Author: Bill Pike

This time of year, I can feel a tension, a stress returning to my old bones. My soul knows another school year is starting. For thirty one years, I was part of going back to school as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal.

No matter where I served, I was nervous, worried on that first day. I attribute those feelings to wanting the first day to be a good start for everyone.

Through the media, we hear stories about students, parents, teachers, superintendents, school boards, and the educational agendas of politicians. However, we rarely hear about the essential personnel in every school system who work behind the scenes.

Yes, teachers are the critical ingredient for every student’s success. But, any teacher, superintendent, or school board member with an ounce of common sense will tell you—the school system employees who work behind the scenes are the heart and soul of the system.

When schools shutdown for summer break, men and women who are responsible for the daily care of the building start preparing for the first day of school. Floor work, detailed cleaning, and moving furniture are nonstop.

Staff in the school office are busy closing out the previous school year, getting ready for a financial audit, and ensuring they are ready to assist new families in registering their students.

Over at the school board office curriculum specialist and their support staffs have been tracking the arrival of instructional materials and fine tuning staff development workshops.

Facilities management personnel carefully monitor small and large construction projects. They understand the importance of completing projects before students return.

In human resources, pupil transportation, and technology the intake of antacids is on the uptick.

Human resource specialist are working to find bus drivers, nurses, family advocates, and an AP Calculus teacher.

For personnel in Pupil Transportation and Technology, their nerves are the most frazzled. In these departments, they deal with the loss of human patience and temperament when technology fails or they are short of bus drivers for the first day of school.

Approaching the first day of school, perhaps the most frazzled nerves are reserved for the parent with a kindergarten student and a rookie kindergarten teacher.

Like drinking from a fire hose is how some rookie teachers describe their quest to absorb advice on starting a new school year.

It is a similar experience for a kindergarten parent. The parent carefully reviews all the information provided by the school. Both the teacher and the parent want that first day to be perfect.

Unfortunately, for some kindergarten students, finding perfection on that first day will be challenging. By the end of the first week, a kindergarten teacher has learned who is starting the year behind.

If we want our kindergarten students not to start the school year behind, then we must realize the first gasp for air taken by that student at birth and each subsequent breath leads to the first day of kindergarten.

A March 2023 article in Mid-South Literacy reviews The Relationship Between Incarceration and Low Literacy. In the article, a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation—Warning Confirmed cites factors that impact learning proficiency. Here are three:

Readiness for school in terms of the child’s health, language development, social-emotional skills, and participation in high quality early care and learning programs.

Family oriented stressors such as family mobility, hunger, housing insecurity, and toxic stress.

Quality of teaching the child experiences in home, community, and school settings.

If we want our kindergarten students not to start the school year behind, then we must address these concerns that have been lurking behind the scenes for too long in our communities.
We know how critical the school employees are who are working behind the scenes everyday. School systems can’t survive without their support.

Correspondingly, we have important behind the scenes work to do for students before entering kindergarten. Readiness for school, eliminating family stressors, and improving the quality of Pre-K learning experiences are critical needs for every student in Virginia.

If we continue to neglect, avoid, or disregard the formative years prior to a student entering kindergarten, then we can expect more challenges for our public schools and eventually our communities.

Thomas Edison once stated: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

At the start of this new school year, my old bones hope that superintendents, school boards, and our politicians can agree to put on their “overalls” to do the required hard work and not miss an opportunity to prevent kindergarten students from starting the first day of school behind.

Author’s note: If you have worked in public education or know someone who currently works in our public schools, please share this post.

Back on Tuesday, August 8, I felt like the world was piling up on me.

I arrived at Trinity early to open the building and to drop off my old back pack.

Next, I made the short drive to the Mobil station on Forest Avenue to leave my wife’s car for an oil change.

The station wasn’t open yet, so I put the car keys in an envelope and slid them into the mail slot in the door.

From there, I started my walk back home.

As I walked, my brain swirled.

