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Page A-4 - Shelton-Mason County Journal — Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020
TIMES
9/ 1 1: It might be on the test
ur 16—year-old son let
me tag along to his
U.S. history class last
Friday afternoon, if I didn’t
make noise and I remained fal-
low against the corner of the
couch, beyond the view of the
Chromebook screen where the
eyes of 22 high school juniors
and one teacher were vertically By KIRK
ERICSON
and horizontally scaled and ar-
rayed and pointed toward the
bookcase in our living room.
Here are a few things I learned at
school last week:
I High school students still complain
about teachers, but many of their
teacher-related complaints are now
technology related. A boy mentioned
a teacher who left private messaging
on during a class last spring. Several
students groaned. That’s what passes
for an embarrassing act in high school
these days.
I Students in the fall of 2020 have new
problems. One student yelled at some—
one who dashed in and out of her back-
ground: “Get out! And close the door!”
The student seemed well-practiced at
yelling that.
I “Chillax” is a word in one teacher’s
vocabulary.
I The dog cannot eat your homework
anymore.
Imagine being in high school and
having a parent be present — kind of
while you were in class, among your
mates. It was inconceivable once, but
it’s conceivable now, and it’s happening
across this country.
And as long as we’re imagining,
imagine not knowing what you know
about Sept. 11, 2001. Imagine not
knowing about box cutters and people
jumping from towers, or not remem-
bering how you heard the news of
that day. Imagine not having those
fiery orange blossoms emblazoned in
your brain. Imagine not being aware
of the line between that sunny day in
September and the blood and money
spilled in Iraq and Afghanistan in the
years to come.
Those kids sitting in a U.S. history
class in Olympia High School on Sept.
11, 2020, were born in 2003 and 2004,
so what happened 19 years ago in New
York, Washington, D.C., and that field
in Pennsylvania is complete history
to them, although it’s sometimes aug-
mented with bits of cultural flotsam,
like knowing that “Saturday Night
Live” performer Pete Davidson’s father
was a firefighter killed on 9/11.
When my son’s teacher asked her
class “Does anyone know what hap-
pened on this day in history?” the long
silence that followed shouldn’t have
surprised me. My son told me before
his history class that no one
had mentioned 9/11 in his ear—
lier classes.
After the stillness, which
lasted probably long enough for
someone to Google “Sept. 11,”
a student piped up with a de-
scription of 9/11 that sounded
a bit scripted: Hijackers on two
planes flew jets into the World
Trade Center towers, another
hijacked plane hit the Penta-
gon and a fourth plane crashed
into a field in Pennsylvania. That stu-
dent might be angling for an A.
“It was a sad day,” the teacher said.
“And your parents and grandparents
know exactly where they were when
they heard the news. It hit everybody
really hard.”
That didn’t stir any classroom con-
versation, so the teacher divided the
class into five groups and asked them
to discuss two questions among them-
selves, each for about four minutes.
The first was, “What do you know
about 9/1 1?”
No one in my son’s group spoke until
a kid said, “If 9/11 happened today, a
lot of people wouldn’t care.”
“What if it caused a forest fire?” my
son offered.
N 0 answer. When they returned
to the main class, one of the students
reported to the teacher, “We didn’t talk
about it. We were just talking.”
The teacher pressed on, as teach-
ers do. “Does anyone know why people
wanted to attack the United States?”
Silence, again. The teacher gave a
“super tiny nutshell” explanation that
involved Osama bin Laden, U.S. troops
stationed in the Mideast, Afghanistan
and the Soviet Union.
I remember how vengeful and fear-
ful the mood in this country was after
9/11 and how the political and cultural
environment made it heretical to even
ask a question about motive. The ex-
planation that was supposed to satisfy
us was, “They attacked us because they
hate our freedoms.”
Because the teacher wasn’t getting
much play from her students, she end-
ed by talking about the firefighters and
police officers who died on that day and
how “They were going up the staircases
while other people were going down.
“We need to remember this day be-
cause of the sacrifices people made.”
Before we get too smug about our
own generation and how we remember
9/11 like it was yesterday, let us ask
ourselves whether we learned the les-
son of that day: What sacrifice are we
willing to make?
I Contact Kirk at kirk@masoncounty.
com.
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USPS 492-800
POSTMASTF R Sen-:1 address changes to {the/tun Mason
County Journal, PO. Box 430, Shelton. WA 98584.
Published weekly by the Shelton-Mason County Journal
at 227 W. Cota St, Shelton, Washington.
Mailing address: PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584
Telephone: 360-426-4412
Website: www.masoncounty.com
Periodicals postage paid in Shelton, Washington. >
The Shelton—Mason County Jour-
nal is a member of the Wash-
ington Newspaper Publishers
Publisher/Editor: Tom Mullen
Advertising:
TO EDITOR
Not a good
neighbor
Editor, the Journal,
Greeting to all concerned.
Almost six years ago this month,
we as a neighborhood welcomed the
new homeowner on the 2000 block of
Stevens Street with open arms. We
heard he was a retired gentleman
moving down from the Seattle area.
Naively, we welcomed him, what
could be bad about a retired man
wanting to move to a smaller town? It
was within two months we figured out
him and his “house guests” would not
fit in our quiet, family—friendly and
retired-person neighborhood.
The problems started with asking
them nicely not to be so noisy when
they came home after 10 p.m. Since
we had moved into our retirement
home in 1991, I had kept my bedroom
window open, to let in fresh air, so I
could sleep better at night. That came
to a quick end. The disturbances and
multiple incidents of illegal activities
continued escalating in severity, and
tranquility for the rest of the resi-
dents of Steven Street have been lost.
For six uncomfortable and unsafe
years, nothing but “catch and release”
has been done to confront the problem
household. We are done with tact, and
Front office:
Dave Pierik, Office Administrator
Karen Hranac, Customer Service
Association. John Lester, General Manager
Theresa Murray, Ad Representative Delivery:
SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Jon Garza
$62 per year ($43 for six months) Newsroom: David Olson
for Mason County addresses and
$75 per year ($55 for six months)
outside of Mason County.
Owned and published by
Shelton-Mason County Journal, Inc.
Justin Johnson, Sports/Outdoors Editor
Gordon Weeks, Reporter
Isabella Breda, Reporter
Kirk Ericson, Columnist/ Proofreader
Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter
7 Niel Challstrom
Composing room:
William Adams, Advertising
Design and Technical Support
,' «.1
hoping that the city officials would
take action for all the unlawfulness
that has gone on daily for six years
now.
We insist you inform us of why 'all
the illegal activities are allowed to
continue? We can only speculate. And
those speculations are not pleasant,
as a law—abiding taxpayer.
We appreciate the police depart—
ment has a hard job when it comes
to a known drug house. But knowing
does not make us have any peace of
mind when we hear the word of the
arresting officer, stating he is inform-
ing a male he is arresting that the
residence is a known drug house.
So what is the remedy to do it
quicker, we don’t feel safe in our own
home, because we are done with the
status quo. We, as citizens of Shel—
ton, find this to be unacceptable and
repugnant. I am sure this is not the
only example of drug houses in Shel-
ton, but I can voice the activity of this
one drug den. I can only hope that
something of substance can be accom-
plished if we all work together.
Sincerely,
The Allen family
Shelton
see LETTERS, page A-5
Design:
Lloyd Mullen, Creative Director
All regular editorial, advertising
and legal deadlines are 5 p.m. the
Monday prior to publication.
To submit a letter to the editor,
email justin@masoncounty.com.