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As students across the countryprepare to go back to class, they
arenot alone. Parents o children in ev-ery grade are also ramping
up ortheir school year duties.
Parents may not be the ones sit-ting in the classrooms all day
(unlessyoure a teacher), but most do put intheir time.
Many parents are very involved inwhat their children do beore,
duringand aer school. Whether its drivingtheir child to team
practices, rehears-als, lessons, games, meetings, com-petitions, or
undraisers, parents arethe silent orce behind their
studentshappiness and success.
Here are just a ew o the thingsparents shuttle their children
backand orth to during the school year:Sports (ootball, volleyball,
baseball,soccer, track meets, tennis, gol, so-ball, swimming),
cheerleading, band,twirling, dance team, 4H, Future
Farmers o America, Future Scien-tists o America, Girl Scouts,
Boy
Scouts, Brownies and Cub Scouts.And then o course there are
eld
trips, PO/PA meetings, and moreundraising summits. Its enough
tomake you tired just thinking aboutit, let alone planning and
doing it all.
Add to that the act that most par-ents today work ull time, and
stillmanage to work this incredible loadinto their already packed
schedule. Isit any wonder why we Moms drinkso much cafeine! We have
to stayawake while we are driving!
I am one o those crazy-busy
Moms, with two sons. One is in highschool and the other in
junior high.Allow me share with you somethingthat happened to me
recently.
Last week I le work on my lunch
hour to pick up my oldest son andtake him to his summer job.
Tatwas at noon, but I had alreadydriven him to band practice
thatmorning. Aer his our hour shi atwork I had to drive him back
hometo change clothes, and then backto band practice or the
evening. Ipicked him up when that was overat 8 p.m. and drove him
to a churchyouth group end o summer poolparty. I went home, cooked
dinner,and picked him back up two hourslater.
Somewhere throughout that busyday, I managed to attend two
meet-ings, shoot pictures at a ribbon cut-ting ceremony, have about
75 tele-phone conversations, respond to
about 200 email messages, and writethree stories. All in a
mothers day o
work!My son may have been the one
marching in the heat throughoutthe day, but I was denitely
wornout beore he was. And thats OK.
Tats the way it is supposed to be.You see, we parents put
ourselvesthrough all o the coordinated chaosbecause that is our
job. We are ourchilds personal assistant, taxi, coun-selor,
condant, lie coach, cheer-leader, and piggy bank.
We do it because we love them,and i we dont keep pushing
our-selves to push them, who will?
We sacrice our time and sanityso that our children know we
lovethem and believe in them. Tere isnothing we wont do to make
sureour ofspring believe in themselvesand get the ull benet o every
ex-tracurricular program that intereststhem.
So heres a parents back to
school checklist:School supplies Check.
School clothes Check.A years supply o cofee Check.Gas in the car
or Mom and Dad
to drive you all over town Check.Extra strength ylenol or
head-
aches Check.A phone list o every parent onevery team with your
child so youcan take turns driving the carpool Check.
More cofee Check.More ylenol Check.Emergency cash stashed away
in
case o a last minute birthday pres-ent Check.
More gas money Check.Emails o all amily members in
case o last minute undraiser Check.
Your childs Facebook passwordso you can check their
messageswhile they are sleeping Check.
en more hours in the day Working on it.
Welcome back to school, have agreat year!
The Gonzales Cannon Thursday, August 18, 2011Page A4
In Our View
THE GONZALES CANNON (USPS 001-390) ispublished weekly each
Thursday by Gonzales CannonInc., 618 St. Paul Street, Gonzales, TX
78629. PeriodicalsPostage Paid at Gonzales, TX 78629. A one year
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out-of-county,and $30 for out-of-state.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Gonza-les Cannon, PO Box
E, Gonzales, TX 78629.
An erroneous reection upon the charactor, standingor reputation
of any rm, person or corporation, whichappears in the columns of
this newspaper will be cor-rected upon due notice given to the
publication at TheGonzales Cannon ofce. Ofce hours are 8:30 a.m.
-4:30 p.m. Phone: (830) 672-7100. Fax: (830)
672-7111.Website:www.gonzalescannon.com.
The Gonzales CannonBOARD OF DIRECTORS
Billy Bob Low Chairman
Dave Mundy - General Manager
[email protected]
Nikki Maxwell - News Editor
[email protected]
Debbie Toliver - Advertising Director
[email protected]
Dorothy Voigt - Business Manager
[email protected]
Cedric Iglehart - Regional News
[email protected]
Mark Lube - Sports Editor
[email protected]
Sanya Harkey - Circulation/Classifeds
[email protected]
Letters to the Editor
[email protected]
Randy Robinson, Vice Chairman
Mary Lou Philippus, SecretaryMyrna McLeroy
Alice Hermann
El Conservador
George Rodriguez is a San Anto-
nio resident and the rst Hispanicin the nation to lead a Tea
Party or-
ganization. He is a former ofcial
in the U.S. Justice Dept. during the
Reagan Administration.
George
Rodriguez
Reality Check
Nikki
Maxwell
News Editor
Dances withChihuahuas
Dave
MundyGeneral
Manager
Terrorists? Tea Party sendsa wakeup call, not a threatWe ea
Party supporters
are being called terroristswhile we are being blamedby liberals
or the downgrad-ing o Americas credit rating.At the same time, many
eaParty supporters are eel-ing low because they eel welost the ght
against raisingthe ederal debt ceiling.