At Trinity, the church where I work, a motor on an interior HVAC unit had clunked out from a recent power failure. I knew replacing it would be expensive.

Back on June 27, I turned seventy. For some reason, I’ve thought about that birthday more than the others I have experienced.

I’ve always had good health, but over the last few days my eye doctor, urologist, and dermatologist had some words of caution for me.

As I started walking up the hill on Stuart Hall Road, I noticed an empty, plastic water bottle along the side of the road.

Uncharacteristically, I walked by it.

But, a few steps later, my conscience turned me around to pick up the bottle to recycle.

When I arrived at our house, I walked down the driveway to where we keep our trash cans and recycling bin. That’s when I looked up and saw in the backdrop of our neighbor’s yard a stunning rainbow.

From where I was standing, there were no raindrops. However, to the west dark clouds must have been dropping a rain shower. The rising sun in the east was cast at the perfect angle to form the graceful rainbow.

At that moment, I thought about God’s timing.

If I had not been nudged to turn around to pick up that discarded water bottle, I would have never seen this rainbow.

Was God attempting to signal me with the rainbow?

Had God or an alert angel been eavesdropping on the spinning self-talk in my old brain?

I’m not sure, but when I saw that rainbow, despite my whining woes, I did feel a smidgen of relief.

Yes, the HVAC repair was expensive.

My eye doctor and urologist have a plan for further assessment.

The dermatologist successfully removed the basal cell on the back of my lower left leg.

And God when you least expect it sends a rainbow to remind rapidly aging old fools like me that he is still around.

And maybe, that’s why on some days these three words from 1 Thessalonians chapter five verse seventeen stumble into what’s left of my crumbling mind: “pray without ceasing.”

Don’t cease your prayers.

Some days, your prayer might be a person’s silent rainbow.

August is a long month.

Even though other months in our calendar year have thirty one days, August seems to drag.

Maybe its slug pace is tied to the sweltering heat and humidity that always accompany August.

August also signals that students will be returning to their classrooms.

Also in August, nervous politicians start their incessant advertising in pursuit of being elected in November.

Before spending lots of pennies on creating these ads, politicians should understand how frequently the mute button is pushed when an ad appears on our television screen.

But, August captures me for another reason.

On August 31, 1992, our mother passed away.

Ten years later on September 1, 2002, our father said goodbye.

Our father came within an hour of leaving this world on August 31.

Yet, when my sister, our Uncle Ralph, and I met with the director of the funeral home, we learned that since he passed on September 1, he was entitled to receive his social security check.

We chuckled when we learned this news. It was another example of how our father’s generation squeezed pennies.

Lots has happened since Louise and Bill left this world. They now have four great grandchildren. I know they would have cherished getting to know each of them.

When our parents were growing up, they endured multiple hardships. I think those hardships were at the heart of the perseverance that drove how they chose to live their lives.

God, family, sacrifice, and love were at the core of their daily living.

Clearly, I didn’t understand it at the time, but they were working to instill those traits into my sister and me too.

While I’m sure my parents would marvel at the advances in technology, I also think they would be worried at the erosion we currently see related to God, family, sacrifice, and love.

I worry about this mess we are leaving our children and grandchildren.

And despite this mess, I do have hope.

Our mother and father both had green thumbs.

They were proficient with flowers, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and scuppernongs.

In our Richmond yard, we have three gardenia shrubs. Two of those shrubs came from gardenia shrub cuttings in our yard in Burlington, North Carolina where my sister and I grew up.

Our father loved the the fragrant bloom of a gardenia.

Depending upon the harshness of our Richmond winter, we usually see our gardenias start to bloom in late June or early July.

Back on August 10, I was walking around our yard, and I noted that the gardenia shrubs with North Carolina roots had singular blooms.

I was surprised to see these pretty blooms. I’m not a horticulturist, so I have no explanation for the two stragglers.

But, I thought a bit further, and I said to myself—its August, maybe this is the work of Louise and Bill.

Maybe, it is their way of saying hello.

Maybe, they are letting me know that they are still watching over their knucklehead son.

