Lance Armstrong hates Plano Texas
666
July 23, 2004
To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
By THOMAS KOROSEC
PLANO - New York City has had an official Lance Armstrong Day, and
Austin has had two.
But here in the town where the cycling star was raised, Armstrong's
name is as apt to invoke expressions of discomfort and regret as
celebration, even as he closed in this week on an unprecedented sixth
straight win in the Tour de France.
"If they held a Lance Armstrong Day, he'd probably boycott it," said
Jack English, principal of Bending Oaks High School in Dallas, from
which Armstrong graduated in 1989.
In fact, Plano officials invited Armstrong back on at least four
occasions in 1999 and 2000 to celebrate his own day and to name a
hike-and-bike trail in his honor. "We never received a response, so we
dropped the effort," said Don Wendell, director of parks and
recreation. "In his book, he wasn't very complimentary about us."
That's putting it mildly.
In his ghostwritten 2000 autobiography, It's Not About the Bike,
Armstrong calls this Dallas suburb of 240,000 residents
"soul-deadening" and conformist to a fault.
Born in Dallas, Armstrong moved with his family to an apartment in
suburban Richardson, then to a house in Plano, when he was young.
"It was the quintessential American suburb, with strip malls, perfect
grid streets and faux-antebellum country clubs in between empty brown
wasted fields," he writes. "It was populated by guys in golf shirts
and Sansabelt pants and women in bright fake gold jewelry, and
alienated teenagers."
If you were not upper middle class or a football player, he writes,
"you didn't exist."
As the son of a secretary, who raised him as a single parent, and as
an aspiring athlete with little hand-eye coordination and no skill at
moving laterally, he was neither.
"I felt shunned at times," he recalls in the book. "I was the guy who
did weird sports and who didn't wear the right labels." Kids in the
"social" group made fun of his Lycra shorts.
His adolescent resentments became fuel for his competitive fire, he
writes. "Back then I was just a kid with about four chips on his
shoulder, thinking, 'Maybe if I ride my bike on this road long enough
it will take me out of here.' "
Armstrong's most pointed criticism he saves for Plano East Senior High
School, "one of the largest and most football-crazed high schools in
the state."
In the second semester of his senior year, he was invited by the U.S.
Cycling Federation to train for the next season's Junior World
Championships, his first big international bike race.
School administrators objected to him missing six weeks of school, and
told him and his mother he would not graduate if he skipped school to
train. "I knew damned well that if I played football and wore Polo
shirts and had parents who belonged to the Los Rios Country Club,
things would be different," Armstrong recalled 11 years later.
His mother persuaded Bending Oaks High School, a tiny private school
located in a north Dallas office park, to give Armstrong credit for
his 3 1/2 years at Plano high schools, and after just a few months in
attendance he earned his diploma.
Within a year, he moved to Austin and has lived there since, when not
training in France, California or Spain, where Armstrong, now an
international celebrity with a rock-star girlfriend, also has a house.
"It's a disappointment," said Rick Gurney, owner of Plano Cycling and
Fitness bike shop. "We have someone who we should be able to claim as
our own but he's not willing to give us that. I think his book gives a
reasonable explanation about his feelings, though it's not one any of
us would like to hear."
Gurney's shop is plastered with posters of Armstrong and products he
endorses: bikes, helmets, sunglasses, clothing.
Even if it is unrequited, "we love Lance," said Chris Mathews,
president of the Plano Bicycle Association. "We have 200 members out
there every Saturday morning trying to be just like him."
At Richardson Bike Mart, in an adjacent suburb, manager Woody Smith
said he did not think people and cyclists in Plano and Richardson are
more interested in Armstrong's Tour de France bid than they are
elsewhere in the state. "I thought people would be doing more," he
said.
The store held a Tour-watching party last weekend and plans to hold
another this weekend, as the race ends.
Armstrong's family got a deal from the store's owner, Jim Hoyt, on his
first bike, a Schwinn, when he was 7 years old, and Hoyt has remained
an Armstrong friend. "We have a pretty big Lance shrine," said Smith.
In 1989 and 1990, Armstrong rode for the store's team in his first
professional stint.
On Wednesday, as Armstrong solidified his lead in the Tour by winning
a time trial up the mountain switchbacks of L'Alpe d'Huez,
administrators at Plano East were setting up their offices for the
start of another school year.
None wanted to talk about Armstrong, the most successful athlete the
school ever produced.
"Nobody has anything they want to share," said Debbie Weaver, the
office administrator. Around the school's main lobby there are track
and football trophies, and not a hint of Armstrong.
"I haven't read his book," said Weaver. "But I've heard a little about
what's in it."
Meanwhile, the Tour de France was front-and-center on TV in the small
reception room that makes up the main entry of Bending Oaks.
"We've been following it very closely all through July and it's
brought back a few alumni," said Doug McNamara, the school's
president. "Lance coming to this school is pretty much an untold
story. People are constantly telling us we should exploit it more."
