What the Fourth is For

*See Cartoon Footnote (scroll down below column)

What the Fourth is For

For the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and Schleswig Leader, Thurs. June 29, 2006

(Note: anyone remotely familiar with any of our most important documents will notice my shameless paraphrasing, the thing is, too many people don't seem to be very familiar with them, otherwise why would we have stupid attempts to desecrate them like the recent flag-burning amendment in the Senate?)

Sometimes as life goes on, you need to cut off your political connections to a group, and take your place in the world as God and nature intended. When that happens, it’s only fair that you explain why. That’s what the Continental Congress did 230 years ago this week.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that everyone is created equal, and have God given rights, including the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Everyone agrees that the pursuit of happiness is pretty vague and that that one can be interpreted differently by almost everyone.

Life ought to be self explanatory, but of course two centuries later, there are issues of “quality of life,” end-of-life, of course abortion and don’t forget capital punishment.

“Pursuit of happiness” has to be the one that is the most subjective. What if my pursuit impedes yours? What if yours violates my religion?

Government exists to protect our rights, and it’s a trade-off, they exist because we allow them to. We forfeit some of our rights and privileges in order to, preserve and protect others. When the government stops protecting our rights, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” and fortunately for us, we don’t have to fight a war for Independence every time we need to do this. Instead, every two years we elect new Congressmen, every four years we replace the President, and every six years we decide on new Senators.

We hope that they’ll look out for our safety and happiness. Unfortunately all experience “hath shewn,” that voters will put up with an awful lot before they finally get fed up and tend to prefer the devil we know over the devil we don’t know.

For the sake of unity, justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, everyone’s best interests, and to guarantee freedom for us and for future generations, made this a nation of laws, not of men.

Here are just a few of our rights and freedoms:

1. Separation of church and state, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and to complain to the government when they’re wrong and demand that they make things right.

There is no officially established “Church of America,” but they can’t punish you for believing or worshiping as you wish.

Free speech, means having to put up with a lot of other people’s claptrap. You may not always like what I say here, but that won’t stop me from listening to the Dixie Chicks. (I like Toby Kieth too, if it helps.)

2. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

“A well regulated militia”- that sounds a lot like the National Guard, doesn’t it? “Well regulated” Hmmm? Sounds like maybe the founding fathers didn’t think that every white supremacist needed their own semi-automatic grenade launcher after all, at least not without a background check first. But that’s just my interpretation. See there, I exercised my freedom of speech in the press and I bet someone didn’t like it- just let me pursue my happiness without endangering my life, will ya?

3.You have the right not to have to have soldiers take over your home.

4. You have a right to not have your home or your stuff searched or confiscated without probable cause, or better yet a warrant.

5. You have a right to a trial in an actual court- not a military tribunal (unless you’re a member of the military, then you’d face a court’s marshal). You have the right to remain silent- that is you don’t have to testify if whatever you say can be used to incriminate you (You can “plead the fifth”). They can’t take away your life, liberty, or property, without due process of law and they can’t temporarily commandeer your stuff without paying you what it’s worth.

6. You have a right to a speedy trial, and a jury of your peers. You have a right to be told what you were arrested for. You have a right to confront the person who accused you of whatever crime you’re charged with. You have right to a defense lawyer who has to try to find witnesses who can help you.

7. If someone sues you for more than $20, you have a right to a jury, not just a judge, even though it’s civil court, rather than criminal court.

8. They can’t make your bail or fines too outrageous, and any penalties should not be cruel or unusual.

9. The point of the Constitution is to protect rights, not limit them

10. Whatever power that the Constitution doesn’t give to the federal government that the state government doesn’t prohibit, belong either to the state government or to the people themselves.

There are 27 more amendments besides the Bill of Rights. People struggle and sacrifice for these, they fought and died for them. What a shame if anyone would be asked to die for anything less.
____________________________________________

*Cartoon Footnote:

NEW YORK Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, apologized to Helen Thomas on Wednesday for disparaging comments he made about the veteran White House correspondent.

Last Saturday, Rep. King, while discussing the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi at the state Republican convention, said, "What occurred to me that morning is something that I imagine a lot of you have thought about and he's probably figured it out by now. There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at and if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas."