Maybe, they are saying to me, you just turned seventy. You don’t have much time left, this world is a mess, you better wake up, and get busy.

Makes me wonder, does the world weigh on you, like it weighs on me?

I’m pretty sure I know your answer.

As I write this, a powerful hurricane will land on the Gulf coast of Florida, another senseless mass shooting has occurred in Jacksonville, Florida, our politicians are out of touch with reality, and a weariness hovers over America as we wonder—when are we going to wake up?

Some days, I need an unexpected gardenia bloom to give me hope, and to remind me of these words from Romans 5 verse three: “We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”

Don’t let your hope die.

In truth on June 1, I was relieved when my wife received the sad news from her sister, Abby.

Early that morning, their mother, Elizabeth Crosby Cloud, told the cancer “go to hell, you can’t make me suffer anymore, I’ve booked a flight into the blue yonder—heaven.”

Despite this second struggle with cancer, at 95, Liz Cloud lived a full life.

For forty eight years, she put up with me. As we worked to figure each other out, I’m sure there were many early moments when Liz could have clobbered me. Yet, her gracious heart didn’t let that happen.

Liz and her husband, Ken, were as Forrest Gump said of his friend, Jenny, “they were like peas and carrots, always together.” Liz and Ken made a good pair, a good team. Even when they disagreed, Liz had a way of wearing him down.

They had lots in common, but the brine of ocean water was a tidal pull for them. That pull to the shore, the coastline trickled into the bloodstreams of their children too. Cape Cod, Sanibel, and Duck were gathering spots.

Liz had multiple gifts.

Once her mother, Bertha Avery Crosby, passed, Liz became the chief knitter of Christmas stockings for spouses new to the family and newborn grandchildren.

Liz was quite a cook. The culinary skills of her mother and auntie, Helen Loring Thompson, rubbed off on her. I never had a lousy meal when Liz was in the kitchen. Her meatloaf was perfection, and I enjoyed every crumb of the mincemeat cookies she made for me at Christmas.

In a different life, Liz could have been a professional stager for real estate agents. She had sharp, knowing eyes. Those eyes could rearrange a room in a blink, or make a stunning arrangement of flowers in minutes.

Liz was a leader, an organizer, a volunteer, and a dedicated parishioner at St. James’s Episcopal Church in West Hartford, Connecticut. No matter your age, at St. James, chances are that Liz knew you or you knew Liz.

Her children and grandchildren respected Liz’s intelligence and wisdom. They often sought her advice about the ups and downs of life.

Liz’s stamina and perseverance could be found in her daily working of the crossword puzzle in the Hartford Courant. No question that word work helped to keep her mind insightful.

After the passing of Ken, I sometimes had the assignment of driving her to Richmond for Christmas or driving her back to West Hartford after Christmas. On those long drives, Liz was a good co-pilot.

Liz loved a good party. No matter if the location was a backyard deck or a special family event, her personality and beauty brought those gatherings to life.

Honestly, my old southern bones needed time to adjust to the Cloud family’s annual trips to Cape Cod. Growing up in North Carolina, my family’s treks to the beach were always the North or South Carolina coastlines. But, the Cape did eventually hook my heart.

I remember one dreary week in the tiny, saltbox cottages at Mashnee. Gray clouds full of rain hid the sun. The discouragement of cabin fever had hit us.

Yet, one morning, Liz stood at the glass paned storm door and looked out at this soaked, bleak landscape, and proclaimed— “I think it looks a little brighter over there.”

On the morning of Monday, July 24, 2023, thirty-two family members gathered in Patuisset, a spit of land, connected by a single, narrow road on the Buzzard’s Bay side of Cape Cod. We walked down to the sandy beach in front of the friendly house where the family had stayed for multiple summers.

That was an appropriate place for the family to gather and say cherished, heartfelt words about their mom, grandmother, and mother-in-law.

After those teary words, some of Liz’s ashes were gently scattered on to the surface of the lightly rippled saltwater by her grandson, George.