He said he has resisted.
"We're a tiny school and we're so proud of him," McNamara said. "He
was trying to find himself at that age like so many kids. It was on a
bike that he did."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RonSonic
>Houston Chronicle
>July 23, 2004
>
>To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
>Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
>By THOMAS KOROSEC
He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
Ron
John Forrest Tomlinson
JT
Leisa
"666" <son...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com...
> Houston Chronicle
> July 23, 2004
>
> Born in Dallas, Armstrong moved with his family to an apartment in
> suburban Richardson, then to a house in Plano, when he was young.
>
> "It was the quintessential American suburb, with strip malls, perfect
> grid streets and faux-antebellum country clubs in between empty brown
> wasted fields," he writes. "It was populated by guys in golf shirts
> and Sansabelt pants and women in bright fake gold jewelry, and
> alienated teenagers."
>
> If you were not upper middle class or a football player, he writes,
> "you didn't exist."
>
>
He described Plano pretty accurately. Burleson is the same way, on a
smaller, cheaper, white-trash scale.It's a little Plano-wannabe.
Leisa
SteveR
RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
I'm 50, and I can't think of any great words to characterize the NYC
suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
"outgrow" that crap as well :)
Could it be that Plano is and was to a degree as he described? His
recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
Jim Flom
> Very cool that he's willing to diss people that dissed him.
Yeah, not many people are willing to do that. Right.
explorer
> a time trial up the mountain switchbacks of L'Alpe d'Huez,
> administrators at Plano East were setting up their offices for the
> start of another school year.
>
> None wanted to talk about Armstrong, the most successful athlete the
> school ever produced.
>
> "Nobody has anything they want to share," said Debbie Weaver, the
> office administrator. Around the school's main lobby there are track
> and football trophies, and not a hint of Armstrong.
<<SNIP>>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
In other words, "Sure we treated him like crap as a kid and we still do, but
hey, that doesn't mean he shouldn't kiss our ass."
Steve Blankenship
news:texxdriver-8A774...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
Yeah, I lived there in the late 80's; used to see him around on the
occasional Bike Mart ride or such. Sounds pretty close to me. And no, it
doesn't make it at all unusual; it's just some suburb where a kid for
whatever reason didn't fit in, so he found another path. One which seems to
have gone pretty well for that particular kid... ;-)
Richard Adams
I'm 44 and have got back for highschool reunions 0 times. The way Lance
describes Plano East HS pretty much fits the school I graduated from.
If you weren't from a rich family or a jock you were invisible, or even
weird. It's hard to feel any strong desire to go back and see a bunch
of people who were jerks to you ages ago, I would be as well off just
standing on a sidewalk, greeting people and shaking their hands. I have
since met a few people I went to school with, though now I've left that
city and it struck me as odd that some of them actually remembered me,
though we were never friends, much less acquantances.
Richard Adams
> Very cool that he's willing to diss people that dissed him.
>
> JT
What? You didn't know Lance could carry a grudge? (note: not talking
about where you park your car)
njs
"SteveR" <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:texxdriver-8A774...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
Plano is a hellhole, and exactly what Lance says. Its tacky little suburban
facade disquises the fact that it's a hotbed of heroin and coke smuggling
and dealing, that just about the leads the world in teenage drug deaths in
the last few years.
B. Lafferty
was going back to her high school reunion in Port Arthur, Texas. She just
said, Yup, Janis is go'in back." The smirk on her face said more than the
words ever could.
"666" <son...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com...
james
666 <son...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>In his ghostwritten 2000 autobiography, It's Not About the Bike,
>Armstrong calls this Dallas suburb of 240,000 residents
>"soul-deadening" and conformist to a fault.
If you've ever seen Plano, you surely understand this.
RonSonic
>In article <ta48g0lrn547air2t...@4ax.com>,
> RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
>>
>> >Houston Chronicle
>> >July 23, 2004
>> >
>> >To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
>> >Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
>> >By THOMAS KOROSEC
>>
>> He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
>>
>
>
>I'm 50, and I can't think of any great words to characterize the NYC
>suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
>"outgrow" that crap as well :)
Hey, I went to the same oversized, football-obsessed, dehumanizing high school
in the same shitty suburb, except on the outskirts of Cleveland. I'm not quite
50, so neener neener, I beat you to it.
>Could it be that Plano is and was to a degree as he described? His
>recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
I don't think he's lying about the place, just lacking some perspective. Every
place is like that to some extent or has it's local version of the problems he
had there.
Ron
John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
>"John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote...
>> Very cool that he's willing to diss people that dissed him.
>
>Yeah, not many people are willing to do that. Right.
>
I wasn't clear. A lot of people will not do that when the former
dissers suck up in a big way, which the people of Plano seem to be
doing. But he doesn't care. That's cool.
JT
Chuck
"Richard Adams" <ack...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:ce16pa$q...@dispatch.concentric.net...
