It's a Small World...

Over Spring Break we went on a cruise. Our ship was Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. It’s that new 6250 passenger, larger than life ship that started cruising earlier this year. Both the ship and the cruise were pretty amazing.

However, this story isn’t about the ship. Don’t worry I’ve got some stories to tell about the ship and all that we did, but this is about a really bizarre thing that happened on one of the islands we visited.

Our ports of call were St. Thomas, St. Maartin (that’s how they spell it) and Nassau.

So we’re on St. Thomas, one the Virgin Islands. We had walked around, shopped a little bit and had basically just been lazy. It ended up with the four of us, Melissa, Macy, Page (a friend we took with us) and me just sitting on the beach with hundreds of other people. We started getting hungry, so Melissa walked down the beach and found Thor.

Thor is a large, animated island resident who either works for one of the beach restaurants, or he simply makes money by looking crazy, taking people’s orders and playing waiter for tips. Either way, Thor has a very colorful personality that made eating on the beach much more fun than it usually is.

Anyway, the four of us, and the group next to us, both ordered from Thor. The group next to us had about six adults and their kids. They were ordering some pretty festive drinks and seemed to be having a pretty good time. I was a little jealous of the drinks, but I knew I had to somehow actually make it back to the ship, so I decided not enjoy one of their festive beverages.

Thor shows up, gives us our food and tells us he’ll be right back to collect the money. I get my money ready and start walking toward Thor and the festive drink group to pay. When suddenly, the guy from the festive drink group who is talking to Thor starts to look familiar. He had on dark sunglasses and that made it hard to be sure. That’s when I turned to Melissa.

“Look at the guy talking to Thor. Is that Tracy Ward?”

“No way…well, maybe.”

“Last time I saw Tracy he had hair, but I’ve seen him on Facebook, and it’s all gone now. So that could be him.”

At this point I yell, “TRACY!” He never stops talking to Thor.

“I guess not, it’s hard to tell with his sunglasses on.”

“Hugh, isn’t that Kathleen?”

It was at this point that I realized I had traveled thousands of miles from home, and was sitting on the beach next to my old buddy from my college days at Hardin-Simmons University, as well as, Seminary. We were actually headed to Tracey’s house back in 1990, when we were in the accident that changed my life forever. Come to think of it, Tracey is one of the few people who actually read this blog. Go figure?

Turns out it was Tracy Ward. We talked, laughed and hugged. Of course it never occurred to either one of us to take a picture, but the memory is all I need.

Turns out, if not for Thor’s loud “Hey! Look at me!” kind of personality, I may have never realized that I was soaking up the sun right next to my old friend.

Then we saw each other again at the airport as we were leaving Fort Lauderdale. Tracy got a picture of us on his iphone standing outside the airport. At least that was something.

Yep, it really is a small world…But I wouldn’t want to paint it.

Thor

I had to say something...

I have written about this before, but it’s on my heart and this is my best outlet.

When I see small children afraid to come to school, not because of missing homework or bullies, but rather because of a standardized test called TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), it breaks my heart and infuriates my soul at the same time.

The state of Texas is doing a serious disservice to lives and futures its people by putting our children through this kind of an “educational” ringer.

The biggest worry that a third grader should have is getting cooties, not passing some damn standardized test!

We have lawmakers in Austin (and Rick Perry is the main one) with no educational training who are sitting in their ivory tower and tossing out educational reform ideas like an old, blind man feeding handfuls of pebbles to a flock of hungry birds. He has no idea that the pebbles aren’t food, and that they are actually killing the very birds he’s trying to feed, so he keeps on throwing. He hears voices all around pleading with him to stop throwing, but instead, out of frustration, he starts throwing larger and larger stones. If a bird dies, he just starts throwing harder. He has an inexhaustible supply of stones, and there is no end in sight to this bizarre pattern.

These lawmakers have never spent time down in the trenches. They have never had to stand by and watch a third grade girl pull her own hair out by the handfuls, because she so afraid of failing this giant test. Not because she cares about the grade, but because she knows that, even though the scores are kept “confidential,” everyone will know if she passed, because if you fail you’re put into a special reading group. And that will make her different.

These lawmakers have never had to find discreet ways of looking under a child’s long sleeves to see if he’s started cutting himself again. And they sure haven’t had to watch this same boy’s mom crumble into a sobbing mass when they tell her that it’s happening again.

These lawmakers have never had to use a translator to tell loving parents that their child, mostly because English isn’t spoken at home, is going to have to repeat the third grade. And then look across the table at the child and try to convince her that she isn’t stupid.

These lawmakers have never had to watch as the joy that should be daily in Kindergarten, is washed away with the promise of “better first grade readers.” Oh sure, it sounds great, but they are forcing teachers to use developmentally inappropriate testing with these small children.

What’s the bottom line for these lawmakers? It’s not quality education. It’s not brighter futures of the children of Texas. It’s not the mental and physical wellbeing of their constituents.

It’s Money.

The better we score on these tests, the more money the state gets. The more money the state gets, the more stones the lawmakers can buy for the old man.

I know Governor Perry recently led the charge for Texas to keep some of its educational autonomy by opting out of President Obama’s education program, but don’t let that fool you. We still get federal money. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t turn down ALL of the federal funding.

So what can you and I do?

Scream.

Yell.

Make Noise.

Let the lawmakers know that we don’t like what’s happening…make them listen to us for a change.

Mine is only one small voice, but together maybe we can stop that old, blind man before he starts throwing boulders.

Thanks for listening,

Hugh