I will hold that morning forever.

The low tide slowly revealed my favorite fishing sandbar with a boat channel at its tip, and a sleepy Bassetts Island in the backdrop.

In that snapshot, I will take with me the optimistic brightness that Elizabeth Crosby Cloud brought into this cantankerous old world.

May we never forget the flicker of her brightness.

That brightness made us, and the people she encountered better.

August 1976, I made my first visit to Cape Cod with my wife’s family. That was quite a transition for an old southern boy who grew up making family trips to the beaches along the North and South Carolina coastlines. But with each subsequent visit, Cape Cod continued to hook my heart.

After a seven year hiatus, thirty two family members returned to the Cape in late July. We descended upon Falmouth. Disappointment never intruded.

From our first glimpse of the rugged Bourne Bridge to the last spoonful of clam chowder at Pier 37 Boathouse, we made the most of our week.

Scrunched in three houses, our daily treks to the beach required the logistical precision of a military landing. But once there, we appreciated the well maintained beaches and the attentive lifeguards.

We loved our outing to watch a Cape Cod League baseball game as the Falmouth Commodores battled the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. It was clear from the attendance that your citizens appreciate what this league brings to each community.

No matter where we ventured, the merchants and local residents were polite and helpful.

On our last morning, some of us took the short hike to The Knob. We were not disappointed with the spectacular water views.

And in all honesty, I think that is what I admire the most about the character of Cape Cod—the capacity to hold and preserve cherished land.

I pray your hearts never let go of that gritty grip.

Author’s note: This post was submitted to the Cape Cod Times as a letter to the editor. I thought the editor/s might take a complimentary letter about the hospitality we experienced while vacationing there. Clearly, I thought wrong. Be safe, Bill

LETTER: Lack of public decency in civil discourse is unsettling

Editor:

West Virginia is a beautiful state. I know this from trips my wife and I have taken along Interstates 64 and 81.

We’ve enjoyed our stops at the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve and the famous Blenko glassware site in Milton. No matter if our stops were for hours or overnight, we always found the people of West Virginia courteous and friendly.

On Friday, July 21, we used I-81 to keep us off the heavily traveled I-95 on our way to Cape Cod for a family reunion.

We stopped at the West Virginia Welcome Center for a quick break. As we reentered I-81, from the passenger’s side of the car, my wife saw an American flag flying upside down, and right beside it another flag. That flag featured the “F” word and, below this inappropriate slang, was the last name of President Joe Biden.

I could not believe my wife’s report. For the next several miles, I was in shock over this offensive public display.

In all honesty, I’m an imperfect human being who is no stranger to using unacceptable language. I believe in freedom of speech.

Yet, I struggle to understand why we choose to disregard the boundaries of decency and respect for this essential American value. Don’t we have other forums to vent our political frustrations without offensive flags flying along an interstate?

A few years ago, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told an audience at the Richmond Forum: “The United States faces threats from extremists and unstable regimes around the world, but it’s the nation’s own political incivility that poses the gravest risk.”

I think Gates’ assessment is correct. But what is even more unsettling to me is our inability to see this.

Bill Pike
Richmond, Virginia

Note from author: I’m honored to have my Letter To The Editor published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail today, Friday, August 4, 2023. If the words resonate with you please share. Love, Bill

I am guilty.

For too many years in my internal and external moments of anger, I have used the “f” word to curse at whatever was aggravating me at the time.

Late on the afternoon of Thursday, July 20, I used the “f” word more than former Duke basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski, as he gently berated a referee over a foul call.

In packing our car for the vacation drive to Cape Cod, the Commander Supreme and I realized that the beach chairs were not going to fit in the car with all of the other required junk for a week at the beach.

For the next forty minutes, I wrestled with the rooftop carrier and the unfriendly design of the beach chairs. No matter the layering pattern I attempted with the chairs, the perfection I was pursuing for tight corners and interior snugness could not be found.