<snip>
> ... I have
> since met a few people I went to school with, though now I've left that
> city and it struck me as odd that some of them actually remembered me,
> though we were never friends, much less acquantances.
>
I guess that goes to show you that people mature over the years. Maybe it's
time that YOU do the same...
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.726 / Virus Database: 481 - Release Date: 7/22/2004
Jim Flom
With you on that one.
LivingReminder
news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com:
> Houston Chronicle
> July 23, 2004
>
> To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
> Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> By THOMAS KOROSEC
>
> PLANO - New York City has had an official Lance Armstrong Day, and
> Austin has had two.
>
> --------
I can testify since I lived and worked there for close to 10 years.
Evervbody in town never met a rightwing fundamentalist christian they
didn't love. They have a Baptist church there that is the size of Madison
Square Garden. The reason they had those heroin problems with the rich kids
is because their parents are so screwed up with their money and telling
their kids all answers are in the Bible.
Like Armstrong I moved to Austin, the only good place to live in Texas.
Jim Flom
> This reminds me of Janis Joplin on the Dick Cavet show telling him that
she
> was going back to her high school reunion in Port Arthur, Texas. She just
> said, Yup, Janis is go'in back." The smirk on her face said more than the
> words ever could.
There's a closure about "going back." Maybe someday Lance will get to that
place, too.
Richard Adams
> "Richard Adams" <ack...@concentric.net> wrote in message
> news:ce16pa$q...@dispatch.concentric.net...
>
>
> <snip>
>
>>... I have
>>since met a few people I went to school with, though now I've left that
>>city and it struck me as odd that some of them actually remembered me,
>>though we were never friends, much less acquantances.
>>
>
>
> I guess that goes to show you that people mature over the years. Maybe it's
> time that YOU do the same...
See, I didn't have any friends among my class. Well, one, but he moved
75 miles away before graduation. Most of my friends went to the other
HS in town, but I'd feel funny attending their reunions.
blueraja
Same here, my High School experience was horrible at best, I was a good
student but went to a DOD school on a military base..my father was an
officer and when I fell for the daughter of an enlisted man suddenly I was
outcast to just about everyone. My school was so full of cliques it was
insane...first it was divided into officers kids and enlisted kids then into
jocks, preppies, headbangers and geeks. I was in mosty AP classes and
prefered the Golf team and Drama classes over Football and the Key Club so I
guess I was a geek. I have been invited to 2 reunions so far but have had
no desire to go back, my wife (who is that same girl from high school) wants
to sometime but I just see the point. Ive done alright for myself, have 3
kids and have been married for 14 years but ir rather forget them than rub
something in their faces....sounds like Lance would rather do the same as
well.
I really hate it when towns try to latch on to anyone who has any level of
success...then feel like the person owes them. Plano should just take it as
a lesson and just accept that what goes around comes around.
Howard Kveck
Richard Adams <ack...@concentric.net> wrote:
> I'm 44 and have got back for highschool reunions 0 times. The way Lance
> describes Plano East HS pretty much fits the school I graduated from.
> If you weren't from a rich family or a jock you were invisible, or even
> weird. It's hard to feel any strong desire to go back and see a bunch
> of people who were jerks to you ages ago, I would be as well off just
> standing on a sidewalk, greeting people and shaking their hands. I have
> since met a few people I went to school with, though now I've left that
> city and it struck me as odd that some of them actually remembered me,
> though we were never friends, much less acquantances.
Well, the mid to late teen years are tough ones anyway, from a "what's
my place in this bunch of people" standpoint. I think most people's
recollections of it are possibly a bit worse than reality. Being ignored
isn't exactly the worst thing (in the long run), but there are always some
who did go out of their way to case on the "odd ones". Having said that, I
didn't think I had a great time in HS, but at this point in time, it was
probably nowhere near as bad as I thought it was then (though no reunions
here, either, as I just don't know that I care enough to make the effort).
--
tanx,
Howard
So far, so good, so what?
remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
Richard Adams
Yeah, my school was full of cliques and I was a geek. I came from a big
family and wore hand-me-down clothes. I studied electonics and
printing, both of which contributed heavily to my future. I couldn't
compete in any sports, because parents forbade it, so no connections
there. It was pretty much like Beverly Hills 90210, Trans-Ams in the
parking lot, kids with parents cabins up north for partying, everyone
going someplace on holidays, etc. and I probably only had two friends in
all my HS days. Doesn't seem worthwhile to make a trip back to see a
bunch of people I had nothing to do with back in the day. Probably the
worst reason would be to make fun of all the bald, fat people, but
that's not my character and I'd probably be missing out on decent
weekend rides to boot.
> I really hate it when towns try to latch on to anyone who has any level of
> success...then feel like the person owes them. Plano should just take it as
> a lesson and just accept that what goes around comes around.
