Author Archives: Jon Lowder

People Being People

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I’m flying to San Diego today on business and of course it offers a great people watching experience. I connected through Atlanta which means I got to ride the train between terminals. The doors of the train began to close and a woman who had just gotten on and who was jabbering away on her phone realized thaty her teenage daughter wasn’t with her. She jumped in the door to prevent them from closing and to give her daughter a chance to get on. She assumed that the doors would just pop back open like elevator doors but they just kind of squished her. A man standing behind her stepped up and helped pull them open and let her daughter on. Here’s the deal; the woman never stopped talking on the phone except to yell at her daughter to hurry, not even to thank the man who helped her. She didn’t even nod. The rest of us just shook our heads and kind of smiled at each other.

Sadly this type of thing is just too common, but this incident doesn’t match my all-time favorite which was the guy in an O’Hare bathroom who was talked on his phone while using the urinal and walking out of the bathroom. Of course he didn’t wash his hands, not that he would normally, but he was far too busy talking to do it anyway.

links for 2008-06-06

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Behold the Power of Email

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A couple of days ago I wrote about an email I’d received concerning the decision by the county to eliminate all but one position at the Tanglewood Tennis Center.  Well, lots of other people received that same email and forwarded it to others, and many in that larger universe of people decided to let the powers that be know that they thought it a bad decision.  That resulted in the following email hitting my inbox last night:

Hi Everyone~
 
Thank you just seems so small in comparison to the
overwelming outcry of support that you have given to keep our Tanglewood
Community Tennis Center Family intact and running as usual! I just received a
phone call from Mr. Sanders-Pratt (Assistant County Manager) that they are going
to leave me in my current position at Tanglewood Community Tennis Center! All of
the programs that you know, love and support will continue through the season
with the State Combo Tournament in November!
 
I have heard through grapevines that some are planning
to attend Monday Night’s Commissioner Meeting. You all have gone to such major
lengths for us and I am so thankful to you all for that to be unnecessary now!
 
All of this could not have been acheived without this
"Tennis Community Family"! Gordon and I cannot thank you enough! It has just
been so overwelming and amazing to see so many people that came together as one
big tennis team to win this match!
 
I do not know how far all of these emails have reached.
I am sending this to the same ones that I sent to before in hopes that you will
contact those that you have to help spread this great news!
 
Again, Gordon and I cannot believe the overwelming
support everyone has shown for us! We will never forget all the friends we
truely have in all of the tennis community!
 
~Gordon, Angie, Samantha and Ryan~

Looks like the lights will stay on for at least the near future.

Personally I don’t think it was the "noise" alone that caused the county folks to reconsider their decision.  It might have enlightened them to the fact that more people use the tennis facilities than they thought, but that alone wouldn’t have done it.  After all, there are lots of public courts in Forsyth County that require no full time staff and are available to all players.  I’m thinking that having multiple people point out the potential revenue lost from events like the BMW Combo is what tipped the scales and helped them realize that cutting a couple of positions would cost more than it would save.

links for 2008-06-05

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What We Learned at Dinner Last Night

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Dinner with the kids gets more and more interesting as they get older.  Just last night we learned the following from our oldest two, in 9th and 8th grades respectively:

  • Teachers will randomly seize students’ cell phones and check them for pornographic pictures.  It has become an unfortunate practice for some kids to take nude pics of themselves with their phone-cams and send them to boyfriends, girlfriends or just friends.  Unfortunately these kids don’t stop to think about what happens if boyfriends become ex-boyfriends and decide to share that embarrassing picture with all their good buddies, or post it on MySpace, etc. (Here’s a coincidence: The Journal had an article today about this rising trend with teenagers).

    All this came up over dinner because one of our kids’ friends had received a self portrait of a topless girl. The girl had taken it and sent it to an ex-boyfriend in an effort to win him back and of course that kid forwarded it to a friend who forwarded to another friend, and so on.  Luckily our kids’ friend immediately deleted the picture so when a teacher asked to see his phone there was nothing to find.

  • The sheriff’s deputies will do K-9 inspections of students’ lockers.  If a dog "hits" on a locker then school administrators will inspect 10 lockers to the left and 10 lockers to the right of the locker that was originally targeted.  According to the kids it was just 8 lockers in each direction last year, but they increased it this year. They also say that electronic devices cause the dog to hit, so students regularly have MP3 players and the like confiscated from their lockers.

Our kids really do live in a different world than the one I grew up in, and I grew up in the suburbs of DC!  We had gangs, regular fights, drugs and such, but we didn’t have K-9 dogs sniffing our lockers and we didn’t even have police on campus on a regular basis.  They showed up only if an administrator called them.  Although I do remember feeling like I had no rights and chomping at the bit to become an adult who didn’t have to put up with a lot of petty crap (never occurred to me to think about the responsibilities that came with those freedoms) I think the kids today are more put upon than we were.  I’m not necessarily saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying it’s different. Maybe it has to be this way because the consequences of age-old teenage boneheadedness are so much worse.

Take the whole cell phone thing.  We didn’t have cell phones; they were still years away and cell phones with cameras were even more distant.  If we’d had them I’m sure we would done equally stupid things with them as our kids, but in our day the worst that would happen is that you’d write some sort of explicit note and it would fall into the wrong hands.  Maybe a few people would see it an talk about it.  The idea of hundreds or thousands of people seeing nude self portraits would have been literally unfathomable, but today you make one silly mistake and literally the whole world might know about it.

One thing that does worry me is the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude that seems to prevail in the schools.  Take our kids’ friend.  What if the picture had been sent to him, without his knowledge, while he was in class.  The teacher takes the phone and finds the picture and the kid is instantly in trouble for something his friend did.  He did nothing other than have a phone that can receive pictures, yet he’d probably be disciplined for the picture being on his phone. Doesn’t seem fair.

