Thursday, June 01, 2006
13 year old Katharine Close is going to be a very big celebrity in New Jersey this summer after winning the nationally televised Scripps Spelling Bee. She's from the lovely, affluent Jersey shore town of Spring Lake AND she's a public school student. True, few Jersey 8th graders attend a school as good as H.W. Mountz, the only public school in that small town, but I didn't want some home schooled child winning it whose parents consider classroom teachers & students to be agents of moral corruption. Granted, you don't learn what you need to capture a national spelling bee in any school - the winning word was "ursprache " - unless kids now study Indo-European language roots. But Katherine's teachers certainly have a lot to do with her excellence, confidence & ambition. I hope Katherine gets the Key to the Town (maybe it's a gilded clamshell) & a lifetime beach pass.
Just prior to heading out to meeting in Jersey City tonight, I checked the online radar & watched a line of very big storm cells creeping into northern Jersey. Several topped out at over 40,000 feet & had large hailstones in them. I figured I might just beat them to Exchange Place. The sky darkened ominously as the PATH train crossed the Meadowlands - instant night. I did out-run the storms to Jersey City. But I lost the race in the two blocks from the station to the meeting place. I wasn't totally drenched only because I made it to the door as the really torrential downpour began. So most of the meeting was conducted to the accompaniment of loud thunderclaps & brilliant lightning. Heard an ex-girlfriend is a server at pricy popular restaurant-tavern, not the sort of place I'd ever wander into for a casual beer in Jersey City, although no doubt there's a great selection. But is there a jukebox? I used to stop by for a drink when she was in college & worked at Ground Round.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Just prior to heading out to meeting in Jersey City tonight, I checked the online radar & watched a line of very big storm cells creeping into northern Jersey. Several topped out at over 40,000 feet & had large hailstones in them. I figured I might just beat them to Exchange Place. The sky darkened ominously as the PATH train crossed the Meadowlands - instant night. I did out-run the storms to Jersey City. But I lost the race in the two blocks from the station to the meeting place. I wasn't totally drenched only because I made it to the door as the really torrential downpour began. So most of the meeting was conducted to the accompaniment of loud thunderclaps & brilliant lightning. Heard an ex-girlfriend is a server at pricy popular restaurant-tavern, not the sort of place I'd ever wander into for a casual beer in Jersey City, although no doubt there's a great selection. But is there a jukebox? I used to stop by for a drink when she was in college & worked at Ground Round.
