Postcard from Julie

I have dozens hundreds of postcards waiting to be scanned for The Postcard Project. I can’t believe I’ve neglected it like this. Every time a postcard comes in the mail, Bleu gets excited. The fact that I haven’t scanned and posted your cards in no way diminishes his joy. Thank you to everyone who has sent in a card [especially Julie, a repeat offender!]. I will try to get caught up once school is out. This postcard came in the mail yesterday. Perfect timing!

Michelle mentioned wildfires in a comment and at the time I hadn’t heard anything. It turns out there is a fire. It has burned over 5,000 acres in the mountains near Ruidoso. Maybe that’s why our sky has been so hazy lately? We took a ride that way on Sunday and saw the activity. The Mescalaro Community Center had large white tents set up as the headquarters and lots of smaller tents dotted the grounds. They were even selling Tularosa Canyon Fire t-shirts at the gate!

Video on flickr: Hazy Sunset

While giving the girls a ride to school, I took a shortcut and happened to find this house. I am so in love with the whole idea of it. There are signs everywhere. “Support our troops.” “Recycle.” The sign you see above. By the way, when I drove by the first time there was a trash back hooked to the fence with cans in it. When I came back to take the picture the bag was gone. So much for directions. 

Even the truck is covered with signs. I’ve seen it around town before. The back says something like “If a [insert description of driver here] is not driving this, it is STOLEN!” How fabulous is that? It reminds me of Frank and his painted truck. Sometimes I think that people are so worried about being perfect that they forget the beauty of being original. And then I see something like this and it makes me happy.

Mia has run track for three years. We have watched her grow as an athlete and become a better person during that time. Although we might not have agreed with every decision her coaches made, overall they have done a good job.

And then Mica joined.

She does shot and discus. Over the summer she did very well in those events in the Junior Olympics with another coach. Once she started throwing for the school, it seemed like she got worse instead of better. The throwers practice in a different field than the runners and have a different coach. We would drive by and watch a couple of times a week. It seemed like it was more of a social gathering than a practice. There might be one or two kids throwing, but most of them were sitting around talking and laughing with music playing in the background. Once, Mike was watching her throw [standing outside of the fence] and the coach sent Mica over to tell him that he wasn’t welcome and that practices were closed.

School gets out at 4:00. Mia is done with practice at 5:30. We pick Mica up at 6:30. The logic behind the longer practice is based on the number of kids that need to get attention. It isn’t like running where all the kids can run on the track at the same time. They need to take turns with equipment. Mica started asking to stay later. She was told that in order to make varsity, she needed extra time after practice with the coaches. We let her stay once, but it didn’t sound like she did a whole lot while she was there. Plus, the idea of a freshman girl staying out for hours with a male coach makes me uncomfortable.

We didn’t like what we saw at practice. In fact, Mike was constantly complaining about it.  I thought that it was bad, but maybe not as bad as he thought. After all, there are dozens of throwers, two rings and only one coach. They had a volunteer that came out to help, but we didn’t like him much either. He was always joking around and acting like a friend, rather than a coach.

Yesterday, the news reported that the volunteer coach was charged with molesting a student. Today, he admitted it. This makes me sick. According to court records, he “admitted to knowing that what he did was wrong and that it got to the point that he could not control himself.” And that is a big part of the problem. There should be a distinct line drawn between teacher and student, coach and athlete. Once you start blurring that line and becoming more social, it is hard to stop. The point is not to start down that road. This is far too common. In fact, I’ve written about it before.

What are your thoughts? Do you feel like your kids are safe at school? What, if anything, do you do to prevent things like this from happening to your kids?

UPDATE:This morning, a coach in Alamogordo was arrested for the same thing. 

Whew. Where to start… We had a great time. It was cold and windy most of the time but the kids swam in the lake anyway. Mike’s brother and his extended family joined us so we had a total of six adults and thirteen kids. They did pretty well together and there weren’t any major injuries. Echo got a black eye and a skinned knee, but that’s par for the course with him.

We saw lots of rabbits and lizards. Mike had a contest for the kids. Anyone that caught two lizards would win $20. They didn’t win, but I caught two with my camera. Does that count?

I loved that the restrooms were called ‘Comfort Stations’. They had hot, hot water in the showers and wavy mirrors that made everything look WIDE.

I could have slept the entire four days but I didn’t. Each morning I went for a walk to the dock or the beach to watch the sun rise. Dawn rocks!

I took a lot of pictures but most of them are crap. I wasn’t feeling creative AT ALL. This round, it is all about the memories and not the images. I still have several rolls of film out, so maybe they will turn out better.

Spring Break 2008 on flickr: set | slideshow