We made sure to point out to the kids exactly why it was a horrible idea to do something like sending a naked picture of yourself to a friend.  It seems not to have occurred to them that their friends might do something inconsiderate with the picture as the result of a falling out, or even make an innocent mistake and forward it to someone else who would then blast it to the world.  Sure, we talked about the immorality of such actions, but with kids it’s usually a good idea to point out the practical implications of their behavior.  It tends to hit home much more than, "Don’t do it because it’s wrong."

Budget Cuts Hit Tanglewood

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Those of you who live here in Forsyth County, NC probably have heard that the board of commissioners asked those working in the government to make cuts in order to keep from having to raise taxes.  Of course they claim that they’re doing this in our tough economic times because it just ain’t right to ask struggling citizens to pay more taxes, but if you believe that I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.  Whatever.  The cuts have to be made somewhere and at Tanglewood at least one of the cuts they are making is in the department that manages the tennis facility, pool and Mallard Lake.  Here’s text from an email sent to the community of tennis players by one of the folks affected by the cuts:

Hi Everyone~
 
     First of all, let me start by saying how much all of you all have
meant to Gordon and I at Tanglewood Community Tennis Center! I have been here
for 16 years, Gordon 17 and Ryan 3 years. We have had the privilege to meet so
many incredible people. Thank you for such an amazing experience! You all have
taught me so much about myself including my strengths, my weaknesses and have
helped me to gain the confidence I need to move forward from here. I will
treasure this experience and the friendships I have made forever! It is with a
heavy heart and much sadness that it looks like I will be leaving you all at
Tanglewood Community Tennis Center.
 
     With that being said, I am not leaving Tanglewood Tennis by my own
will. Tanglewood Community Tennis Center as you know it will no longer exist. I
was told today that my job and Ryan’s job is being eliminated as of June 30th. I
have been offered a library position within the County as a way to not totally
be out of a job. At this point I am considering all options and trying to move
forward from here. This is especially hard for us with our budget numbers being
better than ever. Our department, Tennis and Mallard Lake (Pool comes separate),
is up a record 34% with the next highest being golf at 7%. We have also lowered
expenses by $20,000.00. If we had been doing bad financially or had made some
big mistakes along the road, then this elimination would not be as devastating
as it is to us now. The County just said that it was due to budget cuts.
 
     So what does this mean for you? There are many things still to be
sorted out since this all came to us today. You all have supported this facility
all through the years and helped to make it the success that it is – thank you
for that! We will still try to provide the services that you have come to love
and expect but we will have to be creative with that considering we only will
have one full time staff member and no part-time or seasonal help. With only
Gordon left to manage on his own: tennis, pool and lake, the scope of our
leagues, programs, tournaments and special events will more than likely no
longer exist or will only be able to be offered on a limited basis. We are so
sorry for this for you all have supported and grown these programs for so long.
We are who we are because of you! We will finish up this session of the men’s
and women’s league but will no longer be offering any new ones until we see what
the realm of possibility will be.
 
     As for the USTA Mixed and Combo leagues, we will still have the USTA
Mixed kick-off on June 13-15th weekend, but this will more than likely be our
last "hoo-rah"! Matches will more than likely be played at Hanes Park and
Visions. It appears we will not have the staff to cater for it at Tanglewood.
 
    We were suppose to have the BMW State Combo Tournament here again for a
record 4th year! However, with the loss of my position at Tanglewood, at this
point, I do not see how this will be possible. There was a good possibility of
being awarded this tournament for even more years, but that doesn’t seem likely
now either. This tournament brings in 2000 players with $2 to $3 million being
brought in to our community over one weekend through hotels, restaurants, etc.
Thank you to all those who volunteered to make this event such a success for our
community!
 
     In closing, Gordon, Ryan and myself THANK YOU for your support,
friendships and believing in us as a team all these years. Gordon will still be
at Tanglewood Community Tennis Center to try and carry on as best he can! We
have put too much of our hearts, lives and total commitment into this facility
to see it fail now! We are not asking you to do anything further, but if you
wish to express your supporting thoughts, experiences and hopes that this
decision can be reconsidered, below are contact email addresses for County
Commissioners and phone numbers for the County Manager and the Assistant County
Manager who are over us and ultimately made this unfortunate decision:

Well, the second to last paragraph is one that ought to interest folks.  Although the vast majority of folks in Forsyth don’t play tennis we all have the opportunity to enjoy the park facilities.  The fact that Tanglewood is able to draw people from outside the community to spend money that in turn helps subsidize the park system we enjoy should be celebrated, not put in jeopardy.  Just as the wine festival last weekend drew 20,000 people to the park, the tennis tournaments that Tanglewood hosts draws  thousands of participants throughout the year, and they spend money while they’re here.  Kind of crazy, huh?

Tourism dollars are a hot topic locally because of county commissioner Ted Kaplan’s tiff with the Travel Development Authority (TDA).  I’m wondering how events like the BMW State Combo fit into that picture?  Does the TDA help the park system market their events to the outside world?  If not, is this what Kaplan is talking about when he says he wants to see more TDA funds spent on grants to organizations to be used to promote and host events like this?

This is but a small bit of the picture, one that I’m interested in because of my involvement with local tennis.  Is it the end of the world?  No, not at all.  But it does help us understand what budget cuts mean in the real world.  Maybe keeping taxes frozen at current rates and reducing county services is the right thing to do, but it almost certainly will mean hearing multiple stories like this one. Sure we’re each saving some money on taxes, but we will also be losing services.  Most of you won’t care about this particular service, but I can almost guarantee that there will be a service cut that you do care about.  That’s the road our county leaders chose to take and it’s up to us to decide if it’s the right one.