I “f’d” this and “f’d” that. Sweating profusely in the still hot and humid summer air, I slapped and “f’d” at blood thirsty mosquitoes who roared in laughter at me with each bite of my salty flesh.

Finally, by the grace of the trip packing gods, something worked. The chairs fit. The surrounding zipper for the soft case connected and closed. I secured the tie lines to the roof rails, and my use of the “f” word ceased, so much for being a Christian.

The logistics for this trip had been in planning for a year. Thirty two family members would be gathering in Falmouth, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. The airlines like this family gathering. People were flying into Boston from Great Britain, Hawaii, California, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia. The local economy in Falmouth likes us too as we are renting three houses.

But back to the “f” word.

As we started our drive north on Friday morning, I started to reflect on my “f” rated tirade with the rooftop carrier. I thought back to Sunday morning, July 16.

We were in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On Saturday morning, we had driven down from Richmond. My college roommate and his wife had rented a condo. They had invited the Commander and I and another college couple to join them for a few days.

Early that Sunday morning, I went for a run. The condo was located where Ocean Drive Beach and Cherry Grove Beach meet. I started my run heading north into Cherry Grove.

When I was growing up, my parents along with a couple of other families from our church in Burlington would make weekend trips to Cherry Grove in the late spring and early fall.

As I plod along the road that parallels the beach, I can’t believe how much Cherry Grove as changed. High rise condos dot the shoreline where soft sand dunes once held their ground.

My guess is homeowners across the street might have used the “f” word in defiance of the developers who built the high rises. These tall and often long buildings completely block out porch views of the ocean.

I made my way up to Forty Fifth Street and hooked a left. I followed this road back to the Sea Mountain Highway into the heart of Cherry Grove. This route gave me views of houses built along canals, and House Creek, where a few fishermen and crabbers were already casting.

Occasionally, cars and bicycle riders passed me. At one point, the quiet solitude of this already warm Sunday morning was broken.

A man and a woman were walking away from a house. I sensed they were starting a long walk. The woman shouted back at someone near the front entrance of the house—“ Aaron, you need to get a move on.” I didn’t hear what Aaron said back, but it must have been something with a sting too it, because the man walking with the woman shouted back “f you” Aaron.

Five days later, Friday, July 21, we made a rest stop at the West Virginia Welcome Center. We were on our way to Cape Cod. As we were re-entering Interstate 81, the Commander looked off to her right and saw the American flag flying upside down, and right beside it another flag was being flown with these words: “F Biden.”

For several minutes, all I could say or think was I can’t believe that someone would do such a thing. I was stunned.

We stopped for the night in Fishkill, New York.

On Saturday morning, we were up early. I went out to check the car, and on my way back to the elevator. I saw two men at the end of the hallway. One knocked on the door of a room. The man who knocked on the door said in a loud voice—“Open the “f” door, bitch, it’s me.”

Wanting to avoid Interstates 84 and 95 in Connecticut and Rhode Island, we opted to take the Taconic State Parkway to the Massachusetts Turnpike. At some point on the Turnpike or 495, we came upon two cars in a fender bender. I noted on the back window of one of the damaged cars the following sticker: “F Cancer.”

While I agree with the sentiment in that bumper sticker. I despise cancer. Yet, I wonder why we must push our free speech with inappropriate language in a public display? I guess “crush, combat, confront, cancel”— Cancer just doesn’t push far enough to capture a person’s attention.

In Adam Makos book Devotion, he writes about two Navy pilots who flew Corsairs, single engine propeller driven fighter planes, at the beginning of the Korean War. Makos focuses on Jesse Brown, an African American from Mississippi, and Tom Hudner from Massachusetts. The author takes us back into their early lives and captures pivotal confrontations that each man experienced growing up.

One afternoon, Jesse and his brothers had been spit upon and offended with racial slurs shouted at them from white students riding a school bus. That same evening, with his father reading the newspaper and listening, Jesse shares with his mother the displeasure he has experienced.