>
>
Well, it wasn't just Plano, but his biological father's family which
tried to make contact after he became famous that he took umbridge with,
too. Lance carries chips on his shoulders, but to some degree I can
agree with him on it. I was pretty much one of the lower castes in HS
and if I suddenly became famous I'd be a bit put-off if those people I
went to HS with all those years ago suddenly went around telling people
that they went to HS with me, to rub some glory off my accomplishment,
not because they were ever friends. Perhaps an honest response to the
question, "So how did you know [person]?" of "Oh, I only passed him in
the hall a few times or had him in a class, but never said 'Hi' to him
or anything", would be appropriate and revealing.
This is a bit of a karmic thing. Treat everyone as a friend and some
day when you need friends you will not go wanting. Too bad kids are
like that. A lesson, by example, from a friend years back underscored
how important it can be to treat everyone with respect and courtesy.
B. Lafferty
"Jim Flom" <jim...@telusREMOVE.net> wrote in message
news:GMVMc.89950$Rf.36137@edtnps84...
I agree with you on that, but I think his closure will come when he can meet
and love his biolgical father for the imperfect human that he is.
Ken Leander
"Jim Flom" <jim...@telusREMOVE.net> wrote in message
> "John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote...
> > Very cool that he's willing to diss people that dissed him.
>
> Yeah, not many people are willing to do that. Right.
>
running back is now bald with bad knees and works at Home Depot. Valley
girl 'Buffies' suckled babies and now slap their sons hard on the back of
their heads saying "Don't you WANT to play football like your FATHER!?" The
kids mutter 'yeah', but they really mean NO.
Lance found a way to make lots of money. That's cool. Sheryl Crow whispers
sweet nothings in his ear. Even better. But, it's still the same old
story. The cool jock got the cool chick. Like David Letterman says:
"It's all like highschool, only with money."
Personally, I won't buy the LANCE book and could care less if he peddles
faster than frenchman. Oh, I would care deeply if I owned a bicycle shop.
But I don't.
Ken Leander
Austin, Texas
John Forrest Tomlinson
<kenle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>"Jim Flom" <jim...@telusREMOVE.net> wrote in message
>news:ITUMc.89839$Rf.36705@edtnps84...
>> "John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote...
>> > Very cool that he's willing to diss people that dissed him.
>>
>> Yeah, not many people are willing to do that. Right.
>>
>Oh hell, everybody is dissed in high school.
> And, that cool high school
>running back is now bald with bad knees and works at Home Depot. Valley
>girl 'Buffies' suckled babies and now slap their sons hard on the back of
>their heads saying "Don't you WANT to play football like your FATHER!?" The
>kids mutter 'yeah', but they really mean NO.
>
It's normal to be cliquey and have disagreements with other people in
high school (and in life). But it's not right for there to be a
systematic in/out thing that's supported by the school and the
community. I'm sure that football is a fine sport that teaches a lot
of good life lessons for some participants. But if the school
administration and community as a whole are really into that to the
neglect of other stuff and other kids, that's wrong. That's bad.
JT
Chuck
"Skipper" <skipsp...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:250720041554231738%skipsp...@charter.net...
<snip>
>
> What he doesn't mention is that Plano can be so damned bad it was the
> heroin capital of North Texas last time I checked. The day the water &
> sewer department of the city fired me and messed up my college program
> was a fine day in retrospect because I got the hell outa there and
> eventually made something of myself in Hollywood. :-)
Hey Skipper!!
How's it going?
I remember you now from Hollywood.
How's Gilligan and that hottie, Mary Ann doing these days?
Jim Flom
>
> I agree with you on that, but I think his closure will come when he can
meet
> and love his biolgical father for the imperfect human that he is.
Because in the end, it's all about reconciliation with the Father, eh? :-)
B. Lafferty
"Jim Flom" <jim...@telusREMOVE.net> wrote in message
Or is that Mother? Perhaps a Committee? ;-)
Howard Kveck
"B. Lafferty" <Ma...@Italia.com> wrote:
Village...
TritonRider
>I think that sports, in general, can teach a lot of good life lessons
>but football might be the exception.
>
>
Then you've never played. Yet another Dumbass heard from.
Bill C
Chuck
<snip>
> See, I didn't have any friends among my class. Well, one, but he moved
> 75 miles away before graduation. Most of my friends went to the other
> HS in town, but I'd feel funny attending their reunions.
>
Get over it...
I was in the same boat in high school. I didn't have any "close" or "good"
friends friends. I had 3 or 4 "acquaintances" that I "hung around" with
though.
We were all more into building hot rods, street racing and dirt track racing
than we were into football and your normal high school sports.
I can't remember much about my other "friends", but I know that I barely
scraped through high school, making C's and D's. I actually had to go to
summer school in 9th or 10th grade. In other words, I wasn't into sports and
wasn't very academically gifted.
I don't know that people actually laughed and made fun of us, but they sure
didn't talk to us or acknowledge that we even existed.
While the other kids wore Polo shirts, etc, we wore "Harry's Hot Rod" and
"I'd rather push a Chevy than drive a Ford" type shirts and ragged jeans.
