Here we go again, race fans, with the school bond

For this week’s paper, I paid a visit to the home of Rollie Shaw to talk about drag racing.

It goes without saying, but in drag racing, acceleration is everything.

Top fuel cars, in particular, rocket from 0 to 100 quicker than even a fighter jet.

In drag racing, each race is decided in the first .8 seconds — if you’re last to leave the starting line, you’ve already lost.

Now, let’s think of the Herald’s Opinion page as a drag strip.

As you can see in our Letters section this week, Denny Lautner once again got the jump on Greene County’s school bond issue.

Herald reporter Matt Rezab reported for two consecutive weeks on an effort to place a $19.4 million school bond referendum on the Sept. 13 ballot — a do-over after last year’s $20 million bond proposal essentially hit the wall and exploded (continuing the dragster analogy).

The race to sway public opinion is on.

In the aftermath of last year’s referendum failure, the school district looked to assess blame, and the newspaper was implicated in its implosion — even after the Herald officially endorsed the bond with an editorial.

Surely, it was insinuated in true, tinfoil-hat-wearing fashion, letters to the editor in support of the bond were quashed in favor of letter after letter from such outspoken bond critics as Lautner and Kurt Oathout.

Let me level with you.

I believe in UFOs. I don’t believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

But the local conspiracy theorists are more likely to find Jimmy Hoffa buried underneath the Greene County Middle School gym than pro-bond letters in my recycling bin.

I cannot run what I don’t have.

With exception to one letter that arrived past deadline, everything I received — for and against — ran.

Superintendent Tim Christensen even paid me a visit last year to discuss the anti-bond letters.

I don’t think he initially believed me when I urged him to go find 50 people to write 50 letters in support of the bond issue.

“You’d run all 50 letters?” he asked skeptically.

“Not all at once,” I answered, “but eventually they would all run.”

No great influx of letters arrived.

The community committee now steering Bond 2.0 — calling itself the Pay It Forward Committee — runs a serious risk of losing the message if it doesn’t organize a letter-writing campaign. And soon.

I heard weeks ago that pro-bond letters would begin arriving any day.

Great, I said, I want our Opinion page to burst with conversation. It is, after all, a forum to freely exchange ideas — some good, some bad and some utterly loco.

It’s prehistoric Facebook in a way, but still carries more prestige.

Unfortunately, though, opinions on the Opinion page are forever thanks to microfilm.

And perhaps because of that — in an age where comments deemed unpopular can be deleted at the click of a mouse — I’ve heard that the bond committee is actually having a difficult time finding people who want their names to accompany a letter.

What does that say?

If you believe in this issue — as I do — say so, in print, for all to see.

Allow me to give the committee a helping hand this week: The community needs this bond issue to pass.

I voted for it last time. They have my vote this time, too.

Our school buildings have outlived their usefulness.

No one in their right mind would say a one-room schoolhouse is still appropriate for learning.

The way kids learn today is — for better or for worse — radically different than how it was in the 20th century, when the principal could haul off and smack a kid around if he wanted.

Plus, it’s time, once and for all, for all students to be centrally located in Jefferson.

We humored Cooper. We humored Scranton. And now we’re humoring Grand Junction.

Ever since the consolidation with East Greene, the busing situation alone has taken on an absurd level of transfers and wait times.

It might actually be faster for a kid to take a Greyhound to Omaha and back than to be dropped off in Dana before supper.

I do know, for a fact, that less planning went into the D-Day invasion during World War II than how to get our kids from Point A to Point B on a school bus.

Another logistical nightmare the bond would ease is parking.

Ever tried picking up a kid at 3:15 from Greene County Elementary? It’s like trying to navigate some kind of bazaar in Pakistan.

And, yes, the proposal includes a new varsity gym. So what?

Don’t let the shiny floor fool you — it, too, has outlived its usefulness in the 21st century, what with its limited seating (thanks to a theatrical stage that I’ve never once seen a musical on) and lack of appropriate locker room space.

If I’ve identified one problem with Jefferson since moving back home, it’s that people are moribund by their nostalgia.

As they pine for another chocolate Bubble-Up at Louie’s Candy Kitchen, we’ve allowed ourselves to slip deeper into mediocrity.

That’s no place to be where our kids are concerned.

It’s time to move on.

And that starts with a yes vote.