Category Archives: One in a Thousand

Debunking a Vicious Rumor

One in a Thousand, , , , ,

oneinathousandlogoE.O. Schaub

Perhaps you’ve heard the vicious rumor that road crews here in Vermont are substandard, careless, or functioning in a fashion that would lead one to believe they wouldn’t know a culvert from a banana flambe, however I’d like to set the record straight right now. The fact is, your typical Vermont town road crew is tough, resourceful, and for most of winter functioning on three hours sleep and enough coffee to choke an elephant. It has to be. It deals with an incredible variety of difficult and dangerous situations throughout it’s every working day, not just tons of snow and sheets of black ice and stubborn mailboxes that refuse to be knocked over, but crazy stuff… stuff that would probably make your average New Jersey town road crew pee its pants, and your average North Carolina town road crew run crying home to mama. Do you think they ever worry about a moose getting stuck in the gravel screener in Florida? Of course they don’t. You see my point.

But the character of the Vermont town road crew goes far beyond this. Point in fact: we all know that harsh local winters combine with a high percentage of dirt “roads” to create plowing scenarios throughout the season that would give your average road crew member night terrors. But did you know that the Pawlet road crew finds time, in it’s busy warm-weather schedule of grading roads, driving the truck, and grading roads, to create inspired works of roadside art? It’s true. Continue reading Debunking a Vicious Rumor →

Door to door

One in a Thousand,

oneinathousandlogoE.O. Schaub

I’m not sure why, but when I was a kid I seemed to get the idea I was supposed to be a great salesperson. My favorite pretend game was to set up a store and arrange the shelves, trying to make them as “real” as possible. I’d rinse out old orange juice containers and yogurt cups, put them on top of some cardboard boxes and voila! Eve’s General Store was open for business, (at least until mom got ahold of the yogurt cups). I could usually count on my brother to be a customer for a minute or two before he got bored and went off to play Atari Pac Man and drink large quantities of Mountain Dew. I suppose maybe I inherited some gene or other from my grandfather, who got his start selling Wear-Ever aluminum pans door to door, and worked his way up to Head-Big-Shot-in-Charge-of-Something. (Warning: this is how much our grandchildren will know about us, one day.)

I used to pore over the opportunities to sell door-to-door that occasionally arrived in the mail, or came home from school, dreaming… But, dreaming what? I can’t even remember what us little snake-oil salesmen were supposed to earn for our efforts- prizes? Money? A guest spot on Star Search?- so it can’t have been about that. I think I just liked the idea of selling, of being the middleman who didn’t make a product, didn’t buy a product, but made that connection which made things happen. Plus, you get to handle money, which for a sixth grader is all kinds of exciting. Continue reading Door to door →

An Important Message from the School Nurse

One in a Thousand, ,

oneinathousandlogoE.O. Schaub

Fall is here again, and with it brings the season for coughs, colds, seasonal flu, H1N1 (aka swine flu), and of course the newly discovered Rancorous Mongolian Dripping Sore Disease (aka poultry asthma). As you may have noticed from the large number of multi-colored fliers, handouts and distress flags coming home in your child’s backpack, we at the school are monitoring the situation on an ongoing basis, and have a few tips to offer regarding keeping your family healthy:

  • 1.Wash hands regularly. This includes before and after mealtime, as well as during, not to exceed fourteen times before the salad course. Be sure to use warm running water, soap, a wire scrub brush and lighter fluid.
  • 2.Use pro-bacterial soap. Although it is increasingly difficult to find soap that is not “antibacterial,” new studies have shown that it is preferable, and far more enjoyable, to hunt those nasty bacteria down one by one and assassinate them with little tiny microscopic machetes. (In a pinch, microscopic chainsaws will also work. Think Al Pacino in “Scarface”)
  • 3.Wash for a very, very long time. Then wash longer. In order to wash the appropriate amount of time, try singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or the soprano aria from “La Boheme.” After all, there’s no reason a good pandemic can’t be educational.
  • 4.Practice “safe coughing.” Teach your children that, rather than sneezing or coughing into their hands or the air, they should consider locking themselves in the basement.
  • 5.Encourage your child not to share, or even touch, personal items such as half-eaten food, retainers, used kleenex or gum. Also avoid touching: doorknobs, desks, notebook paper, pencils, backpacks, library books or other students. Actually, if everyone could just start coming to school wrapped in saran wrap, this would help quite a lot. Make sure your child knows he/she should never, ever, under any circumstances use the school water fountain, bathroom, or cafeteria. If they must eat boogers, please make sure they are your child’s own.

The state is recommending vaccinations for all school-age children, unless your child has egg allergies, asthma, eczema, hammer toe, or the annoying tendency to turn his/her eyelids inside out. Receiving the vaccine is highly, highly recommended, but not mandatory. Not exactly. If you would like your child to be vaccinated, simply sign the enclosed consent form and return to the school by Friday. If you prefer not to have your child vaccinated, please sign the enclosed consent form anyway, and return to the school by Friday.

If you find that someone in your family is ill, there is no need to overreact: it is quite certain all your relatives and friends will do this for you. Please be sure to keep children home until they no longer show any outward signs of being children. After that, we trust you will do the decent thing and move to another country.