Behind the Mike

My favorite date with my wife, Christine, is a late afternoon picnic on the shores of East Lake Tohopekaliga (Toho for short), located in the northwest corner of Osceola County due east of the mouse house near Orlando, Florida.

Toho covers an area of 11,968 acres and is almost five miles in diameter and 70 feet at its deepest point, making it the second largest lake in the county right behind her twin sister, Lake Tohopekaliga near Kissimmee. Linked by 31 canals, both lakes are the hosts of numerous fishing tournaments.

Christine likes to prepare a dinner we can enjoy by the lake. So I put my portable USC Gamecock table in the trunk along with a couple of folding chairs and a cooler of my favorite brew, a Yuengling lager…and we are off for a picnic.

Others are cooking hotdogs, steaks, chicken, pork or hamburgers on one of the many grills that dot the two miles of lakefront area the park features, filling the air with the most glorious odors your mind can imagine. Picnic tables provide a grand setting for the meal and the view of the lake is simply spectacular.

The park area features a playground, a beach area, a pier, a boat dock, a marina, a restaurant, a volley ball area and a beautiful sandy beach for my sweet grandbabies, Ashley and Ava.

There are also a couple miles of walkway for skaters, joggers, sloggers (slow walkers), skate boarders, roller bladders, granddads pulling the little ones in wagons, moms pushing babies in strollers and bicyclists, just to name a few. Even an occasional elder woman will pass on her tricycle with her dog propped up in the front basket.

Today’s entertainment features some wind surfers in wet suits. I get my exercise by watching them and frankly, I am exhausted after 30 minutes of this. Maybe it has something to do with the Yuengling or the fact that I am usually up at 3:30 am each day. I am literally whipped by the day’s end.

On other days, we watch children racing electric, remote-control cars on the sand or a sail boat, power boat, Jet Ski, canoe, kayaker, paddle boarder, or fishermen in their john-boats in the distance. Birds and other wildlife are plentiful. Occasionally one finds me as his favorite target after a successful day of foraging. Once in a while, a gator pops his head up from the neighboring lake grass.

Another fun thing is to watch my grandbabies over at the playground. It is too cold for them to play in the water spouts that are nearby but during the summer, they will have their bathing suits and it will be fair game along with a dip in the lake.

My son Christopher (affectionately known as Gutt for understandable reasons) is a Registered Nurse by profession. However, he occasionally returns to his old gig, working with the City of St. Cloud Recreation Commission with their “Movie in the Park.” He uses his pickup truck to haul a huge screen out to the park and kids gather to watch the movie of the month, usually a Disney flick, under a star filled sky.

With Palm trees swaying against a sun-soaked, late afternoon sky, the setting is perfect for the little ones. Parents replace the sunscreen with bug spray and they are good to go. As the sun dives into the western sky, the flick begins. Every now and then, we get lucky and something special happens.

For instance, one night just as the movie ended, NASA was about to launch a rocket just 45 miles to the east of us. Gutt alertly pulled up the coverage on the internet on his laptop, allowing the folks to follow the countdown on the silver screen. When the launch lighted up the evening sky, it was glorious for all to see, as kids and parents cheered it on.

Such is the quality of life in St. Cloud, Florida, a quaint little community founded in 1909 by William G. King, who was a real estate manager from Alachua County. He was given the responsibility of locating and developing a town which was defined as a “Soldiers Colony” for retired soldiers.

The land was bought by the Seminole Land and Investment Company. Many of our streets are named after other states from which Civil War Veterans had served and they retain those names today. On June 1, 1915, the Florida Legislature incorporated St. Cloud as a city. Next time you visit Florida, come visit Toho!

This column appears in nearly 258 publications all over the world. One of our Ohio readers brought to our attention the fact that the local school board cancelled high school football and all other extra- curricular activities in Grove City, Ohio, just six miles southwest of the capital city of Columbus. I guess it’s a sign of the times of which we are a part.

Normally 11,000 screaming fans would have gathered at Grove City High for something that is a right of passage for kids everywhere- high school football on a Friday night.

It is not just football that got cancelled, but a way of life… a right of passage for kids everywhere. Anyone who ever played under the Friday night lights knows that warm glow that comes over you when family, friends and neighbors gather to cheer on the local kids, win or lose. A right of passage got the hatchet.

Cheerleaders that lead the Friday afternoon Pep Rallies no longer have anything to cheer. The Marching Greyhound Band that normally plays to a capacity house no longer entertains. Sadly, these same financial strains affect school boards in every city and every state.

No one wants to sit in judgment on this particular issue, but it does raise some interesting questions. Turns out the South-Western City School Board, which includes four high schools, took the unprecedented step of canceling all extra-curricular activities after voters failed to pass an operating levy. Now four high schools in Ohio’s sixth largest school district have no sports, no bands, no drama productions and no student council. Is this a move to get even with the voters?

Neighbors have turned on one another in anger. I am reminded of the age old saying: “Everybody wants to go to heaven; nobody wants to die.” Everybody wants paved roads and good schools; nobody wants to pay the taxes necessary to pave and build. Everybody wants quality education for their kids and grandkids; nobody wants to foot the bill.

There is another old saying: “We get the kind of government we deserve.” I personally reject that as not exactly being the “whole” truth.

The situation in South-Western is extreme, but it isn’t unusual. Across the nation, school districts are wrestling with a fundamental question. When money is tight, should taxpayers be funding high school sports? When you put 11,000 people in the stands, one would think that sport should be able to not only pay for itself but all the other sports combined. Unless they are giving away the seats, this should be a no-brainer.

In Mount Vernon, N.Y., students, parents, coaches, teachers and community leaders raised nearly $1 million to fund the school district’s sports program for the 2008-09 school year after voters twice declined to pass the district budget and forced the district into austerity mode. The budget was passed — with funding for athletics — for the current school year.

In the East Side Union district in San Jose, Calif., sports were on the chopping block until this summer, when district officials reached an 11th-hour compromise to fund sports that included a $200 “donation” from each athlete.

The net result of such extreme measures is that parents will move their kids to other Districts that still play football. Let the mass exodus begin. And it is not just an exodus of students, but also coaches and teachers. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Perhaps the more important field of exploration here is how does one get elected to a school board that looks only to cut instead of looking for solutions? Is this a way of blackmailing a community into a tax increase?

If you tried such drastic measures in most small towns you would have a major rebellion on your hands. The net result is a community will begin to wilt and die when you take the blossom off the trees.

Everybody wants to go to heaven; nobody wants to die. This scene could be coming to a community near you.