We didn't fit in at all, but we were happy in our own group and didn't want
to "fit in" with the other kids.
I didn't go to my ten year reunion, because I am just not a person that
likes "banquet" type events and didn't want to go because of that, not
because people ignored me in school.
I missed my 20 year reunion last year because I couldn't get off of work to
go. For some reason, I actually wanted to go to this one. I guess that I
want to prove to myself that eventhough I was a "dork" or whatever in
school, I am still just as good as the guy that was handed his dad's company
on a silver platter and has been the school board president in the past and
is currently a board member, and the others just like him.
I am now married with a 9 year old son, I have a good job (16 years), I make
a decent living, although I am not rich and I do live paycheck to paycheck,
I have a nice house and own 2 nice vehicles. I went back to school full time
(between 18 and 20 semester hours per semester) during the day while working
10 hour shifts at night, and have completed a "certificate" course . I only
need about 3 more classes to get my degree, but the school (Tarrant County
College) won't let me get the degree because I didn't take an FAA
administered test at school, but took it at another location. I am going to
take the required courses though, just for my satisfaction, eventhough TCC
is to chicken shit to give me the piece of paper.
If the "cool" people don't wish to acknowledge me after all of these years,
that is their problem, and I could really care less. That is just that much
more proof that I am a BETTER person than they are nowdays...
Lady Veteran
Hash: SHA1
On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
>If you were not upper middle class or a football player, he writes,
>"you didn't exist."
>
>As the son of a secretary, who raised him as a single parent, and as
>an aspiring athlete with little hand-eye coordination and no skill
>at moving laterally, he was neither.
>
>"I felt shunned at times," he recalls in the book. "I was the guy
>who did weird sports and who didn't wear the right labels." Kids in
>the
>"social" group made fun of his Lycra shorts.
This is not the first time I have heard about Plano.
Too bad. How does a city overcome its reputation as a snob?
An apology and acknowledgement of its deeds would probably go a long
way.
LV
Lady Veteran
- -----------------------------------
"I rode a tank and held a general's rank
when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank..."
- -Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil
- ------------------------------------------------
People who hide behind anonymous remailers and
ridicule fat people are cowardly idiots with no
motive but malice.
- ---------------------------------------------
For every person with a spark of genius, there
are a hundred more with ignition trouble.
- -Unknown
- -------------------------------
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Lady Veteran
>On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
>
>>Houston Chronicle
>>July 23, 2004
>>
>>To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
>>Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
>>By THOMAS KOROSEC
>
>He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
>
>Ron
what crap? He was treated badly and there was no excuse for it. Plano is still
doing it to others so ther is no repenting. Ever have car trouble in Plano?
Don't. If you inconvenience a Plano drive you are vermin.
LV
Lady Veteran
-----------------------------------
"I rode a tank and held a general's rank
when the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank..."
-Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil
------------------------------------------------
People who hide behind anonymous remailers and
ridicule fat people are cowardly idiots with no
motive but malice.
---------------------------------------------
For every person with a spark of genius, there
are a hundred more with ignition trouble.
-Unknown
-------------------------------
Robert
"njs" <elev...@giveadamn.com> wrote in message
news:F9VMc.14059$mL5....@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> "SteveR" <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:texxdriver-8A774...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
> > In article <ta48g0lrn547air2t...@4ax.com>,
> > RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
> > >
> > > >Houston Chronicle
> > > >July 23, 2004
> > > >
> > > >To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
> > > >Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> > > >By THOMAS KOROSEC
> > >
> > > He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
> > >
> >
> >
> > suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
> > "outgrow" that crap as well :)
> >
> > recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
>
suburban
> facade disquises the fact that it's a hotbed of heroin and coke smuggling
> and dealing, that just about the leads the world in teenage drug deaths in
> the last few years.
>
>
I have friends living in Plano.
It is an ugly place (it is just plains and ugly plains at that) with boring
subdivisions and houses "that are boxes made out of ticky-tacky and they all
look just the same."
I can believe that Plano is high in teenage drug deaths; it is a boring
little republican place where the parents are too busy with their careers
and their socializing and all the other society bs to take care of their
kids.
Leisa
"Jim Flom" <jim...@telusREMOVE.net> wrote in message
Too many of those towns full of phonies will suddenly claim "one of their
own" when he makes it big. I'm glad that he seems to have the attitude of
"You didn't claim when I was nobody, so you can't claim me now". Score one
for everyone who ever felt like they didn't fit in.
Leisa
Robert
"blueraja" <blue...@knoc.rspamr.com> wrote in message
news:RWVMc.20692$MX5...@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com...
Yeah, my high school was the same way, until a couple of years after I
graduated.
Then came the drug culture. Now this was back in the seventies so the drugs
being used were not the same as the ones now.
Kids were smoking pot together which wasn't really that bad (as compared to
drinking which is I feel more dangerous). But there were no longer cliques
and everyone was kind of accepted, it didn't matter how you dressed or where
your parents worked or where you lived or what kind of car you drove.