His mother shares this wisdom: “When someone calls you a ‘nigger’ then you feel sorry for him,” she said. “You have to pity him because his mind has such a sorry way of expressing itself.”(Devotion page 33)

Clearly, for too many years, when it comes to the “f” word, I have allowed my mind to develop a “sorry way of expressing itself.”

Over time, I have noticed in conversations that we have learned to substitute “freaking or frigging” for the “f” word. While not as offensive, the same meaning is conveyed.

Speaking for myself, and knowing that I’m not the brightest guy in the world, it seems quite obvious to me that we have lost what little self-respect we have left. From coaches fuming on the sidelines, to agitated travelers on passenger jets, uncivil politicians, and out of control students in school buildings, the use of inappropriate language has no boundaries.

Sadly, we seem as numb to our irresponsible choice of words in public settings as we are to our daily loss of American lives by pulling the trigger of a firearm.

What is even more disconcerting is what might have happened to me or another concerned citizen if I had said something to the “f” word offenders.

How would I have responded to a neighbor who happened to hear the “f” word flying out of my mouth as I wrestled with the beach chairs and rooftop carrier?

In the “Citizen’s Arrest” episode of the Andy Griffith Show, Wally’s Filling Station employee, Gomer Pyle, in an uncharacteristic fit of anger shouted: “You just go up an alley and holler fish” at Mayberry Deputy Barney Fife.

Deputy Fife had just issued Gomer a traffic ticket for making a questionable u-turn.

Regrettably, in America, we have pushed our foul language barrier a long way from “going up an alley and hollering fish.”

American singer and songwriter, Bob Dylan, has written over 500 songs. Earlier this year, I came upon a studio recording by The Steep Canyon Rangers of Dylan’s “Let Me Die In My Footsteps.”

I tracked down the lyrics, and the following verse caught my attention:

There’s always been people that have to cause fear.
They’ve been talking of the war now for many long years.
I have read all their statements and I’ve not said a word.
But, now Lord God, let my poor voice be heard.
Let me die in my footsteps, before I go down under the ground. “Let Me Die In My Footsteps” Written by Bob Dylan

In June, I turned seventy.

I don’t have many years left.

Yet, the words: “now Lord God, let my poor voice be heard” pinched my heart.

Pushing fear aside isn’t easy, but aren’t you, me, we, us overdue for our voices to be heard about how we disrespect ourselves and those around us with our public use of inappropriate words?

Have our minds in the words of Jesse Brown’s mother become that “sorry?”

I think we know the answer.

On June 13, I read discouraging news reports from California that confirmed the Anchor Brewing Company was stopping distribution of their beers outside of California, and ceasing the production of their legendary Christmas Ale.

Twenty nine days later on July 12, I received an email from my wife’s niece in San Francisco: “Looks like they are closing all together. Sorry, Bill.”

Attached to the email was a link to a report from the NBC news affiliate in San Francisco with this headline: Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco to halt operations after 127 years.

Crushed again, I called our son. He quickly found several other similar headlines from other media outlets confirming the brewery’s closing.

Sam Singer spokesperson for the brewery cited numerous reasons for the closing, but mainly focused on declining sales in a beer market with lots of competition.

Accusatory fingers of blame will be pointed in many directions for the closing of Anchor Brewing. Most obvious will be the sale of the brewery in 2017 to Sapporo, a large brewer of beer from Japan.

I was shocked when I read about the sale of Anchor to Sapporo in 2017. I, who know nothing about the behind the scenes operation of a brewery, did not think this was a good fit.

I don’t think the Japanese culture has experienced the explosion of craft brewers like we have seen in America. I suspect Sapporo management didn’t properly understand that environment, or what had been carefully created at Anchor Brewing.

Years ago, in Richmond, Virginia, I witnessed a similar acquisition. Ukrops a very successful local, family run grocery store chain decided they were ready to sell. Apparently, they had lots of offers, but settled on Martins, a family run chain from Pennsylvania.

