if i had it all to do over again, i'd go live in a commune. that's what i told my family and they kind of scoffed at me. but i was serious. when i look back at almost fifty years of raising children, what strikes me the most is that sometime in there, you could no longer let your child walk out the front door. and, sometime in there, teachers lost their ability to do their job well.

as for having a community close-knit enough, friendly enough, and watchful enough that kids would be ok wandering around most times of the day, there are several small towns and probably even the valley we lived in in new mexico, where that would still be possible. i remember those neighbors in new mexico reaching out to our kids, who were already almost grown. but our kids had grown up in another world, without atvs, without hunting rifles, etc., and had very little in common with those kids. those kids probably did have the run of that back area, with the creek, the woods going up into the reservation, plenty of wild country to tromp around. but by then it was too late. all they wanted to do was play grand theft auto. and that was probably because they knew they would look bad trying to shoot a hunting rifle.

with schools, i'll say that teachers are saints and teachers are generally competent. what compromises their competence is two things: pure number, in the classroom, and percent or number of students who are antagonistic. both of those have risen dramatically in even normal schools, like galesburg and alamogordo, the two i know best at this point. but there are also cloudroft, carbondale, iowa city, pittsburg kansas: every school in the nation is suffering from too large class size and too many antagonistic students. my explanation. for the antagonism is unusual: it comes from the parents. twenty years ago schools failed a large number of kids and those were the ones who had the most babies. now that's a bad cycle. but if the parents dislike and distrust the schools, you're doomed. you can't do your job. and separating them out won't solve the problem (actually it might, but i'm not sure how one would do it).

there's the aftermath of a storm here - large trees fallen, soaked ground, standing. water, lots of puddles. i need to mow but it's too wet. it's been very hot and humid for some time now and will probably continue this way for some more. i've kind of backed off dashing for the moment, as it was wearing me out and wearing the car out too. today i drove around helping this one 17-year-old go to an interview. he's having bad luck; apparently at the last mcdonalds he walked off without giving notice, and not only will they not hire him back, but the other mcdonalds won't either. and these are mcdonalds that need workers and hire regularly. one has to keep going to place after place. but i hang in there with him because i sense it's a turning point in his life. either he will give it all up and turn to a life of crime, or, one of these places that i take him to will simply take him on. he's a pretty good worker when he sets to working. he's careless. when we mow, i have trouble getting him to hit all the grass. but he does the work and he has a sense of responsibility. i need to stay on him. sometimes all it takes is one person who cares how it turns out, and that makes it turn out better.

in this weather, the easiest thing to do is curl up, do my reading, try to do my writing, text the fam. fam is in all different states of stress and change, some of the change is good. I'm at the age where i take naps spontaneously, suddenly, briefly, any time of day - it's about to happen now. what can you do? aside from multiple cups of coffee (just seems to make it worse) - nothing.