Wednesday, October 11, 2006

One kid's anxiety is another's walk in the park

There is an interesting debate occurring on the north side of Ft. Wayne. Our local High School is too small. Two plans have emerged to rectify the situation. One calls for building an additional high school at the cost of $94 million dollars and an additional $20 million to refurbish the old school – total $114 million – other estimates run in the $120 million plus range. The second plan calls for renovating and expanding the old school at a cost of $64 million. The less expensive second plan will result in an incredible 130% increase in property taxes for schools.

Well, a lady found me working in the garage one Saturday morning. She asked me to sign her petition supporting the building of a second school. I told her I was not inclined to do so. She told me heart breaking stories of over crowding and narrow hallways. I still declined to support her position. She told how supporters of the less expensive plan were lying about how much the two school option was going to cost. I asked if the two school option was less expensive than renovation. She said no. I declined to sign her petition for the third time.

Then she told me her daughter was a freshman at the high school. She said her daughter was having anxiety attacks in the hallways because of the conditions at the school. I’d had it. I told her that she should tell her daughter to grow up and get over it. I told her that there were young men and women not much older than her daughter engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. I told her to tell her daughter the next time she was experiencing anxiety, because of close quarters at her high school, to think about some 18 year old kid toting 100 pounds of equipment in 100 degree heat while patrolling the streets of Baghdad or mountains of Afghanistan, at night, with a bunch of people trying to kill him - THAT'S ANXIETY!

At that very point, the conversation came to an abrupt end. The lady gave a nervous laugh, turned and walked away.

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