Administrators and teachers are concerned with the dwindling money available for education, forcing layoffs and curtailment of long established and cherished subjects to be taught to often indifferent students. With little background in curriculum selection I shall offer readers the benefit of my long life of observation…and suggest a bare bones approach to the education of youths. I was one once, and know now what I should have been studying then.

Reading skills must be taught. That is the first step to knowledge. Those who cannot read will be consigned to a lifetime of leaf blowing.

Students should learn to communicate coherently and legibly. In my day those who took typing from Mrs. Adams learned a skill producing lifetime benefits. There is little misunderstanding when type is set to page. Today, of course, students must be computer literate and be keyboard facile.

Shop and Auto Mechanics. Boys and girls should have this background, for, in later life, their autos will break down. For the simple servicing they will be able to replace air filters and change their oil if they choose. For major auto repair, their classes in Auto Mechanics will have prepared them for dealing with dealers when invoices appear to have been adjusted upwards from earlier repair service estimates.  Shop, of course will allow the houseman or housewife to use a lathe to fashion a new leg for the table or merely replace a doorknob or re-attach a screen door and so forth.

Foreign language skills. Forget French and Italian. Take Spanish I, and II and conversational Spanish. It is the language of the future. “English Only Spoken Here” is wishful thinking, Si?

Economics for understanding for home and office expenditures. Better throw in a course on how to prepare your own tax forms, as well.

Athletics? Certainly a good pastime, but if the funding is not available, then schools must to go to the private sector. When we had the meat plant years ago, we sponsored a softball league. I would think a medical clinic or hospital, for example, might be proud to sponsor high school teams. Or a casino? They always seem to have money to burn.

I think that’s about it. Mathematics can be conquered with a hand held calculator, and a personal computer can answer any question one might ponder regarding any subject. All other subjects. Vocational and otherwise, can be accessed via correspondence schools.

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In the DN police logs, a resident of Olive Street reported that his automobile had been moved from the street curb to his own driveway by persons unknown. He should not complain regarding this generous gesture. After quitting college I worked in the rug department at the Emporium in Es Eff, for minimal wages. One Thanksgiving Day I inadvertently parked my car a few inches into someone’s driveway. The car was soon towed and I had to spend my money, set aside for a turkey dinner, to get my car released from the towing yard. There is no compassion in a big city when it comes to illegal parking.

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The Kelsey cousins of Burlingame tell of an American Indian wife named “5 Horses”. When asked why she was so named, the translator replied, “Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag”!

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Last week’s quiz either stumped the experts…or apathy rules the land. The complete quote of Mark Twain reads, “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man”. And, if a church planned to bus its parishioners to its service, what could they call it? “Mass transit”, perhaps?

We shall suspend the quiz for the summer until urge to respond returns.

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I noted Tomasina, the dog lady, headed out across the bridge towards Antelope Vet, with a dog in her shopping cart. When I saw her later, the cart was empty. I hope this does not mean she is in the market for a 3^rd pet, because she is always accompanied in her rounds by 3, no more, no less.

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A golfer met an attractive woman on the first tee and agreed to join her for a round. To his surprise, she turned out to be a good golfer and beat him. He was angry, but they agreed to play the next day. However, she continued to beat him the rest of the week.  He finally bought her a drink anyway, they got to talking and she invited him to her house. When he made advances, she stopped him by admitting she was a transvestite.  Dismayed, he blurted out, “You cheated me! You’ve been playing off the women’s tee all week!”

(To respond to this website: rminchandmurray@hotmai.com)

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A poem worth repeating….

“The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat;

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

“Oh Pussy, oh Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are, you are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the owl, “You elegant fowl,

How charmingly sweet you sing!

Oh! Let us be married, too long we have tarried”

But what shall we do for a ring?”