The remark drew wide laughter and applause.

A spokeswoman for the two-term congressman said King has apologized to Thomas, 85, now writing a column for Hearst newspapers.

King is running for re-election this fall.

Joyce Schulte, King's Democratic opponent in November, said
"Mean-spirited remarks are beneath the dignity of any self respecting congressperson, and remarks about another person's appearance are even lower. I hesitate to even use Helen Thomas' name in the same document with so vile a wretch as al-Zarqawi. But I want her and the world to know that Iowans are not insensitive buffoons who make fun at someone else's expense."

Fin Festival

I took these at a classic car show in Ute, IA last weekend

inconvenient truth

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences
attending too much liberty
than to those attending too small a degree of it."
- Thomas Jefferson

Car talk

I took this at a classic car show in Ute, IA this weekend. That is one seriously polishied tail-fin on a '57 Chevy Bel Air.

Free Press

"Freedom of the Press,
if it means anything at all,
means the freedom
to criticize and oppose"
~George Orwell (1903-1950)

Roadkill on the information superhighway

Last week I had said that I hoped to start running cartoons above this column. Meanwhile I attended a web programming class at Iowa Western Community College. Sure you can draw a cartoon anywhere, but try finding a scanner when you want one.

Absent of scanner, I followed Teddy Roosevelt’s advice and did what I could with what I had, right where I was. In this case I had a digital camera and a laptop with Adobe PhotoShop.

Brad Swenson, our publisher would like to take everyone’s pictures around the PRESS office and start running little staff biographies each week in these newspapers. He even suggested running mine with my column- please, God, don’t let him decide to use this one.

It really illustrates how I felt this week- trapped inside of cyberspace.
Sure I guess I kind of know my way around a computer- enough to get by. Any summer-fill-in newspaper graphic designer and most high school yearbook advisors have to.

But this latest class I took at IWCC really made me feel like a pedestrian on the “information super highway.” Other teachers at school are always coming to me for help with whatever computer problems they have, but I can’t help them.
I use three programs and email. Sure I do a little blogging. But that’s like asking somebody who drives their truck to work on weekdays and does a little off roading on weekends how to realign a differential. Wha? Huh? Exactly. A casual computer program user or a graphic designer do not an information technologies (I.T.) expert make.

Allow me to explain some of what I’ve learned. This class was 8 AM- 5:30 PM all week. We were not allowed to use any programs to create web pages, we had to write them completely in XHTML code.

XHTML stands for “Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language.” Wha? Huh? Exactly.

First of all, calling the World Wide Web the “information superhighway” is an incredibly appropriate analogy. Back in the 1950’s Eisenhower did not insist on an interstate highway system for leisure and tourism travel, not even for interstate commerce by semi-trucks. This was the cold war, after all.
Ike wanted interstates for rapidly moving our nuclear missiles, quick mobilization of troops, and efficient evacuation of major cities in the event of WWIII.

Just like that, the Internet was developed in the 1960’s for electronic communication between military installations like the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and all those missile silos peppered across the Dakotas.
Like so many trucks on the interstate, it’s now big business and commerce, along with scores of joy riders that clogs the arteries of the Wild Wild Web.
XHTML is just the latest computer programming language to be used to... uh, well, to lay down the gravel and rebar and concrete and asphalt to make that super highway travelable.

So after this last week, I went from being average Joe motorist compared to the NASCAR drivers of professional tech administrators (aka: “geeks”) to being on a road construction crew compared to the surveyors and civil engineers that are the code writing millionaires at Google and Pixar ( aka: “filthy rich geeks.”)
What was I writing? Stuff like this:

function calcLine1()
{
var rate = document.invoce.r1.value;
}

Wha? Huh? Exactly. And that was barely one piece. If it looks Greek to you, me too. Learning a program language really is like learning another language just like Greek or Spanish or German...or Martian or Venusian, exactly, I agree. But difficult as it is, it’s not impossible. Kind of like I can survive in a Mexican restaurant with my limited “Spanglish,” after this week I should be able to recognize enough of what real coder writers do to be able to use it in my school’s web pages and hopefully fix some problems, but I’m no Google guy.

