MANY OF US NEED A HEAD START

            I was in the fifth grade in LaPorte, IN, when I got my first taste of being left behind.  My teacher announced that our school was going to have a basketball team and any boy wanting to try out for the team should report to the gym right after school.  The school bell rang, and I dashed to the gym where I was first in line.

          The coach was standing there with a basketball in his hands. I had just moved to LaPorte from Chicago and had never even seen a basketball, let alone feel one.    He threw the ball at me and said, “Dribble to the end of the gym, pivot, and dribble back.”   Although I had a vague idea of what “dribble” meant, I didn’t have a clue what he meant by “pivot.”

          When the list of  boys who made the team was posted, I wasn’t on it.  At first I was devastated.  But I figured that next year would be different.  But it never was.  The boys who made the team became the stars in high school, and some went on to play at the college level.  I never got beyond being a sub on the Presbyterian Church team.

          In looking back on that experience, I now realize that as a short, chubby kid with no visable athletic skills, I needed some extra help 

          My boyhood experience of  not making the team came flashing back to me when I learned that the U.S. House of Representatives, under the power of its Republican members, is proposing some drastic cuts in education.  The Head Start program was specifically included.  It is estimated that nearly one-quarter million poor children would be affected.

          What the members of Congress don’t realize, or worse yet, don’t care about, is that once you fall behind, it is extremely hard to ever catch up.  What we accomplish by cutting Head Start is to eventually increase the number of citizens who are members of a lower economic class.  The gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” just gets wider.

          So please, members of Congress, don’t cut education programs that bring long term benefits to our nation.

          Incidentally, although I never made it as a basketball player at any level, I did play a lot of golf.  I wasn’t much good at that either, but at least I had a lot of fun.  And I continue to be an avid Mules and Jennies basketball fan.

                                               

                                                                   Carl B. Foster

                                                                   660-747-3569