She made it! Smiles again at camp.

Some of you wrote the sweetest things about my daughter’s first trip to camp. I want to let you know, she and her friends made it safe and sound and Madi is all smiles now.

She and all of her friends arrived laughing and making a bunch of new friends. Madi, Clair and Channy are all in the same Kapong (that’s Indian for a house on stilts, although there are no cabins on stilts at Camp Waldemar).

They are all doing those silly things girls do at summer camp, in addition to all the good things they teach the girls at Camp Waldemar. Lyn and I are sending emails daily, we hope she sends us a card or two from camp. I’ll let you know if something interesting happens down there. Thanks for your thoughts.

Top Grades and not Valedictorian? Wrong!

I know life is not fair, and neither is the Grapevine Colleyville School District. How to you spell “cheated?” Cheated is the best way to describe what has happened to 16 year old Anjali Datta, a student in the Grapevine Colleyville School District who has the highest GPA in her class and the highest ever for the District. Despite that fact, she is not being awarded the title she has earned, the title of Valedictorian. Misguided fits the school district’s policy concerning its Valedictorian rules stopping her from that title.

The school districts lame and misguided explanation is Anjali finished her 38 hours of instruction required by state law in just three years, and the rule for Valedictorian is the highest grade average over 4 years. Please! She completed 4 years of high school instruction in just 3 years! With the highest grade point average in Grapevine Colleyville School District History!

What a rip! Here is a dedicated girl, with dedicated and supportive parents, told by the school district’s own counselors accelerating her graduation date would not keep her from being Valedictorian. The school districts rule is unfair and misguided, it penalizes achievement and those who push to go beyond the norm and succeed.

Anjali Datta is being cheated! The student named Valedictorian in the Grapevine Colleyville district knows full well she did not beat Datta’s scores, only that she spent a year longer in the District’s schools. How hollow and how shallow the school district has made this prestigious honor.

Datta deserves to be Valedictorian, did 4 years of work in 3 and got the best grades ever, and the school district knows it. How sad.

Rite of Passage

We drove up to the west parking lot at the Will Rogers complex in Fort Worth this morning, and there it was, a huge white bus, just as promised. The rite of passage, a chariot to carry my little girl on her first real trip away from home without mommy and daddy. This is the bus to Camp Waldemar, a girls summer camp in the Texas hill country.

This is a big step for all of us; an exercise in trust, faith and letting go. Madi is just 8 years old, and she is not exactly making this trip alone, she is going with two of her best friends, Channy and Clair. They rushed across the parking lot and ran to the back of the bus, the only spot where there are 3 seats so they could all sit side by side together.

I sure wish the bus could have taken off quickly with the girls all excited, but as the minutes ticked by and Madi watched us wait out in the parking lot, reality finally sank in, and her emotions and her eyes overflowed; she was leaving the safety of mommy and daddy and going off on her own for the first time.

The driver finally closed the door and the bus pulled away for the 5 hour trip to camp with Madi dabbing her eyes. But, I am sure excitement soon replaced the anxiety, and we are looking forward to our first card from camp.

P.S.: A quick confession here, as the bus pulled away, there was mist in my eye and a pang in my heart too, she is growing up! A rite of passage for us all.

Kick him out of the game!

And his parents too!   Sports Director Newy Scruggs showed the final moments of a youth baseball game outside of Seattle today.   As members of the two teams were passing in lines shaking hands at the end of the game, one player rears up and sucker punches a player on the other team.

There is a fine display of sportsmanship!   Not!   The punch caused a big gash in the player’s lip requiring stitches, and yet the police up there in Seattle have yet to file any charges.   Hello, what is wrong with this picture.

First of all, file assault charges.  Second, kick that kid out of organized baseball, third get his parents into the police station and let them explain how they failed as parents to train their son to believe that kind of behavior is acceptable.

Responsibility is in such short supply among many parents of young athletes.   I cannot tell you how many soccer games I have witnessed near my daughter’s games where parents are out of control, screaming at the refs and the other team’s players and coaches.    Parents do nothing but stoke their children for failure by showing out like that.

I don’t know anything about the parents of the boy who threw that sucker punch up in Seattle today, but if that were my son, I can tell you I would not wait for the league to kick my child off the team, I would pull him from the sport.   Period.   We must, as parents, show our children good behavior and good sportsmanship are not only desired in organized sports, that are required!