If you remember enough of your English Grammar, I can give you some comparisons. In HTML, an “element” is like an “object” in JavaScript. A JavaScript object is like a noun in English.

A “method” in JavaScript is like a verb in English. In other words, a door swings, a noun verbs, an object methods, a “function calcLine” calculates on a spreadsheet.

“Properties” in JavaScript are like adjectives, they describe the nouns. It’s not just a function, it’s a rate calculating function. in JavaScript, a “value” is like a preposition...Which rate? “r1” the first rate.

I know, it still barely makes sense to me. The point is, it has to go in a certain order, a “syntax.” There’s logic to it.

So why did our professor prohibit us from using user-friendly web page designing programs instead of writing this all out? Why do Algebra teachers force student to write out their work, rather than just writing down an answer? No cheating and so we learned how to do it right. It also made us realize that we’re sort of like the volunteer candy stripers compared to all the brain surgeons out there.

If you'd like to see the website project I wrote visit http://ted.mallory.googlepages.com/default.htm

Bushenomics worse than Reaganomics

Think about it working class and middle class Midwesterners, today's Republican Party is not conservative at all, it's radical.

No nation has unilaterally invaded another while lying about it's reasons and using propaganda to contabulate the invasion with another agression that was totally unrelated since NAZI Germany.

They're not the party of fiscal responsibility anymore. They want you to believe that Dems" tax and spend," but they cut and spend and spend and spend.

They claim to be the party of "small government" yet they have systematically amassed control for their single party and power for the Executive branch that is unprecidented. They've revoked civil liberties of all kinds especially privacy, and hope to intrude on the most personal aspects of our lives- that's not less obtrusive government, that's totalitariansim.

Where they want less government is in oversight and regulation of massive corporate interests. This is the unscroupulously opportunistic agenda of an oligarcical class masked in the palattable concept of "globalism."

President Clinton ran on the promise of a New Covenant for America's forgotten working families. After twelve years of Republican presidents, America faced record budget deficits, high unemployment, and increasing crime. President Clinton's policies put people first and resulted in the longest period of economic expansion in peacetime history. The Deficit Reduction Act of 1993 — passed by both the House and Senate without a single Republican vote — put America on the road to fiscal responsibility and led to the end of perennial budget deficits. Having inherited a $290 billion deficit in 1992, President Clinton's last budget was over $200 billion in surplus. The Clinton/Gore Administration was responsible for reducing unemployment to its lowest level in decades and reducing crime to its lowest levels in a generation.

*from http://www.democrats.org/a/party/history.html

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democrat who led us out of the Great Depression and through WWII once said, "if you want to live like a Republican, you need to vote like a Democrat.

Take back your party Republicans, throw the "neocons" out, send the Bush Administration a message, either don't vote this November, or vote for Democrats or Independents.

Democrats, take back America, not for control, not for revenge, just for balance and logic and the real values and principles that the United States was founded on.

Over two hundred years ago, our Party's founders decided that wealth and social status were not an entitlement to rule. They believed that wisdom and compassion could be found within every individual and a stable government must be built upon a broad popular base...The late Ron Brown — former Chairman of the Democratic Party — put it best when he wrote, "The common thread of Democratic history, from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton, has been an abiding faith in the judgment of hardworking American families, and a commitment to helping the excluded, the disenfranchised and the poor strengthen our nation by earning themselves a piece of the American Dream. We remember that this great land was sculpted by immigrants and slaves, their children and grandchildren." Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party in 1792 as a congressional caucus to fight for the Bill of Rights and against the elitist Federalist Party.*

It's time to fight again. The first President Bush and his advisors tried to paint the Democrats as a party of elitist "boutique liberals," and insinuated that we were controlled by Hollywood (once upon a time that was also a thinly veiled antisemetic insinuation). But think, from MASSIVE deficit inducing tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of the population to their campaign to repeal the estate tax, to the war profiteering of Haliburton and the Carlyle Group, the corruption of Enron, to all time high oil company profits, today's Republicans want us to believe that they're the NASCAR loving, blue-collar, grass roots, fundamentalis Christian party, when really they are more elitist than any other group in our nation's history.

