I just got back from visiting my Mother. While I was leaving her residence a vaguely familiar face hailed me and turned out to be a teacher I’d known thirty years earlier in my brief and inglorious stint teaching in the Proctor Schools. D and I had a nice chat and when I mentioned that I was mostly a local eccentric he kindly told me he was glad to know at least one. As I left and got to my car another vaguely familiar face greeted me. This one belonged to a six foot tall former student in my seventh grade Morgan Park Geography class from 21 years ago.
K was a lot bigger now. I again I rehashed the familiar I’m an eccentric conversation. Its my standard introduction of myself. K mentioned something about following my public complaints and taking much of what I said lightly then told me he had left town because of our schools. His children are a few years away from school yet but the taxes, the classrooms of 40 kids and what’s happened at Morgan Park convinced him that he wanted to raise his children in Esko. I told him that it didn’t sound like he had taken my constant badgering all that lightly and he agreed.
Bumping into a former colleague and student got me thinking that I ought to drive by some of the new schools while kids were there. I’ve commented unfavorably about what I anticipated might happen but I’ve not taken a look at the school up to now. My first quick drive was by the new Duluth East. I was most curious to see if the parking lot was crammed full as I had predicted. It had a few spaces and a smaller lot was being laid out and leveled across 40th Ave. East. Maybe my predictions were too pessemistic. Maybe the school is being very tight-fisted with parking permits. I don’t know.
I did see a bunch of kids across the street with one girl smoking a cigarette in the yard two houses down. That’s something the junior high kids in the Ordean days didn’t do as they were confined to their middle school during school hours. I’m sure the homeowner wouldn’t have been pleased.
That’s no longer a problem for the homeowners near the old East High. Its still under development with kids at Woodland but when it opens next year it will once again be a junior high. I saw the first two of the Judy Seliga-Punyko campaign lawnsigns near East. Not a big surprise. When I was on the school board the homeowners used to be up in arms about high school kids smoking in their yards. That will no longer be the case and some of the homeowners no doubt thank Judy for passing their bother over to the folks at Ordean. One of them used to get after me for not controlling the smokers and when I ran against Judy four years he had a Seliga sign in his yard. Its always nice when you can get what you want by electing your preferred candidate. I’ll bet it will be good for his home value too. As for Ordean neigborhood home values…..not so much!