The instrument of Angels

Our 8 year old filled our hearts to over flowing this past weekend.   Madi performed her “book one” harp recital, memorizing 20 songs, playing them for an audience of friends and family in the Leonard Chapel at First United Methodist Church.   Most harpist don’t attempt that recital until age 12, or older, and we are so proud Madi showed the bravery, tenacity and talent to sit in front of the crowd gathered in the pews Sunday afternoon.

I was worried because the church computers had cut off the air conditioning 3 hours before the recital, and the Chapel was sweltering.   But, there was not one complaint from anyone who came to hear Madi play.   Daddy was just sweating, maybe because of the heatwave last weekend, maybe because I was nervous for my little girl.   If it were the later, there was no cause, Madi showed poise well beyond her years.   I am so proud I could bust.

The harp is not exactly the easiest instrument to play, but like mother light daughter, Madi is following in mommy’s footsteps.   In fact, both of our girls, Gracie too, play the harp.    Mommy is quite an accomplished harpist, playing in the National Youth Orchestra, playing through Europe and playing in Washington at the White House for President Reagan’s birthday and at the Congressional Ball.   The girls have a big mountain to climb to reach the heights mommy achieved, but after hearing Madi fill the church and our hearts Sunday, I have no doubt mommy will someday soon be practicing to keep up.

One final note.   We were honored my nephew, Marine Lance Corporal Steward Dzenowski made it to the recital.  He made it safely home from service in Iraq last week and deploys to Afghanistan in January.   We are so glad Madi could fill his heart with the music of Angels before he again puts himself between us and harms way.

No legs. No problem! Memorial day inspiration.

The Stars and Strips falling from heaven under the canopy of a skydiver jumping into a Memorial Day celebration in Colleyville, Texas very impressive today. But more impressive was the man under the parachute carrying the flag, U.S. Army Sgt. (Ret) Dana Boman.

On the ground you see him as one of those chisel faced “Special Forces” guys, a pillar of strength and a chest full of medals. Then as he walks down the isle in his crisp Army dress uniform, you notice a bit of a strange gate, and instantly you know there is something going on here. That something going on is two missing legs.

Back at the helicopter about to take him up for his Memorial Day jump, there they are for all to see; 2 high tech metal poles extending below his thighs, planted in a pair of black jumping shoes. An unknowing person would say, “is that guy going to jump with those artificial legs?” Well, yes he is and proud of it!

Sgt. Boman lost both legs in 1994, during a jumping accident that killed a fellow member of the Army Golden Knight’s parachute team. Read his story from Sgt. Bowman’s own website. The story for many people might end right there, but not for Dana Bowman. He became the first double amputee to re-enlist in the U.S. Army, and then became the first soldier with artificial limbs to officially jump again as a paratrooper.

He is now retired, if you call doing what Sgt. Bowman does being retired. He is a motivational speaker of the umpth degree. But, he needs few words to motivate and inspire people who see him jump. The act alone requires extreme bravery, make that raw guts, and his jumps are done with pinpoint accuracy that would be envied by any skydiver. But that is not the point.

The point is, to use Sgt. Bowman’s own words, “disabled, physically challenged, it is all about giving back and showing them that no matter what happens, we can still continue on.” Dana Bowman is no pity party, this is a man on a mission. to let other injured veterans, and people facing challenges of any and all types, to get over it and get on with life.    What a gift on Memorial Day.

Butterflies for Mars

I feel like a kid again again!   Mars here we come!   I remember as a young boy growing up in Springfield, Missouri, getting up early in the morning with my dad and mom to watch the NASA launches on TV.   My parents loved science and science fiction, and it rubbed off on me.    We talked a lot about space travel, what we might eventually be able to find up there, what we might be able to discover or make in different atmospheres.    I loved every minute spent talking about those possibilities.

I wish my mom and dad were were alive today to see the Phoenix land on Mars this evening.  NASA hasn’t had such good luck doing soft landings on planets over the past 30 years, if this little three legged monster comes down at the Martian north pole like it is supposed to, it will be a real cause for celebration for the process.    But, more importantly, if it comes down safely and powers up after landing, the Phoenix may do something that will thrill us all, by finding signs of life in the Martian permafrost.