We can't change the direction of our country and return to our true values unless we gain control of the Congress and Senate in 2006. Please vote and encourage everyone you know to vote and vote for Democrats. If you haven't registered to vote yet, register. And get everyone you know to register Democrat.

Some of my best friends are Republican, please PLEASE, send the neocons a clear message. Re-register independent or better yet Democrat. PLEASE vote Democrat. Congressmen only serve for 2 years, if you're disapointed with the Democrat, by all means, rejoin the Repubblicans and throw our candidates out again in 2008, but you have to see that your party has been stolen from you. Vote Democrat and save the Republican party you used to know.

CLICK HERE to register

15 minutes of fame

Now I'm no Andy Warhol, but this was quick and fun. I don't even think that it took me much more than 15 minutes. I had wanted to run an editorial cartoon- or any kind of cartoon with my weekly column in our local paper. I'm away at college taking a web code programming class. Without access to a scanner, I had to think of something else. SO... with a camera and a few minutes in PhotoShop- I think I managed to capture my mood this week.

Like the bed-hair?

School Newspaper

Here are some graphics I developed last night for the project web-site I'm doing for the xhtml programming class I'm taking this week.

If you'd like to see that site, visit http://ted.mallory.googlepages.com/default.htm

The media is the message

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I personally am torn. Anyone who knows me or has read this column very regularly knows I’m hard to shut up. Meanwhile I’d wanted to be a cartoonist when I grew up since I was in fourth or fifth grade.

Some look down on cartooning, like it’s too easy or appeals too much to our lowest common denominators and doesn’t require us to read or think as much as writing. Not so, seeing and scanning is thinking just as hard, it just involves a different region of your brain and takes a lot less time.
It takes me almost as long to draw, scan, and process a clean, professional looking cartoon as it does to write a column. More importantly, cartooning has a long and prestigious history that goes back as far as printing itself.

When Guttenburg invented the press, Europe was engulfed in the controversy of the excesses of renaissance and the revolutionary social and political changes of the Reformation. The vast majority of the population couldn’t read, just emerging from the dark ages and all, but they could understand editorial cartoons. So Lutherans drew the pope as a jackass, and Catholics drew Martin Luther as an “instrumental of the devil” (his face as a bag-pipe played by a gargoyle).

Benjamin Franklin, scientist, philosopher, inventor, civic and business leader, humorist, diplomat, statesman, and chick-magnet was also, among other things, one of America’s first editorial cartoonists. His lampoon of the famous “Don’t tread on me” rattle snake flag, that patriot troops flew, featured the snake hacked-up into 13 pieces. His point was the colonies needed to unite if they were going to stand up against British rule.

Paul Revere of midnight ride fame, was also a cartoonist. Yes, you’re right- he was a silversmith. But see, back then cartoons had to be engraved in order to be printed. Whereas today we draw ‘em, scan ‘em and place them into layouts on a computer. So, since he knew how to engrave flourishes and decorative scenes onto his silver tea pots and vases, he also knew how to engrave a cartoon critical of the British onto a printer’s plate.

The real father of modern editorial cartooning had to be Thomas Nast. He was a tubby little German immigrant kid who got beat up in school for not being able to speak English well enough. He discovered that he could win friends by drawing caricatures that made fun of the school bullies.

During the Civil War he worked as a illustrator for Harper’s magazine. They were the Time or Newsweek of the day.

Photography was in it’s infancy. The lens had to stay open for a long time so action shots were impossible. Subjects had to sit still or show up as a blur. They didn’t have digital cameras or even convenient 35 mm rolls of film. Pictures were shot onto big lunky plates of glass. Consequently, publications like Harper’s sent artists like Nast with their sketchbooks to the battlefield, then they’d go home and draw detailed engravings to give readers a realistic picture of the war.

Nast maybe most revered by cartoonists for taking down the corrupt political machine of William “Boss” Tweed run out of Tammany Hall in New York City. But most Americans know him by his symbols.

He’s the guy who came up with the Republican elephant; big rich fat-cat, slow to change, never forgets old issues. He’s also responsible for the Democratic donkey; working class, agriculture, and immigrants, stubborn and sometimes a jackass.

