Why aren't they doing more?
By Brent E. McCoy thereal@roadrunner.com

The English language can be pretty confusing at times. I hope the reader won't mind if I have a little fun with the words in this one.

One expression that has always troubled me is, "Why aren't they doing more?" I'll bet most of us have said something like that, or at least heard something like that. But when you get right down to it, why aren't they doing more?

You might be asking yourself, "Who are they?" Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I think that they are them because they couldn't be us, or we would have to ask, "Why aren't we doing more?"

And that is a different matter entirely.

There are very few things in life that are absolute. We've all heard that death and taxes are among these. I'd like to add one more. There will always be more people doing nothing than there are of people doing something. Further, the people doing nothing are never too busy to tell the people doing something how they would have done it if they weren't too busy doing nothing. We will probably be hit by a comet or Yellowstone will blow its top (which is, at present, on the bottom) before my preceding observation ceases to be true. We even have an election at least every two years to keep everyone in practice.

Many of our children are getting ready to go to college, and many of them aren't sure about what they want to do with the rest of their lives. (This is understandable; I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up yet.)

But whose fault is it? We might ask of those at the school, "Why aren't they doing more?" I have no doubt that there are a great many of us who could tell the folks over there what they are doing wrong and how to do it better.

In fact, it was a little more than a year ago that the high school was planning a "Career Day" for 2006. "Career Day" is a day when we- parents, relatives, friends and citizens- are invited to go to the high school and give a presentation to the students about our careers. I had participated in Career Day for several years, and I looked forward to meeting a new crop of students. In addition, I always enjoy an opportunity to write a column about the students and how much brighter they are today than we were at that age. Instead, I penned an article bemoaning the fact that they- the school- had to cancel "Career Day" at Moorpark High School.

If you don't remember, they- the school staff- were forced to cancel Career Day because there weren't enough of us- parents, relatives, friends and citizens- willing to show up. Quite a bit of effort goes into planning Career Day, but it doesn't work if none of us show up.

It would be a shame if the high school can't get enough folks to show up this year. So, if you have a career, or know someone who has a career, please consider helping out this year.

I know that it's not always possible to get away from work sometimes, but hopefully enough of us will be able to squeeze out one day for the students.

If you feel that Career Day just isn't important enough and it just isn't worth the hassle of missing a few hours of work, you might want to call the school anyway. It will give you an opportunity to let them know what they're doing wrong and how they can do more.