Martins also had ties to another large grocery store chain, Giant. In a few short years, Martins was gone. They could never match the quality and loyalty that was at the heart and soul of the Ukrops run stores. Likewise, I suspect that Sapporo never grasped the heart and soul of Anchor Brewing.

Sixty one Anchor Brewing employees lost their jobs with a “60 day notice and a separation package.” I hope those dedicated and loyal employees will quickly find comparable employment opportunities in the Bay Area without significant disruption to their lives.

I’d be curious to know who can claim and protect the beer recipes for all of the Anchor Brewing beers that have been brewed for so many years. I hope they are protected in such a way that would prohibit Sapporo from being able to cheaply mass brew the Anchor Brewing beers at the company’s large brewery in La Crosse, Wisconsin. A move like that would be shameful and disrespectful to the Anchor Brewing beers that are admired and respected by brewers and beer drinkers around the world.

Who knows, maybe there is another Fritz Maytag out there who is assessing this latest demise, and who at the last minute will make an offer that will rescue Anchor Brewing. That’s what Fritz Maytag did in 1965 when he purchased the struggling brewery. I would assume that Mr. Maytag who put his heart and soul into saving the brewery has lost some sleep over this disappointing announcement.

My wife’s brother-in-law sent me an article in the July 21 edition of the Washington Post by reporters Niha Masih and Praveena Somasundaram. Their article reported “that employees from the Anchor Brewery have submitted a proposal to Sapporo to purchase the brewery and run it as a co-op. Additionally, there are nearly two dozen bids with an interest in buying the historic brewery.”

Over the last few years, a handful of successful American craft breweries have been purchased by hefty foreign breweries. I wonder how the ledger sheets read for those acquisitions? Might there be other American craft breweries who are unstable economically and potentially facing closure?

Yes, I’m disappointed in this announcement.

But the closing of a beloved American brewery is nothing compared to other challenges in our world.

Thousands of miles from America, Ukraine continues to battle Russia and its heartless leader, Vladimir Putin.

In America, our political and economic divide continues to separate us from working together for the good of all.

Our physical and human infrastructure systems are worn and weary.

Our political system needs to be overhauled as we continue to wobble in a selfish instability.

We have become numb to the trigger pulling that is seen as the quickest and surest way to solve any problem with another American.

From sea to shining sea, we continue to experience the erosion of our dignity, patience, common sense, kindness, loyalty, and love.

And yet, I hold out hope that the current owner of Anchor Brewing, Sapporo Holdings, Ltd., will strongly consider the merit of the bid submitted by forty employees from Anchor to purchase the brewery.

And one more hope, as an imperfect human being and American, I will hold out hope that America will come to its senses and correct its challenges before America like Anchor Brewing is facing its closure.

As a parent, grandparent, and retired public school educator my heart hurts for the shooting tragedy that occurred after the Huguenot High School graduation. In a blink, lives are changed forever.

Honestly, I’m not surprised that we are processing another mass shooting.

Consider, these findings about gun violence, firearm ownership, single parent families, and the shrinking of religion.

The Johns Hopkins Center For Gun Violence Solutions has released its annual report.

The Center reported this grim data: In 2021, for the second straight year, gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded. Nearly 49,000 people died from gun violence in the U.S. Each day, an average of 134 people died from gun violence—one death every 11 minutes.

A June 2021 survey of 10,606 American adults conducted by Pew Research Center found  four-in-ten  adults live in a household with a gun, including 30% who personally own one.

In August 2022, the Annie E. Casey Foundation reported nearly 24 million children live in single-parent families in the United States, or about one in every three kids across America.

Perhaps, you recently saw this headline: The Importance of Religion In The Lives of Americans Is Shrinking.

The Public Religion Research Institute collected data from 6,600 adults in all fifty states. The leading takeaway: “Just 16% of Americans surveyed said religion is the most important thing in their lives, that’s down from 20% a decade ago.”

Record setting deaths by gun violence, significant firearm ownership, millions of single parent families, and a country that every year slips further away from In God We Trust—forms quite a collision.

