Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993 TAG: 9302060126
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ONLY A POTATO-HEAD NEED FOLLOW THIS LAW
Boy, that federal government. You never know what it's going to do next.I don't know whether President Clinton knows it or not, but the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service have certain inconsistencies.
When you call the Social Security 800 number, you hear easy-listening string music while you're waiting for some human person to come on the line.
The IRS, not surprisingly, doesn't have music. Only eerie dead silence until this human person comes on the line and says you bet you'll have to pay taxes on some of your Social Security benefits for last year.
Then, we come to the curious case of the Labor Department and the elementary students in Virginia Beach.
(Now, cut that out. I don't know whether you hear "Old Man River" when you call the Labor Department 800 number. I don't even know whether it has an 800 number.)
The Labor Department has warned that allowing elementary students to wipe off cafeteria tables - and do other little jobs that have been the means of getting in good with the teacher for generations - may violate child labor laws.
Boy, I hope not. If the day comes in this country when you can't get to be teacher's pet by doing these little jobs, public education will suffer.
When I was chosen in the third grade to dust the erasers and wipe the blackboard with a wet cloth, I considered it an honorable thing - which somehow separated me from the masses.
If this latest government interpretation had been in effect then, special agents might have burst into the room just before the final bell and forced kindly Miss Wornerberger (not her real name) to lean over her desk so they could frisk her.
And then Agent Metzencurler (not his real name) would have called his boss from the principal's office and said:
"She's a tough one, chief. Had this funny-looking kid who's almost blind scrubbing the blackboard."
I also was thrilled when I was asked to take a note to Miss Smith's (her real name) classroom just down the hall, which I could do most of the time without getting lost.
What's going to happen next? I'll tell you what's going to happen next: There aren't going to be any more apples for teachers.
For example, Miss Pomegranate (maybe her real name, maybe not) accepts apples from her students all the time.
Then, these Justice Department types show up and arrest her for taking bribes, while working in a place that gets federal money.
Far-fetched? Just remember, pal, this is the same government that once said ketchup is a vegetable.