The biggest difference between a head-on crash then as opposed to now is that back then there were more dead horses involved.
Point is we tend to take for granted some of the progress that got us where we are now. Peeing in the street may be fine for the occasional drunk today, but at one time is was the norm for Mr. high-hatted dandy to undo his trouser buttons and let fly. Look in any old picture from the turn of the last century. There’re no automobiles all right. But the streets are still smoggy from the coal burning in everyone’s hovels—the richest man in the world didn’t have central heating back then—and you see these mysterious guys with giant brooms. Their job was to sweep the gutters clean of all the excrement, horse and human. At least now the only horse manure we have to put up with is when the powers that be try to explain why gas prices are so high.
America, ya gotta love it.

#45 Soccer? I hardly Know Her

Recently, a high school administration tried to prevent its own women’s soccer team from using the playing field surrounded by the tax-payer constructed track it no longer lets the public use. The infield of any track area, as I sure most of you know, is a football field. And for those who believe that the angels themselves play football just to pleasantly while away eternity, the football-soccer-track combo really only means one thing: Football. Eternity, by the way, although it’s not defined as such biblically, is the time it takes to get from the final 2 minute warning to the end of the game.
Anyhow, the high school powers that be, having invested huge amounts of money in the new football-soccer-track field, said the soccer team couldn’t use the field. They were saving it for the football team on Friday night. That’s when all the “paying” fans come out, don’t you know. The administration maintained that football was the chief fundraiser for the school. Furthermore, it brought income in, rather than simply “used” money like the soccer team—that would be the money the soccer team “used” on their uniforms, which they earned in carwashes and candy sales because there were no general funds available.
And, the late night Tuesday and Thursday soccer games aren’t as well attended as Friday night games. Could it be something about having to get up early and work the next morning? Oh no, that’s not it, football is more exciting. And football is good for the kids. It teaches team discipline. And let’s not forget the traumatic arthritis all these young bucks get later in life, as a result of the injuries they sustained during their formative years. And how that team discipline comes in handy when they’re pushing a broom at a warehouse cause the team doctor didn’t pay close enough attention to that concussion on homecoming night. Lord knows, football is a good thing all right. Cause all the old football dads love coming to the game and watching junior try to fill the cleats of their glory days. And they’ll fork over good money to do it, too. As long as you ignore that Southern Comfort in their thermos and the slightly erratic way they drive home. So you better get your sissy soccer back to the unlit, potholed, ankle-shearing practice field, this here astroturf’s for our young stallions.
It’s really no surprise. In my day, the fight was over a multi-use field for baseball and football. Since both of those sports were equal in the eyes of fans the administration finally did the right thing. They built separate fields. With separate bleachers and separate ticket booths. The school didn’t have enough money for new books, but dad-blame-it, they was gonna have two brand spankin new fields. Cause they made money. This is like a business boy. Survival of the fittest. Of course they didn’t actually figure the construction costs and maintenance costs of said stadiums into to the bottom line. Just the costs of uniforms and coaches and helmets and whatnot. Us non-football game attending taxpayers forked over the rest.
Seems like primitive times, doesn’t it? I’m glad Seattle finally put that controversy to rest. I mean, why have two fields, with each one sitting idle half the year when you could have one multi-use facility that services both—like the Kingdome? And gosh, it’ll be here till Kingdome come. Oh. Right.
America, Ya Gotta Love It.*
*Please note: Any resemblance to any high school living or dead is purely coincidence. Results may vary.

#44 Not Tracking

My dear bride is a runner. And she’s pretty serious about it. That means she likes to train in a variety of running environments to increase her overall speed and endurance. With runners, speed and endurance is pretty much it. They don’t really have to work on their slice or their hook, figure out the best wedge to use in a bunker, or which wood to use on a short dogleg. Then again, they wouldn’t be caught dead driving a little electric cart to go 100 yards.
Anyhow, one of the many workouts my wife and her friends used to enjoy was going to the local track and doing speed laps. Interval training I think they call it. Well, lately that’s not possible. Seems the high school upgraded its track and has decided the public is no longer welcome, so chain link fences have been erected at great public cost to prevent said public from entering said grounds, which, need I point out, were also constructed at great public cost.
Now I could understand the school district taking this stance if in fact the track in question had been subject to vandalism. Not so. The high school is not even close to any of the places teenage ne’er-do-wells like to hang out. In fact, it is so far from any place considered cool that students, upon hearing the last bell, universally desert that entire side of town. And really, the chances are pretty remote that any disgruntled juvenile delinquent could find much to vandalize on a quarter mile oval. Surprisingly, graffiti just doesn’t seem to hold up on rubberized pseudo-cinders. And I think it’s highly unlikely that a disgruntled angst-filled adolescent would go to the trouble of digging a pit or something for the varsity track star to stumble in come race day. My experience with disgruntled angst-filled adolescents is they’re pretty dang lazy.
So the only possible vandalism the school district has to worry about is the occasional Pekinese dropping or Shitzu poo that the old folks who used to walk around the same track failed to pick up. The same pet-walking old folks, one should note, that continue to pay property taxes which support the construction of both school and track, and support the education of youngsters 50 years their junior. The funny thing is, the neighborhood the high school is in has aged quite a bit. And off-hours use of the track in question far exceeded the on-hours use by the students for whom it was built.
Maybe I’m way off base here, but publicly-funded facilities ought to be able to be used by the public. I mean, what would they say if they dared to charge an exorbitant admission fee to a publicly-subsidized place like Safeco Field or something? Oh, wait a minute. Sorry. It’s not called Public Taxpayer Field. What was I thinking?
America, Ya Gotta Love It.