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the bong-tree grows;

And there in the wood a Piggy-wig stood,

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose, his nose, with a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon, the moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

Edward Lear

The old canard about the husband who had mixed emotions when he saw his mother-in-law driving his new Cadillac over a cliff, certainly did not give me a chuckle. I had a perfectly fine mother-in law in the form or the late Eneth Mary  Miller. She was a quiet and kindly white haired lady of 88 when she demised in 1979     .

She told me her life had been in thirds: in the first third ( born in Lewiston, Shasta County) she was single and a nurse in San Francisco, in the second third she was married to John Miller who ran a hardware store in Chico…and then spent the final third as his widow. I never heard an unkind word about the lady from the day I began courting her daughter back in 1942 when she, the daughter, first lit up Lincoln Street Elementary. You might think a kindly disposition was hardly tantamount to sainthood, but when many a marriage has gone on the rocks via interference of mother-laws-running amuck, you might appreciate this virtue.

John became a Montgomery Ward store manager when he moved his wife and 3 daughters to Red Bluff during pre war 1939. In those days, the store was located in the 800 block of Main, site of the current Peking Restaurant. The store’s large basement was home to the hardware department which John ran with a steady hand. Eneth set up housekeeping on Lincoln, near the school, then on Monroe and finally on Madison. Each home was always immaculate. But what made her an outstanding wife, mother and mother-in-law?

She was neither a busy body nor social climber. She gave good advice to her daughters i.e. “You don’t have to do what I say, but someday you might find my advice of use.” And her advice to the young spilled over to her youngest child, JoAnn, who coined the phrase, while admonishing her own children, “You can make it a good day or a bad day…it is entirely up to you!”

Perhaps heaping praise upon one’s late mother-in-law is not as exciting as, say, recounting the accomplishments of local movers and shakers of in our fair city, but, perhaps there is a reader or two who might consider their own mother-in-law…and compare with the kindly and considerate Eneth Mary Miller.

When I was working long hours at the meat plant back in the 70’s, I would dash home for dinner before returning for an evening stint getting out the loads heading for Ess Eff.  Mrs. Miller might be reading the paper in our living room while I tried to get a few minutes nap before said dinner. I once awoke to find her holding the newspaper primly in her lap. When her daughter observed her sitting motionless, she asked if she was alright. She replied, “I did not want to rattle the papers while Robert was napping.”

What a mother-in-law!

Ad. In the Chico paper: “Berry pickers wanted. No high school girls need apply”.

School children are of value as workers if they have been brought up to work. Many have not the slightest idea that they owe every minute of their time they are on the payroll to their employer.

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Our work is never dull or boring. We discovered last week that an Oakland wholesaler had overpaid us $800.00 When we refunded this amount, they said they never would have discovered the error.  The same day a lady who had sold us some hogs, came in and insisted we had purposely tried to beat her out of $20.00 on her hogs. And so it goes…something every minute.

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Our town was certainly not complimented last night. One of the ladies from Redding, who came down to play in the Badminton tournament, said that when she drove down Main street with her mother, her mother asked, “Is this Cottonwood?” I’ll admit we don’t have traffic lights like they do in Redding, but I insist our town is larger than Cottonwood.

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I want to thank the writer of the complimentary letter the editor published a few days ago. It is pleasant to receive occasionally orchids instead of skunk cabbage.

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How about having some genuine milk lamb for your Easter dinner? You can buy it at any of the following Red Bluff markets: Wentz’s, C and H Market, Kilpatric’s Market and Purity Market. It is no more expensive than good cuts of any other meat this year.

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When the Chautauqua used to come to town each summer, 25 people had to guarantee that the entertainers would receive a  certain amount  of money or else the guarantors would have to make up the deficit. My father was usually approached and told what a fine man he was in the community and that such men as he should consider it a privilege to be asked to guarantee the ticket sales. I could never see it and we had lots of arguments about it.  I contended that worthwhile entertainers did not need subsidizing…that no one had to guarantee the circus when it came to town.

Dave Minch 1900-1964