Silent Beagles

I lost my internet connection last night just as I was about to write my post. There was a heavy rain falling, which sometimes interferes with the satellite signal. Actually, it's not the rain, it's the thick clouds that pile up during a thunderstorm that do it. I usually go out into the garage for a cigarette break when that happens, and it's usually back on when I return. This time, however, I had just come back from a break when the signal went out, so I turned on the TV, which we also get from a satellite, and it was out too. The TV came back in a few minutes but the internet, which comes from a different satellite, did not, so I watched the 11:00 o'clock news and then packed it in for the night.

I only remember one history teacher from high school, Fred Sears. I had him for early world history and something called "contemporary problems". I don't think I had him for modern world history, but I don't remember who I had for that. I didn't take U.S. history in high school, but I don't remember why not. I did take a world geography class in my senior year. I remember a little about that teacher, but not his name.

I was never shy about speaking up in class, and most of the teachers at Gage Park encouraged it. In the army, not so much. I remember one time Fred Sears took me aside before the class and asked me to not say anything, just this once, because he wanted to see if he could get a rise out of the other class members. Every once in awhile he would throw out something questionable to see if anybody would call him on it. If you made a valid point, you got credit for it but, if your argument was weak, he would call you on that, which some people found embarrassing. Apparently, the other students had gotten into the habit of letting me go first to test the water. Then, if it looked safe, they might jump in behind me. So I just clammed up this time like Fred asked me to. I don't remember what he threw out there, but it I noticed everybody looking at me expectantly. When I didn't say anything, they nervously looked back and forth at each other, but nobody spoke up. When Fred got tired of playing his little game, he proclaimed with disgust, "You people will believe anything!"   

I read "Silent Spring" in my freshman year for Ms. Tichy's biology class, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I was also a political conservative at the time, but I didn't think this was a political issue. Environmentalism hadn't been invented yet, all we had was conservationism, and most conservationists were hunters and fishermen like me. Looking back on it, "Silent Spring" may have been instrumental in founding the modern-Johnny-come-lately-environmentalist movement, but I didn't know that at the time. Be that as it may, I think Carson was right to sound the alarm. She may have overdone it a bit, but maybe that's what was needed to get people's attention.