As if those two weren’t enough, he’s responsible for another American icon. In 1884 he was asked to illustrate a children’s poem entitled “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Before Nast, Americans were used to a tall skinny Dutch “Saint Nicholas,” or a tall skinny British “Father Christmas.” Now, thanks to an editorial cartoonist, Americans had their fat, jolly Santa in a furry red suit.

I could go on and on about how cartoonists brought us Uncle Sam and the Teddy Bear or what an uproar it made in the Islamic world when the prophet Mohammed showed up in a cartoon. But instead, I should just encourage you to enjoy looking at funny pictures.

With the new publisher’s indulgence, I’d like to humbly offer you some editorials cartoons along with this column. If you’re disappointed with the political positions they seem to take, be patient. I hope to try my best to be an equal opportunity offender. The Elephants happen to hold power, but that doesn’t mean that donkeys never do anything worth making fun of.

See all my cartoons in color at http://tedstoons.blogspot.com/

Shop Talk; Changes at the papers

At the time that I write this, I've been back working at the papers for a whole three days. It certainly is a little different than it's been, but I still really enjoying it. I thought I'd use this week's column to give you a bit of a backstage peek, so to speak.

First of all, to our Charter Oak- Ute readers, if you missed this page last week, we're sorry about that. It ran in the Schleswig LEADER, but we seemed to have gotten our wires a little crossed and sent in two page threes.

No skin off my nose. Nothing terribly funny or vitally important, I thought it was kind of sweet though. If you REALLY missed it, you can visit "http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com/2006/05/thanks-i-needed-that.html"

By now a few of you have met a few of the new people here at the newspapers. Publishers Mark Rhodes and Brad Swensen and I attended a Community Club meeting in Ute a couple of weeks ago. Last week the publishers were at the ribbon cutting for the new bank building in Charter Oak. They took with them Julie Hamann, the new reporter at the Mapleton office and Kathy Boehm, the new advertising representative.

Just yesterday (Wednesday June 7) there was a coffee at the Beef and Brew in Mapleton for community members to get to meet the PRESS staff.

I can tell you that Karen Soukup will once again be covering news in the Charter Oak and Ute areas and Elaine Teut is still our woman in Schleswig, even though that office is now closed.

All kinds of people have been asking me if I'm "still working at the newspapers" and "What do they have you doing there?"

Well, yes I am, but all kinds of things, I guess- are the best answers I can offer for those questions. This week I'm mostly doing what's called "pagination," that means I'm putting together the pages on a computer. That would make me a graphic designer. You'll notice that they're still running ads for a graphic designer. That would be because I'll go back to teaching in the Fall.

More and more of the layout is being done on computer. I'm sure that the hope is to do it all this way eventually.

For the sake of the operations here, I hope they find a full time graphic designer as well as people who can take over permanently for Karen and Elaine. Be that as it may, I'd give my left hand to get Mark and Brad to promise to hire me back each and every summer from now on. That's because for some of us "Newsies," the ink just gets in our blood.

My first impressions of the new folks are all good. As far as I can tell they are each consummate professionals.

Mark Rhoads is a fifth generation newsman. He values small-town publications and promoting local communities like no one else.

I haven't seen many people work as hard as Brad Swenson. Yet he has a way of putting everyone around him at ease and he's quick with laugh and grin.

Kathy Boehm strikes me as being very outgoing and highly motivated.

I can't believe the good fortune of the PRESS, LEADER, and NEWSpaper to have found someone like Julie Hamann. She told me that she'd worked for years for the Sioux City Journal before getting married. Her husband farms between Danubury and Anthon. She's even working toward a Master's in Journalism from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. How much more qualified can you get than that?

Even with the most competent staff in the world, no community newspaper can do it's job without a community. I make this plea a lot, and here it is again- we need your participation. Some weeks there's not enough content to fill even just four pages. Please send us your news tips. In fact, you can send us your own stories and digital photos directly.

If you ever take pictures with a digital camera or know someone who did, go ahead and E-mail them to us. If you haven't got internet access at home, nag a friend who does, or see if there's a library or business that will let you borrow theirs for a few minutes. If you still can't get online, come see us in Mapleton, we can probably find a way to get your picture off your camera.

