People use different yardsticks to measure a school’s quality.
Some put a lot of weight on test scores.
Some consider history …
My oldest granddaughter enrolled this week at Round Hill Elementary School, Round Hill, Va.
The school’s average test scores are fine, but on the wall last week a plaque caught my son’s eye and he immediately sent me a picture, knowing the school’s status would soar in my estimation.
The school has posted a class roster from the 1946-47 school year which included a little girl named Virginia Hensley. Little Virginia’s father then worked at the High Hill Orchard, where we often buy pies when we visit these days.
Little Virginia could sing. Years later she changed her name to Patsy Cline.
She was 7 when she went to Round Hill School. Her family had moved about often. Her father, a heavy drinker, abandoned the family the following year, and they relocated to Winchester, 20 miles west.
I’ll be humming “Crazy” when I visit the school.

If MLK Were Alive …

And then there is the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On the 50th anniversary of his pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech, mystics now envision what King would be saying about things if he were alive today.
It’s amazing how some pretend to speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
The newspaper finds itself on email lists from kooks and gurus from across the country. This is a tidbit gleaned from one of them last week about King’s legacy, “He would certainly continue to work for racial equality. But he would also likely advocate for a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan, workers’ rights, gay rights, and animal rights.
Yes, animal rights. Although he is best known for advocacy of racial equality, Dr. King opposed all violence, like the Vietnam war. And there is no greater violence than that perpetrated each day against billions of cows, pigs, and other sentient animals in America’s factory farms and slaughterhouses.”
The writer insists that Dr. King would be a vegan.
From his important place in history to eating vegetables?
That seems to be quite a stretch.

Football Season Returns

After the long summer of TV reruns, it was nice to finally see college football on the tube over the weekend. NFL games resume Sunday. Even when you don’t care about whether Cincinnati or Chicago wins, football …