Somehow I missed an extraordinary quote in Lorraine Ahearn's N&R column of February 9th.  Actually, I missed the whole article until someone directed my attention to it today.

Locke Clifford is a part owner of the Greensboro Grasshoppers and was intimately involved in getting the new stadium built.  He is acutely aware of concerns raised by many folks in Fisher Park during the stadium debates.  Chief among their concerns was the noise that would emanate from the baseball stadium and invade the otherwise bucolic inner city neighborhood.  The 'city leaders' advocating for the new stadium were down right incredulous that anyone would question that they had everything under control on that count.  All assurances were given that the stadium would be the best of neighbors and their arguments, obviously, won the day.

Ahearn's column was about a Revolutionary War cannon that has the coincidental name of 'Grasshopper'.  The baseball team's management is wanting to purchase a replica of the original 'Grasshopper' that graces the visitor center at Guilford Courthouse Military Park on the north side of town.  'Hopper GM Donald Moore thinks acquiring the cannon would be a '"cool" addition to First Horizon Stadium - no argument there - it would be kinda cool.  But owner Clifford doesn't just want it to be only for looks.   From the column...

"...He sees it as similar to the Durham Bulls' sign, on which the eyes light up and whose nostrils shoot smoke each time the Bulls hit a home run.  "When the Grasshoppers hit a home run, we'll fire the cannon," said Clifford, warming to the idea. "We believe this cannon firing is going to rattle the roofs in Fisher Park."

Now I know Clifford is a fun-loving guy with a sharp sense of humor - but now we can add complete insensitivity and unmitigated hubris to his descriptors.  The good folks in Fisher Park put up a sincere and costly defense of their 'quality of life' when they banded together to oppose the stadium.  Their efforts were aimed at sparing their neighborhood from the very thing that Locke Clifford now threatens to impose upon them.

As for me, I will be attending the final input meeting on the new City noise ordinance this Thursday.  I will push as hard as I can to guaran-damn-tee that Locke Clifford and his minions will not be firing any GD cannons in the City of Greensboro.

I'm telling you, I am completely sick of this crap.

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How do you they like jw now?  Some do, some... not so much.

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Roch Smith Jr.'s local blog aggregation site, Greensboro101.com, is a hot topic around www journalism circles.  Witness the latest from The Digital Edge and J-New Voices.

It's not our normal brand of local navel gazing when outsiders are doing the gazing, is it? - It's more like real news.  Keep it up Roch, et al.

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Last night I had choices of which parts of my community I should stick my head and two cents worth into.

There is a big flap brewing over at Grimsley High School where Jackson currently attends and where Josie will join him next year.  The N&R wrote about it on Sunday.  The administration has identified some federal funding to create ninth grade "academies" at several county high schools.  The administration's thinking is that freshmen ought to be more isolated than the rest of the student body, or, as the N&R puts it, "they are designed to create a more nurturing environment for freshmen, separate from the rest of the school."

Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?  Who could oppose a "nurturing environment"?  Grimsley's principal Rob Gasparello, when he discovered there might be opposition to the change even said, "I don't know what the big uproar is..."  Well the uproar is coming from parents who are tired of top-down decision making that effectively locks out parents from early-on input about decisions that will make sweeping changes in our schools.

The big public meeting on this is tonight @ 7:00, but there was an organizational/informational meeting last night that served to ascertain the non-administrative spin on the situation.  This practice - a meeting before the official meeting - is becoming commonplace among activist parents.  Apparently many people no longer feel they can get objective information from the school, so they meet before the 'official' meeting to talk among themselves.

I know several of the parents involved in last night's meeting and trust their judgment, so I opted out.  But I am going tonight. 

Instead of education, last night I chose neighborhood.  The Aycock Neighborhood Board of Directors held its monthly meeting last night and the agenda was too compelling not to attend.

I'll not go into everything just now, but suffice it to say that Aycock will garner more than its fair share of the public's attention over the coming months.  Exciting, forward thinking proposals were bandied about last night involving people with the where-with-all (read vision, money, track record and influence) to make it all happen.

I'm know I'm being cryptic, but not for long, I hope.

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