At the college I went to, in contrast to all the frats, the heads formed an
OD fraternity. The initiation was very simple. All you had to do was smoke
a joint with someone and you were in. We no longer cared where people came
from or what their major was or who socio-economic class they were in. We
just wanted people who were real and trying to be happy.
Drugs can be dangerous (heroin, etc.). But all we did was smoke a little
reefer (OK, a lot of reefer) and drop some acid and listen to the Beatles
and Dylan and the Dead and everyone was welcome.
Speaking of the Dead, there was no snobbery in that band. Jerry Garcia came
from the poor side of town while Bobby Weir came from a wealthy family, one
of the elite families on the Penisula. In no other era, under no other
circumstances, would they travel in the same circles.
Robert
"Ken Leander" <kenle...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ce1b59$g1p$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu...
I am very happy for him and glad he overcome all the obstacles to get where
he is.
And in this age of Americans being so hated, I think it is wonderful that
Europe, and especially France, idolizes an American, and an American from
Texas at that.
CJT
<snip>
>
> In other words, "Sure we treated him like crap as a kid and we still do, but
> hey, that doesn't mean he shouldn't kiss our ass."
>
>
... which might be a pretty accurate description of Plano in general.
--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.
RJG
"Lady Veteran" <arm...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:arj8g0t8104p598us...@4ax.com...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>>
>
> An apology and acknowledgement of its deeds would probably go a long
> way.
>
> LV
Yeah, and monkeys will fly out of my butt..............
explorer
--
"We've got better vision. We've got better ideas.
We've got real plans. And we've got better hair."
-- John Edwards, 07 Jul 2004
"RJG" <non...@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:MNZMc.186702$XM6.45497@attbi_s53...
Can you do that later? I'd like to see it but I;m battling a virus and
don't know if my stomach could take it.
PK
"Leisa" <l...@spring.com> wrote in message
news:TlUMc.28658$8_6.1662@attbi_s04...
>
> "666" <son...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com...
> > Houston Chronicle
> > July 23, 2004
>
> >
> > suburban Richardson, then to a house in Plano, when he was young.
> >
> > "It was the quintessential American suburb, with strip malls, perfect
> > grid streets and faux-antebellum country clubs in between empty brown
> > wasted fields," he writes. "It was populated by guys in golf shirts
> > and Sansabelt pants and women in bright fake gold jewelry, and
> > alienated teenagers."
> >
> > If you were not upper middle class or a football player, he writes,
> > "you didn't exist."
> >
> >
>
> smaller, cheaper, white-trash scale.It's a little Plano-wannabe.
Yup, I bet they were clambering all over Kelly for a while to put the place
on the map just the same way that Plano might have been over Lance. However,
maybe Kelly was more grateful to her school, given that she hadn't had so
long to contemplate how school may have affected her. I guess Lance is a
world record holding cyclist and Kelly is probably in the "in crowd" anyway.
As for Plano, if they cared so damned much for cyclists they would do more
to promote cycling in their city and the surrounding areas - I'm surprised
Lance wasn't mowed over by an SUV while he was training during attendence at
East Plano HS. Too little too late HS - my HS focussed heavily on sport
also; if you weren't in the A-teams you weren't anybody to the narrow minded
school governors that knew the promotion of sport was the best promotion of
their school as the place to be.
PK
>
> Leisa
>
>
SteveR
LivingReminder <liv...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote in
> news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com:
>
> > Houston Chronicle
> > July 23, 2004
> >
> > To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
> > Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> > By THOMAS KOROSEC
> >
> > PLANO - New York City has had an official Lance Armstrong Day, and
> > Austin has had two.
> >
>
> > --------
>
<snip>
> Like Armstrong I moved to Austin, the only good place to live in Texas.
That doesn't say a lot for texas.
Moorehead Johnson
> In article <1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com>,
> 666 <son...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >In his ghostwritten 2000 autobiography, It's Not About the Bike,
> >Armstrong calls this Dallas suburb of 240,000 residents
> >"soul-deadening" and conformist to a fault.
>
> If you've ever seen Plano, you surely understand this.
I'm a rabid Lance fan (I've also lived in Plano), but permit me to
make an observation - maybe someone could identify the suburb in
America that ISN'T "soul-deadening", "conformist", etc? I grew up in
a suburb of Phoenix. It was soul-deadening and conformist. I was a
geek, a band nerd, and picked on. I hated the cliques and the jocks.
I was also a cyclist, thanks to a teacher who turned me on to cycling
as a freshmen. My geek friends and I would cycle all over hell and
gone every weekend, but in the late seventies, we had no American
cycling heroes - we did all go see the movie "Breaking Away" a dozen
times and dreamed of winning bike races, which none of us ever did.
Since then, I have lived in a dozen states and half a dozen countries.
