THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607040185
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 123 lines
I couldn't help looking at their eyes. Royal blue graduation gowns rustling as they walked, their faces looked so young. Filled with excitement and pride, their smiles needed no explanation. And yet I couldn't stop looking at their eyes. As they filed past me at the door of the gymnasium, I shook each hand, but they were looking through the doorway at the crowd waiting for them. I could almost read their amazement at finally taking this walk and their disbelief that all these folks were standing for them. Their eyes were in awe, tempered only by past disappointments.
The sunny Saturday was a part of high school graduation weekend at the Beach. Hundreds of graduates would make this walk in these two days. My daughter was also graduating the next evening from a local high school. My own emotional range wandered between a touch of sadness at a stage of life completed to exhilaration and excitement at future possibilities. The roller coaster ride I had been on with my teenage daughter only intensified my feelings as I watched these Open Campus High School graduates walk past me. What an assortment of reluctant riders had accompanied these students on their trip! Holding on with them were disappointed parents or new babies or probation officers or concerned teachers or drug counselors or . . . absolutely no one. Getting off the ride in one piece for this day was a cause for celebration.
My mind traveled back to all those evenings at our school. With only partitions to separate us, the principal, the guidance director, and I shared a room with our two secretaries. Each student's problems became a team effort. From our secretary who lovingly dealt out motherly advice to our guidance director who served up reality magically mixed with hopeful strategies to our principal whose concern for each student kept her in an endless search for solutions, we all had a stake in this moment.
Looking across the gymnasium, my eyes connected with a particular student. She came to me one evening with her story; she was pregnant and had decided to give her baby up for adoption. No father in sight, drugs in her past, she knew she faced life altering decisions. She told me about the chosen adoptive couple. I listened.
Filled with fear and uncertainty, she came to me often during those winter months as the baby grew and her reality became more and more difficult. I'll never forget the day she bolted into my ``office'' with her SAT scores. ``650 on the verbal portion . . . was that good?'' she asked.
I'll never forget the night she came with her mom to announce her son's birth. Almost without thinking, I hugged her exuberantly and gave thanks for her safety and her baby's good health. Standing behind her, her mom burst into tears. The astonishing range of emotions from intense happiness to unbelievable sadness haunted us all. The occasion called for both.
So many of these students had equally heart-wrenching stories, some ``of their own doing,'' some beyond their control. It has been said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Through their eyes I often had a frightening glimpse of a world far too risky for anyone, much less ones so young. Tonight, those same eyes were beginning to focus on the future, full of possibilities, while pushing back the hard lessons of the past.
Godspeed, graduates!
Suzanne Radermacher
Guidance Counselor
Open Campus High School
June 25 Relieve elderly of real estate taxes
One would think that our legislators, realizing that homeowners, who after 25 to 50 years of paying off a home mortgage, would certainly know that their homes are also old and in need of paint and repairs. Their appliances are also old and some need to be replaced, yet the old people are saddled with a real estate tax in the amount of $700 to well over $1,200 every six months in taxes alone. Many of these retirees are on a fixed income, yet their taxes, like the Duracell battery commercial, just keep going, going - always up.
Isn't it odd that this city allows a person a break on his personal property tax as long as he doesn't make over $29,000 a year, yet a resident here is not allowed a real estate tax break if he earns over $22,000 a year? Makes one wonder what they have against homeowners.
I can understand, because of unpaid bills, utility companies could cause one to sell their home because they have furnished and delivered commodities and certainly are entitled to regain their losses, but who gives anyone the right to cause a man to sell his home because of a real estate tax that he has paid on two-thirds of his life and at the age of 70 to 100 years old are still paying on it.
It would only be fair that once a man has paid off his mortgage, his real estate taxes be frozen on that date, and then there should be a cutoff date. Rich or poor, a man has paid his dues and should be relieved of real estate taxes entirely.
Lester Prather
June 11 Free spenders
It is amazing how adept and inept a politician becomes when spending other people's money.
Our free spending City Council having already committed us taxpayers to over $1 billion in obligations is ready once again to hang us taxpayers out on a shaky limb. (June 25 Virginian-Pilot article, ``Beach signs storm safety plan'').
Personally, as a resident since 1964 I am tired of being a third-class citizen after the Oceanfront crowd and the School Board.
Even while being warned by more experienced and knowledgeable politicians (U.S. Sen. John W. Warner and Rep. Owen B. Pickett), our local council commits to a $102 million hurricane protection plan in which our share (35 percent) equals $35.7 million, and the federal government's share (65 percent) equals $66.3 million.
With all the ``iffies'' expressed by Warner/Pickett, my question to our council is what happens to this debt if the federal government fails to provide its share? In today's uncertain economic climate (Clinton administration opposes project) it seems highly unlikely the Feds will come through in spite of the smug optimism of our local council.
H.R. Osborough
June 26 Big thanks
The members and I wish to thank the chauffeur, who was serving a wedding party at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center on April 20. We thank you for your compassion and concern when one of our members became ill. We are especially grateful for your help that evening. Our circumstances would have been a great deal more grave had you not offered your help.
We sincerely thank you!
Members of the Future
Homemakers of America
Bluestone Middle School chapter
and Betty Hart, teacher and adviser
May 30 by CNB