Catch up from the Pitcher

Hi Folks,

My name is Cynthia Eagleton.

That's me, right here:

I've been running this blog pretty much by myself... and recently not running it much at all.

I got sick.  I'm a single mom.  School started for my daughter.  And there's been a health crisis in my family.  There's been a lot going on, actually.  Sometimes I'm pretty crabby about it.  (Just ask my mom.)

When I started this blog last year, I felt I was answering a call.

Now I'm answering a different sort of call, this one more personal.

They are both important.

So here's the deal:



I can't do this alone.

This blog, thanks to the hard work of many and some wonderful bumper stickers, is out there.

It gets hits.

People read it.

It's a great way to share information.

We just need some information to share.

If you read the blog... if you want others to read the blog... send me some info.

Better yet, write some.

As someone famous said and I don't know who and quite frankly, it doesn't really matter because it's just plain true:

All it takes for bad things to happen is for good people to do nothing.

So, good people, I'm asking you:

Do something, will ya?

Send information to me at cyn.eagleton@gmail.com

(If you spam me, a plague will run through you like a hot knife through butter and your most important parts will fall off.)

Or write something and send it to me to post here.

We can do something about the crisis in education.

We can mobilize and we can get others to mobilize and we can wake people up and we can inspire people to vote Yes on 30 and we can explain the very tedious and complicated way education, especially adult education, is funded, and we can do a whole lotta good and important things...

but to do so we have expend effort.

We have to get up off our axis and turn off the HBO and the AMC and the TLC and honey boo boo breaking bad the voice the groove the make me forget the bad things make it all go away numb me out numb me out numb me out please give me a second helping of carbohydrates I'll take a little more wine sure and yeah, I'd like to get to know you better how about Friday no I don't want to talk about things no I don't want to think about things no I don't want to read that it makes my head hurt gee why do i feel so bad gee why don't things seem to be going right I keep shoving stuff in here, my eyeholes, my mouthhole, my earholes and yet still my head hurts can someone turn that alarm off.

The one screaming:  We're in trouble, people.  We're in trouble.  Education is crashing, people.  Education is burning like a  fire in Rome and even the violins are going up in flames now.  Nothing to distract us no sweet music to cover up the crackle and the sizzle and that sickening smell.

And turn on the part of us that knows hard work is worth it.

Hard work, someone else's hard work, is why we HAVE adult education and K-12 education and a community college system and a state university system and a UC system and hey, I think I went to every of those systems, in fact, I did.

Thank you, people who came before me, who created such a wonderful system.

Thank you, parents and grandparents and neighbors and dead people, who voted for the taxes and paid the taxes that made sure Lynn L. Pace had everything I needed to learn to read and write and count and think, as well as Rockwood Elementary School and De Anza Junior High, and South Junior High, and Downey High School, and UC Berkeley and San Francisco State and Antelope Valley College and City College and Laney College and Bellflower Adult School and all the other schools I've attended over the years.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now is the time for the rest of you who attended public school and want that system to continue to pony up and vote for more taxes and pay them and post things here and tell people about the taxes and the blog and the system that educates people for free so that when you need a dentist, there is one.  When you need a jury, there is one.  When  you need someone to help you up out of that car after the accident has happened and you're trapped inside... they can speak English and do as they reach in to help you, pulling you out, saying everything, everything's gonna be all right, strapping you into the guerney, lifting you out, saving your life. 

Here are a few of the people who worked really, really hard to make that good stuff possible.

                                          Jane Addams, lotta work for immigrants and Adult Ed

Clark Kerr, lotta work for the UC system

                                          Governor Pat Brown - lotta work for higher ed

Maybe???

Yes, that's right... people put in a whole lotta effort and stayed up late and got tired and crabby and sometimes didn't have time for a second latte at the hang out sit down oh let's just let it all go place. 

And because they did, we have good, free (at least until age 18) public education in California.

For now, anyway.

The future...  who knows.

It might not be so good.

And it sure as heck won't be free. 

Although...

Of course...

It never really was.

We have public education in California thanks to hard work and taxes

So pony up and do your part.

Please.

Because I sure as heck can't do this alone.