Invariably, when people I have come to know harken back to their high
school days, they ALL talk about how they were outcasts, how horrible
the cliques were, how the jocks got the girls, how the cheerleaders
got the jocks, and how the geeks got picked on. I'm gonna go out on a
limb and estimate that 75-80% of all high school students EVER
considered themselves outcasts, geeks, and picked on. Lance's
experience was not unique, although I'm sure he probably felt it was
at the time. I wonder if Lance realizes that that 75-80% of the
students at Plano East NOW feel exactly like he did then, and that for
him to show up in Plano for a parade or an event or something would be
an awesome, inspiring event for the geeks and outcasts that feel
solidarity with him...
Again, this is NOT intended to be anti-Lance flame at all - I've
followed his career for years, contribute to his foundation, and am a
HUGE fan. I just wonder if he realizes how many budding "Lances" are
probably in Plano right now who would LOVE to see him come back to the
town where he was raised and provide some moral support.
MJ
SteveR
"njs" <elev...@giveadamn.com> wrote:
> "SteveR" <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:texxdriver-8A774...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
> > In article <ta48g0lrn547air2t...@4ax.com>,
> > RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
> > >
> > > >Houston Chronicle
> > > >July 23, 2004
> > > >
> > > >To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
> > > >Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> > > >By THOMAS KOROSEC
> > >
> > > He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
> > >
> >
> >
> > I'm 50, and I can't think of any great words to characterize the NYC
> > suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
> > "outgrow" that crap as well :)
> >
> > Could it be that Plano is and was to a degree as he described? His
> > recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
>
> Plano is a hellhole, and exactly what Lance says. Its tacky little suburban
> facade disquises the fact that it's a hotbed of heroin and coke smuggling
> and dealing, that just about the leads the world in teenage drug deaths in
> the last few years.
Rich kids, dangerous drugs, fast cars, death - who would have imagined?.
SteveR
RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 15:24:36 -0500, SteveR <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >In article <ta48g0lrn547air2t...@4ax.com>,
> > RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
> >>
> >> >Houston Chronicle
> >> >July 23, 2004
> >> >
> >> >To Lance, hometown just a bad memory
> >> >Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> >> >By THOMAS KOROSEC
> >>
> >> He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
> >>
> >
> >
> >I'm 50, and I can't think of any great words to characterize the NYC
> >suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
> >"outgrow" that crap as well :)
>
> Hey, I went to the same oversized, football-obsessed, dehumanizing high school
> in the same shitty suburb, except on the outskirts of Cleveland. I'm not quite
> 50, so neener neener, I beat you to it.
Cleveland?
I think I've heard of that - it's a restaurant on I-95 near Dillon, GA,
right? The heart of Rock and Roll, as we've been told, but how's the
chicken-fried steak?
> >Could it be that Plano is and was to a degree as he described? His
> >recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
>
> I don't think he's lying about the place, just lacking some perspective. Every
> place is like that to some extent or has it's local version of the problems he
> had there.
He's not lacking perspective, he's relating it. After all, even he has
to admit that Plano to some degree had an effect on his achievement.
Cancer, Plano - all the same thing.
dreaded
"Chuck" <ch...@host.invalid> wrote in message
news:o4XMc.20704$Mi6....@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com...
Alan? They said you were dead!
dreaded
"Moorehead Johnson" <moorehea...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:b752db1f.04072...@posting.google.com...
Ya definitely sounds like Phoenix, texas wannabe (and who in their right
mind would?) insane place, will never return.
-a
Grumpy au Contraire
He probably is one of the "non-jocks" that actually made it big, another
reason for be inspired...
--
JT
Just tooling through cyberspace in my ancient G4
gwhite
666 wrote:
>
> Houston Chronicle
> July 23, 2004
...
> In the second semester of his senior year, he was invited by the U.S.
> Cycling Federation to train for the next season's Junior World
> Championships, his first big international bike race.
>
> School administrators objected to him missing six weeks of school, and
> told him and his mother he would not graduate if he skipped school to
> train. "I knew damned well that if I played football and wore Polo
> shirts and had parents who belonged to the Los Rios Country Club,
> things would be different," Armstrong recalled 11 years later.
>
> His mother persuaded Bending Oaks High School, a tiny private school
> located in a north Dallas office park, to give Armstrong credit for
> his 3 1/2 years at Plano high schools, and after just a few months in
> attendance he earned his diploma.
Wonderful. A chance to annoy the rbr king doofus who would certainly not give me permission to turn
this into a school voucher thread.
> "We've been following it very closely all through July and it's
> brought back a few alumni," said Doug McNamara, the school's
> president. "Lance coming to this school is pretty much an untold
> story. People are constantly telling us we should exploit it more."
He should. Weakening the public school stranglehold is performing a community service.