Other weeks there may be more than enough news and pictures to fill six or eight pages, but barely enough ads to pay for even four. We need your support, whether that's purchasing an ad, renewing a subscription, or giving someone else a gift subscription.

E-mail me your story ideas at "ted.mallory@gmail.com"

E-mail Ann Collins, the Office Manager in Mapleton at "mpress@longlines.com"

If you ever want to send us something the old fashioned way, on paper, there are drop-off boxes in the Hoffman Agency offices in both Schleswig and Charter Oak. There's also a drop-box on the side of the NEWSpaper office in Ute. Send an actual print of a photograph and make sure you tell us who it's from and if you want it back and we can scan it into the computer and return it to you.

Want to talk to us directly? Make a local call from your home town and it will automatically be forwarded to the PRESS office in Mapleton.

In Charter Oak, you can call 678-3571.

In Ute, call 885-2247

In Schleswig, call 676-3414

Or you can always call straight to Mapleton at 881-1101. And when you need to fax us something, the number is 881-1330.

Third Eye

Here is a colorful abstract, based on a camera lens

Robin

Support our troops, bring them home!

I recently got an email that complained-

"Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority". We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions."

I couldn't believe how persecuted they felt. They control all 3 branches of government. I clicked the "reply-all" button and fired back:

How the President and Secretary of Defense FAILED to support our troops:
1. Didn't send enough of them to Afghanistan
2. Began planning to send them to Iraq BEFORE they even got into office, let alone before 9/11
3. Lied to us to make us thing that Iraq had anything whatsoever to so with 9/11
4. Sent them to Iraq
5. Didn't send enough of them to Iraq
6. Didn't send them with enough or good enough supplies, from body armor to vehicle armor
7. Don't take good enough care of their families while they're gone
8. Don't take good enough care of them or their families once they come home
9. Didn't and still don't have a plan for the reconstruction of Iraq once Saddam Hussein was overthrown
10. Contract too many aspects of the operation out to private contractors, who get paid insanely greater amounts than our soldiers
11. Extended stays, re-ups, re-mobilizations
12. Failed to train them adequately for coping with IEDs and RPGs
13. Failed to train them adequately for security, infrastructure rebuilding and general peacekeeping duties of occupation (which should be reconstruction)
14. Failed to train them in ethics and human-relations OR actually instructed them to violate international treaties, leading to abuses in Abu Grahd, and Haditha- then let them take the fall for it in the courts and the media instead of taking responsibility at the command level.
15. Abused the National Guard system for major combat operations when they're supposed to be reserved for natural emergencies like Katrina and Rita. Especially when guys like Bush and Cheney conveniently avoided service in Vietnam by joining the Guard

Support our troops, remember them, pray for them, offer any assistance you can to their families at home, welcome them back with open arms when they do ge to come home, thank them for their service and sacrifice, give to veterans' charities, write to them and send them care packages, vote for them when they run for office once they get home, please, PLEASE keep them and their families in your prayers- but don't stop thinking, don't start hating people who think differently than you do, don't worship our leaders and follow them blindly without scrutinizing them. Support our troops by exercising the rights that they fight for. Best of all, support our troops by calling for their return home.

And don't send mindless, arrogant, foolish, prejudiced, right-wing propaganda to me unless you want me to answer back with the truth like this again.

Your fellow American, and member of the TRUE silent majority- the MIDDLE!

Thanks, I needed that

Thanks, I needed that
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig LEADER, Thurs. June 1, 2006

It's not always easy to remain positive, the way cheerleaders are supposed to, but that's why we have cheerleaders- to help us (& each other) to think positive.

Last night I stayed at school to work on finishing the yearbook and to save money on gas, since we had the Spring awards banquet. I was feeling sorry for myself 1) that the yearbook staff had left so much for me to do and 2) that I wouldn't get to see my own kids that night. I thought I'd wait till just before the banquet to go because I'm not very comfortable in social situations, so it's awkward to try to make small-talk any longer than I have to.

Naturally my truck wouldn't start. I looked under the hood aimlessly, as if by looking at something I know nothing about would miraculously solve the problem. We used to have an old car that you sometimes needed to tap on the distributor cap to get it to start. That worked magically every single time you did it. My truck didn't seem to have a distributor cap.