NASA engineers, and those at Lockheed who built this rig, say they have butterflies in their stomachs today, me too.   They are anxious about the Phoenix landing in one piece and working.   Me too.   But, my butterflies are also for the prospect I think is shared by scientist, that Phoenix will find some building blocks of life up there that might prove, we are not alone.

The high price of oil. Congress does not get it!

The blame game is a lame game.  I am so sick of watching the dog and pony show in Washington, Senators grand standing with their blustering disbelief as they skewer oil company executives for the high price of crude oil.    Illinois Senator Dick Durbin was the most insipid, asking the oil execs if they knew what they are doing to the American people?   He then asked them how they can live with themselves taking home all that profit when many Americans are struggling to make ends meet.

The real question should be; do members of Congress know what they are doing, and how do they sleep at night?   The hearings this week are just a soap box from where the Senators can spew worthless venom at oil companies which they, members of congress, have prevented from drilling for the oil under our own land and prevented oil companies from building new refineries.

I have written about this so many times, we have abundant  untapped oil reserves in ANWR and just off our shores, and we can go after it in now proven environmentally sound ways.     Read here.

Members of Congress don’t need more hearings, they really do know that drilling our own is the only viable solution for today to buy us time to develop new energy sources for tomorrow.   Problem is, either they don’t care or don’t have the guts to do what’s right.    How do they sleep at night?

The Jester and Genius of Southwest Airlines.

Wild Turkey and Marlboro’s, the breakfast of champions. True enough for Herb Kelleher. I met Herb more than 30 years ago when he was shamelessly promoting his fledgling bright orange airline with flight attendants in hot pants serving up booze and peanuts, and the man never changed.

Herb led his last annual shareholders meeting as Chairman of the Airline at Dallas Love Field Wednesday.   Not a dry eye in the place, including his baby blues.   Employees, union bosses and stockholders lavished mementos on  the jovial one as he said his tearful goodbye.   Quite a scene!

Herb is a brilliant lawyer, who can morph into a court jester in a blink of an eye;  he’s a walking, talking sound bite. One of my favorite sound bites came during a Congressional hearing over the Wright Amendment, when he said about the invitation to sit down and talk directly with American Airlines; “Its kind of like the spider saying to the fly, come on over for dinner.”

Herb’s business model is admired and feared in the airline industry. The people who work for Southwest would walk through the jaws of hell for the man, because he would do the same for them. His humor, good sense and sense of fair play helped him build one of the most successful airlines in the world, and one that has so far been able to survive almost every economic downturn thrown at it.

They broke the mold when they made Herb Kelleher.   The good news for us in the news business is Herb is not going away. He admits he is not very good at this retirement thing, and will be doing special projects for Southwest. Translation, it is retirement in name only. Herb is the ego of Southwest, and will always be as long as he can tip a glass of Turkey and puff that cig.

No choice! American had to do it.

The sky is not falling, but the soaring price of jet fuel passed unbelievable a long time ago. American Airlines management did what it had to do, and what many analyst say they should do, to survive this morning. American President and CEO Gerard Arpey dropped a bomb shell that everyone who travels should have seen coming, and you can expect other airlines to something to pay their fuel bills too.

Arpey swallowed hard to announce he is scaling back the airline’s flight schedule by 10 to 12 per cent grounding about 30 to 40 of the airline’s gas guzzling MD-80 jetliners and a like number of  American Eagle’s Regional jets. As a net result, he is authorizing thousands of layoffs for employees who work with those planes and those routes. Another portion of the plan to recover the soaring cost of fuel, without raising base ticket prices, Arpey announced a fee of $15 for the first checked bag. Passengers are already charged $25 for a second bag.

While these additional fees are painful for those who try to fly as cheap they can, and more painful for those who will lose their jobs, American really has no choice. American cannot charge less than it costs to fly, other majors have tried that and landed in bankruptcy court. The Fort Worth based airline is the only major carrier to have never declared bankruptcy, a testament to both employee sacrifice and good management by Arpey and his management team. Failure to make these new moves to recover what it costs to fly its airplanes is a certain ticket into the financial abyss for American.

I know Gerard Arpey, he is one of the good guys. The decision he made to layoff employees must have been very painful for him. But not making the changes would be more painful, running American into bankruptcy and threatening all of the airline’s 90 thousand jobs. Sniping by the pilots, the best paid in the industry and seeking a 50% pay raise right now, seems pretty out of place.