With apologies to Peggy Lee, is that all there is?
The evident abrupt denouement of the El Marino Language School adjuncts controversy, which inflamed parental souls just a few weeks ago, reminds me of the suddenness with which my first marriage died of a different kind of attack of the heart.
One night when I walked in the front door at 4 a.m., my regular returning hour from the newspaper, I was greeted by a dimly lighted desk, a human being and a hastily scribbled note, none of whom I recalled ever having married.
“She left about midnight,” my brother said solemnly. “She said you could have the car.”
I confess to being slightly less emotional this afternoon about ending the El Marino dispute even though El Marino wins the war and maintains its much prized status quo.
On Tuesday, May 22, at the next School Board meeting, in Council Chambers, Supt. Patti Jaffe says an agreement will be introduced.
All schools not named El Marino will be lumped into a single policy or agreement that evening, bound to just-devised rules until the end of the world. Or, heaven forbid, my next marriage.
El Marino can dance a Bulgarian jig this afternoon because quo, not woe, is the status quo.
“El Marino is going to be a stand-alone for the rest of time?” a man asked Supt. Patti Jaffe today. “I think that is the way it’s going to be,” said the Super. “That is the way the law has read. I believe they will be a stand-alone.”
Trumpets, Take a Hike
I scratched my head. Shouldn’t there be a war whoop? When a forgettable former Mrs. Noonan was pregnant with our first son, just like nutty peanut butter, I spread the news everywhere.
Not the adjuncts war. No whooping. “I understand that, maybe,” Ms. Jaffe said, “but they didn’t do that. They just said, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ They are not gloating.”
Hail the victors. The war is over without a shot, or a person, being fired.
Conversely, not a single firework is being set off in triumph. But picky, picky.
We are not celebrating Armistice Day. Nor are we welcoming the boys home from the filthy foxholes of war.
Sixty-seven years ago yesterday, President Truman announced the capitulation of Germany. The country was luckier than we were in Culver City, where there has been no declaration of a cessation of hostilities.
What happened?
Last month, teeth-gritters on both sides were allowing the toes of their shoes to
brush against each other. Today, sitting at the water’s edge, they may be crisscrossing sox-free ankles with each other.
What dispute?