I followed the cables from the battery to the spark plugs. I knew it wasn't the battery because it turned over fine, it just didn't start. I fiddled with the spark plugs, as if maybe that would help just like tapping on the distributor of that old Buick used to. Nothing. The guys at the garage had assured me that the plugs were fine.

There had been two or three mornings when it wouldn't start so I asked them to look when I had had it in for an oil change. They said that the plugs were too new, they had given it a tune up just last year. They said that it started up every time for them, but from my explanation it sounded like a fuel filter or fuel injector.

Trying to get it to start once more so I could make it to the awards banquet, I hoped it was just the fuel filter, not the fuel pump or the injector. I had bought a bottle of fuel injector cleaner the last time I got gas, I put it in the tank and followed it up with some unleaded that I had in the gas can that I keep in the back for the lawn mower. Nothing. The next day my farmer-in-law reminded me that if it were a fuel filter it would start to cut out whenever I'd try to accelerate. Never had, just didn't want to start.

I tried again. Nothing. I looked under the hood again, still not knowing what to look for. I wanted to find the choke. That always works, I told myself. Of course I had no idea where the choke was- somewhere below the steering column down by this side of where the throttle is inside I reasoned. No, nope. Hmmm, is it on top of the engine block somewhere? Oh, who was I kidding? Even if I knew where it was, there's always two guys whenever guys pull that trick. One inside to gun the gas and another under the hood to pull on the choke.

Dang, why didn't I take Engines or Auto Shop in high school? Noooo, I had to take stupid Drafting. Like I ever use that? When was the last time I ever drew a 3-D schematic for some machine-tooled part? Dumb guidance counselor.

Finally I called my wife to ask for a ride after the banquet. The next day, if he'd gotten his crop in, I'm sure my beloved farmer-in-law and/or his mechanic neighbor could come look at it and at least help me get it to the guys at the garage. I started walking to the banquet.

I was relieved that I hadn't missed the meal. I was the very last person in line behind all the parents. I took the very last seat at the coaches and teacher's table. I don't know if I'm losing my hearing or if it was just the din of the crowd, but I had a tough time hearing any of the conversations at the table, which made polite small talk even harder.

Plenty of chummy humor between the Athletic Director who Emceed and the other ball-sport coached, who were sitting on the opposite end of our two or three tables. I never really fit in with all the jocks when I was in school either. At least the sports editors on the school paper were pretty nice to me. Maybe that's why I work so hard to actually coach and not just be one of those lazy sponsors who never even attends any games with their cheer squads. Maybe I'm overcompensating or trying to prove something to somebody. Whatever.

Yadda yadda yadda, scholarships, music, band, science, blah blah blah, etc. etc. Not that that's bad, all the presenters were great, all the kids deserve recognition, it's just that no one ever enjoys these things do they? I don't even like the Oscars that much. At least at the Country music awards you get to hear bands play. Dang it, Coach, why do you make me second to last? I just want to get it over with. I'll never be able to say anything as clever and insider as you football, basketball, baseball and golf guys... okay here we go.

Geez, how come I have no trouble at all talking in front of people all day long, but this freaks me out? Maybe because that's 10-20 kids at a time in a classroom and this is more than half the kids in school, plus most of my colleagues and administrators, plus all those kids parents all at once.

So I get it done. I feel bad because I fell like I made it sound like I didn't appreciate or don't like the football cheerleaders, but at the same time I don't feel like I did a good enough job of letting the basketball cheerleaders know how much I appreciated them or what an outstanding job they did. But, I didn't stutter or get any name wrong and I was brief- which is what most people want anyway. And when I got back to my table the History and Science teachers said they liked my joke, although they were the only two who got it.

Needless to say, it had been a rough night. I walked back to school Bethany wasn't there to pick me up yet, but there were post-it notes all over my windshield. It was the junior high cheerleaders. They'd been to Adventureland with the junior high choir. “We luv U Coach,” “#1 Cheer Coach,” “Go Bulldogs,” and “We will miss you!”

They didn’t realize it, but they had done what cheerleaders are supposed to do, even on the last day of school. They gave me a lift and reminded me to be positive. Thanks girls.