Blaming It All on Ike and a Word or Two on Mitigation

A couple of weeks ago Oliver Ames was in the midst of what passes for spring cleaning in education. "All students must wear their ids." "School is no place for cell phones and texting between 7:30 and 2:00." Inevitably I caught a student who was wearing her thumbs out texting. She indignantly told me it was my generation's fault. "You guys invented these things, and now you want to blame us for using them."

America is fat. I'm blaming it all on President Dwight David Eisenhower. Ike promoted the interstate highway system and that made America fat. I don't mean we stopped walking to New York and packed on the pounds. In the 1920's and 30's my grandfather would stop and go along Route 1 to take the family to New York according to my mother. Stop and think about it-you're a stranger driving through Easton-which restaurant is least likely to give you food poisoning? The increase in travel along the interstates made this question come up more and more often. Along came Ray Kroc who saw a restaurant operation in southern California producing burgers quickly and efficiently and invented the American fast food industry. Now every time you pull into a McDonald's in Missoula, Montana you know you'll get the same taste as the McDonald's in whatever town still has a McDonald's. Since fat and salt have the most desirable tastes, fast food is loaded with it. Thanks, Ike.

Many people fear that the arrival of a Panera with a drive through near Stonebridge, Andrews Cafe and Back Bay Bagel threaten those long established and quality operations. Hopefully, we'll all support those fine local establishments and bypass the chain. You know like we all started to boycott Walmart in Brockton in order to save that fine Easton business Target.

Fast food places are not all bad although what I'm about to tell you has certainly cut in to convenience store business. Yes, the rumors are true Wendy's in Easton has what is said to be one of only four super fountain drink dispensers in America. It's supposedly a reward for being one of the best Wendy's in New England. What does the magic machine do? It offers 27 different brands of Coca-Cola sodas (including that famous brand called "water"). You choose your brand on a touch screen and then another touch screen appears in many brands offering up to a half dozen flavors-cherry coke, vanilla coke, etc. Thanks to a student I learned that you can even mix flavors. Ever have a Strawberry-Peach Sprite Zero? Delish.

One Easton resident commenting on Monday's Selectman's Meeting explained the idea we should seek mitigation from the T as "we're going to roll over and ask the T to rub our tummy." I expect the plan is slightly more nuanced, but back in the day when we were fighting the T tooth and nail, it seemed they were throwing mitigations at us hand over fist. (I'm advertising for a literary cliche assistant, by the way). Wonder if that is going to happen with the new approach. My idea of negotiating mitigation comes from a very successful Italian-American Chicago businessman of the 1920s-"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."  Never thought I'd agree with George Will (except that we both love the Chicago Cubs), but his recent piece on high speed rail is interesting. Initially thought the idea that liberals were collectivizing the American spirit was far-fetched, focused goals not being a liberal strong suit, but think about the sidewalk that no one uses along Route 106. It was mandated by the state, cost tens of thousands of dollars, and it's there because YOU REALLY SHOULD GET OUT AND WALK. Thus, the government builds interstate highways to make us fat and sidewalks to make us thin. See, like my student said, it's never your fault!