Yet, it seems perfectly clear to me that we are indifferent to the catastrophic collision revealed in this data. Additionally, we are numb to the repetitive reality found in headlines regarding another mass shooting.

If we think, we are insulated, immune, safe in our silos from being impacted by gun violence, firearm infatuation, fragile families, and crumbling churches, we are wrong.

Currently, we have a single frame of reference for solving a problem—take out a gun and shoot the problem.

In the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, actor Morgan Freeman, portrays Ellis Boyd Redding, a prisoner who has served forty years of a life sentence for committing murder.

In an appearance before the parole board, Mr. Redding is asked if he is sorry for what he did. Mr. Redding affirms that everyday he regrets his decision.

But, Mr. Redding also makes a revealing reflection about his act of violence. He states: “I look back on the way I was then— a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that’s left.”

No parent would turn down the opportunity to try and talk “some sense” into the raging mind of a loved one before the trigger is pulled. Regrettably, we keep missing the opportunity to talk.

As a retired educator, I know the planning that goes into a high school graduation ceremony. Years ago, safety was on the radar, but not like it is now.

After the Huguenot shooting, safety plans for graduation ceremonies are changed forever. School systems and municipalities must maintain interior security strategies that are working. But now, they will be required to design and implement a safety perimeter for the exterior of the building too.

Of course, no mass shooting is immune from comments by politicians.

Finger pointing and heated words are worthless. Instead of negligent posturing, why not commit to the hard work of building the relationships needed to solve our gun violence?

With regard to a solution, I believe these words from Anne Sullivan capture our situation: “We are afraid of ideas, of experimenting, of change. We shrink from thinking a problem through to a logical conclusion.”

This is an urgent matter.

We can no longer afford to be afraid of change. Nor can we continue to shrink from our responsibility to find logical and reasonable solutions.

Do we really want future reports from Johns Hopkins to document even more deaths per minute?

Do we want to continue to miss opportunities to “talk some sense into ourselves?”

We are overdue to set aside our differences and to commit to the hard work required to solve the mentality of pulling the trigger of a firearm as the way to fix a problem.

At this very moment, a troubled, frustrated, ready to snap human being is forming the next devastating headline.

Haven’t we had enough?

Want to improve schools? Help families
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Saturday, July 8, 2023

The headline on a recent oped written by Virginia Del. Mike Cherry caught my attention: “Want to improve schools? Start by empowering parents,” June 30.

Del. Cherry used this opportunity to bash Democrats, noting their failure to support specific education legislation in the Virginia General Assembly.

Unfortunately, our politicians spend too much time criticizing each party while accomplishing little on behalf of students, teachers and parents.

Everyone has an opinion about public education and how to fi x our schools. Those opinions cover lots of topics complete with multiple recommendations, but rarely does anyone talk about a significant challenge to every classroom: the erosion of our families.

In August 2022, The Annie E. Casey Foundation reported that nearly 24 million children live in single-parent families in the United States, or about 1 in every 3 kids across America.

Del. Cherry referenced data from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission related to disruptive student behaviors in our schools. From the teachers surveyed: “56% said behavior is a ‘very serious issue,’ while 24% called it a ‘serious’ problem.”

I wonder how many of Virginia’s disruptive students come from single-parent homes?

Republicans and Democrats can talk all they want about introducing legislation to “empower teachers with the support they need to allow them to better handle discipline in their classrooms.”

Yet, those same teachers who confirmed their concerns about disruptive student behaviors can unequivocally state there will be no empowering of classroom teachers until we address the challenges our families face every day.

This is because our teachers from kindergarten through 12th grade understand: For a student, it all starts at home.

Want to improve our schools?

Then embrace what our classroom teachers have known for many years: It all starts at home.
Virginia, we are overdue to halt the erosion of our families.

Bill Pike Henrico

Author’s note: This letter to the editor was written in response to an Op-Ed piece that appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on June 30, 2023. If you have a family member, relative, friends, and neighbors who teach in public schools, please consider sharing this letter with them. No pressure, thanks, Bill Pike