However, beore ea Partysupporters get too discour-aged, we
should look atwhere we started and wherewe are today.
Just two years ago, a ea Party supportedcandidate had no chance
to win; however,2010 brought us major success across thenation.
oday, we have ocused and ramedthe national political debate.
First, the ea Party sent a wake-up callto the nation about the
peril o routinelyoverspending and raising the debt ceiling.Second,
we have ocused attention on theBalanced Budget Amendment.
Tird, we have shown our leaders inWashington, DC that we will
not blindlyollow policies we do not support. Fourth,
we are standing on principle (not party)and insisting our
demands be taken seri-ously.
Fih and nally, we hate to say we toldyou so but it is hard not
to say it in lighto nations credit rating downgrade causedbecause
Congress did not do enough toaddress the debt issue.
Te culmination o the debate was an
eleventh-hour compromisewhich honored many o ourconcerns and
orced thePresident and Senate to re-treat on some o their
liberaldemands. Many in the pressare crediting the ea Partyor
holding the line. Te lehates us even more or thepower we have
shown, while
the right believes we needto push urther. So whyshould ea Party
supportersbemoan this as loss?
We need to take credit ora success but realize that it didnt go
arenough. We need to recognize that we canonly do so much with one
house o Con-gress.
We also should not pick a ght with ourriends by implying that
they have betrayedus on this one issue (albeit a very big
andimportant one) by voting to raise the debtceiling. Tere will
always be people on allsides who eel extreme passion on any is-sue,
and passion usually overrides reason.
We must not be discouraged or blindwith anger but rather
recommit to vote
out the people who support more taxes andmore government
spending. Big govern-ment is the problem, and we need to starveit
to shrink it.
In short, we need to work on the 2012elections by educating and
inorming peo-ple and then getting them to the polls. Teea Party is
not going to go away. We aregoing to keep demanding that
government
I started to not evencome into work Mon-day, seeing as it was
oneo the major High HolyDays o my religion, butduty compelled that
Iget up and get out be-cause stories needed to
be covered.Mind you, I have
a eeling most o ourreaders would have un-derstood, since even i
were not o thesame denomination, we share a com-mon deity.
I did inish up at the oice early in theaternoon, however, and
scooted to thehouse to begin preparations ater astingall day (well,
except or that chicken-ried steak rom onis, but onis oodis exempt
rom asting requirements).
I rearranged the prayer rug, and madesure the V was acing Mecca.
he grillgot started and I made sure that no porkproducts were
involved in the celebra-tory east except or the bacon wrapping
the mini-tenderloin kabobs; the mini-sausages in the crock pot
were all bee.
wice-baked potatoes, queso andchips, the obligatory cheese
squares,and o course $30 worth o mini-MilkyWay bars. My religion
does not believein killing innocent vegetables.
A lot o you readers are quite awarethat Im not an especially
religious kindo guy, so to dispel any notions no,Im not talking
about Ramadan. Imtalking about ootball.
Its not only the national sport o ex-as, its our state
religion.
Ater months o agonizing withdrawal,inally at 7 oclock Monday
night, I wasable to switch on the V and see some-thing other than
soccer, let-wing media
bias, reality V and movie re-runs on theSyFy Channel.
My exans are back.he minute she heard the Monday
Night Football music, my elder chihua-hua Itty Bit did what
every good mothershould do shield the youngling. Sheshowed Chesty
the best place to hide un-der the bed until Daddy stopped
scream-ing.
My apologies to the neighbors; no needto call 9-1-1 about the
domestic distur-bance across the hall last night, it was justme
celebrating that irst touchdown onMatt Lienarts throw to the
Nigerian run-
ning back whose name Ican neither spell nor pro-nounce.
Yes, it was just a pre-season game and yes,the starters only
played aew minutes so the inaloutcome means nothing.
Nonetheless, Ill take a20-16 exans win overthe Jets as proo
thatexans ans stand on the
verge o the Rapture.Some people live their lives vicariously
through their children. I have no chil-dren, so I live my lie
vicariously throughMatt Schaub, Andre Johnson and ArianFoster.
Football has the amazing ability towash away all the gloom and
doom wevedealt with over the past several months.
Hey, the socialists can implement man-datory Tird World poverty
policies oreveryone except or the 14 people who paytaxes I dont
care, so long as I got a Vand some chicken wings, Amen.
Chinas planning to invade us throughMexico? Who cares? Did you
see howexans rookie deensive end Brooks Reedplayed like hor Monday?
Praise WadePhillips!
Drought? What drought? he grass inReliant Stadium looked green
to me. Hal-lelujah!
War, pestilence, amine? hose are al-ways around. Did you see the
Nigerianrunning back score the game-winningD? Rick Perry may have
ound religion,but it takes someone who has an out-standing
relationship with the Almightyto conjure up a touchdown.
I know there are a lot o others outthere who recognize the close
relation-ship between ootball and the Almighty,
even those hereticical Cowboys ans,may Kubiak have mercy on
their souls.
For at least the next several months,Ill be ully involved in
observing myreligion. Every game day, Ill don mypriestly vestments
the exans hatand my No. 83 Kevin Walter jersey and unurl the Battle
Red-and-SteelBlue banner. I may be the only attendeeat my Sunday
services, but I have littledoubt the Good Lord will be there
be-side me.
Or maybe itll just be Chesty, tryingto get whatever ood morsels
rom myeast that I happen to drop.
Praise the Lord andpass the footballs!
School is a busy time for most parents, too
