This column originally published Thursday, Nov. 11 on A3 in the Star-News.
Most of life is about choice.
Sometimes it’s as simple as picking the lesser of two evils – as in Brown versus Whitman.
Blue or red. Republican, Democrat or decline to state.
Sometimes your choices stay with you for life.
The frothing, spike-collared bulldog my brother Steve brought home on his bicep from basic training at Fort Knox falls into that category.
Other times we face complicated choices between varying shades of gray. Do you want strawberry preserves or grape jelly on that peanut butter sandwich?
Then there’s good choices represented by a group of San Gabriel Valley high school seniors who paraded through the office Wednesday. Each wore clothing advertising the school they hope to attend. Harvard, Stanford, Tulane, Loyola Marymount and the University of North Dakota were all represented.
Of course there is the choice that most Pasadenans will make this week.
For many it will come down to PHS or Muir. It is (after all) time once again for the city’s Turkey Tussle. The annual high school football game at the Rose Bowl pits red Bulldogs against blue Mustangs for citywide bragging rights.
And despite their 11-game losing streak, let me state once and for all that as of Wednesday I am a Bulldog.
CLICK TO CONTINUE READING WHY STAR-NEWS EDITOR FRANK GIRARDOT IS ROOTING FOR PASADENA IN THE 57th ANNUAL TURKEY TUSSLE FRIDAY AT THE ROSE BOWL
Which can’t get me in too much trouble, considering I live in West Covina.
It wasn’t the three-dimensional representation of my brother’s tattoo in PHS’s courtyard that sold me, even though it is pretty cool. I got drawn in by new Principal Gilbert Barraza.
Barraza and several students graciously offered a tour of their school Wednesday as part of the district’s “Principal for a Day” program. I shared duties with state Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Caada Flintridge.
Granted the tour was somewhat of a sterile public relations exercise, but what I saw defied my perception of public education as taxpayer-funded baby-sitting.
We began the tour in a choir room. Here was a group of angelic voices singing “Go Tell it on the Mountain.”
IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL!
From there it was off to another music class where a string quartet practiced for a bit until the violins and violas were replaced by the electric guitar and drums of the school’s jazz ensemble.
Moving along we visited a classroom where students sat in a semi-circle discussing “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Later we watched students in a biology class do a chemistry experiment involving hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid and purple dye. I was kind of hoping to see an explosion, but fortunately had no such luck.
Kids in a physics lecture learned about Newton’s Third Law – with help from some props and a description of an old Popeye cartoon.
Down the hall and around a few corners, a group of graphic design students made eye-popping designs on nice Apple computers. Tucked away in another part of the campus a student showed me a broken heart-shaped lantern she was designing in art class.
Being the grizzled newspaperman I am at heart, I walked away realizing that the tour offered me a choice: I could go on throwing stones at the generally horrible public school system; or believe that any hope we have for the future lies in schools like PHS.
Thanks for having me.
Go Bulldogs.
Frank Girardot is editor of the Pasadena Star-News