"The time is long overdue to get rid of the outdated notion that liberal Democrats represent
ordinary people. They represent such special interests as trial lawyers who keep our courts clogged
with frivolous lawsuits, busybody environmentalists who think the government should force other
people to live the way the greens want them to live, and of course the teachers' unions who think
schools exist to provide their members with jobs." -- Thomas Sowell
"The ratio of Democrats to Republicans among liberal arts professors at universities is routinely 20
to one. And the deans, the presidents, the curricula, the speech codes and the campus newspapers are
all liberal. Liberals also run the schools of education, the law schools, the high schools and the
elementary schools." -- Dennis Prager
"The goal of state schools is to churn out obedient citizens, not educated ones." -- Nick Ebinger
"And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual.
Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school
is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are
pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps." --
H.L. Mencken
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams090303.asp
To the doofus who is qualified to be a public school teacher: ...|.,
Richard Adams
> If you read his first book you would remember
> how he was denied his diploma, or something
> along those lines. Probably why he wants
> nothing to do with Plano High.
>
> I remember when all the kids in Plano were
> commiting suicide in order to get some
> attention....
>
> FLAT, DUSTY, HOT, DRY and BORING summarizes
> Plano pretty well. It's no wonder most of
> the kids from there are crack heads.
I found kids as bored and addicted to alcohol and drugs in Aspen, CO.
It has nothing to do with where kids are raised and everything to do
with how they are raised, and that includes the town and it's approach
to children. Cut out funding for after school activities, build malls
instead of parks, etc. what do you expect? Seems more than half of
America hates the kids of the rest.
Leisa
"PK" <pk_...@SpAmMeNoT.att.net> wrote in message
news:RXZMc.325975$Gx4....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Pretty much. Kelly is 15 years younger than me, so I was long gone from
Burleson before she was even in kindergarten.Only link we have aside from
same home town is that her high school principal was my high school band
director :)
As a contrast, I now live in Grand Prairie, where Nikki McKibben is from.
Burleson: Kelly, Kelly everywhere.
Grand Prairie: not so much as a peep to acknowledge Nikki even exists.
Leisa
Johnny
and where can they be bought? I'm not interested in Tour de France,
I'm just worried about my balls.
RonSonic
wrote:
Well said. That's the sort of perspective that I was talking about. And BTW, it
ain't just the suburbs.
Ron
John Forrest Tomlinson
(Moorehead Johnson) wrote:
>I'm a rabid Lance fan (I've also lived in Plano), but permit me to
>make an observation - maybe someone could identify the suburb in
>America that ISN'T "soul-deadening", "conformist", etc?
I don't have experience with suburbs as a youth, but perhaps some of
the western suburbs of Boston. And maybe some like Willamette outside
Chicago?
>. I'm gonna go out on a
>limb and estimate that 75-80% of all high school students EVER
>considered themselves outcasts, geeks, and picked on.
That makes is even worse.
JT
Chuck
<snip>
> Better than Tina Louise, little buddy.
Hey!! The Skipper called me "little buddy" !!!!!
Now how cool is that?!?!?!
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.726 / Virus Database: 481 - Release Date: 7/23/2004
gooserider
"SteveR" <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:texxdriver-8A774...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
> RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
> >
> > >July 23, 2004
> > >
> > >Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> > >By THOMAS KOROSEC
> >
> > He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
> >
>
>
> I'm 50, and I can't think of any great words to characterize the NYC
> suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
> "outgrow" that crap as well :)
>
> recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
I'm 34 and I still won't go to my high school reunions. Small town Louisiana
was not friendly to the kid with the funny shorts and leather hairnet helmet
and no money. I wouldn't go back if you paid me.
Moorehead Johnson
Steve, I think by "perspective", Ron might be describing the ability
most of us get as we age to realize that the experiences we had with
cliques and jerks in high school in whatever town we grew up in were
NOT unique, and to hold an entire town responsible for the behavior of
snotty rich kids, bullies, and asshole school administrators is simply
immature. Let me put it another way - I've lived in Austin, Lance's
adopted home town, for 15 years now. Austin is a town Lance clearly
loves. I've been to several Lance parades down Congress avenue, as
well as LAF concerts at auditorium shores. Lance obviously has NO
problem with Austin events - he attends them, and expresses gratitutde
to the city, Austin fans, etc. But guess what? The same cliques, the
same high school jerks, the same soul-robbing, conformist teachers and
administrators populate this town, too. Right now, as we speak, kids
in high schools all over Austin hate this town and can't wait to
leave, vowing never to return. While I certainly understand the
feelings - I had them myself growing up - it is perspective that
allows me to differentiate what happened during four years of high
school with reality. Lance is an adult, he can do what he wants,
obviously, but as I mentioned in another post, I wonder if he realizes
that by snubbing Plano, he is snubbing kids with the same feelings he
had growing up...kids who would be awestruck and inspired by a visit
from him.
MJ
Marty
up. I'm from a *small* midwestern town, had my share of scrapes as a
teen but was quite popular overall, and I still couldn't wait to get
out of there. Many people stayed and a surprising number left then
returned. I just can't stomach all that monotony, ignorance and blind
faith. You stay in that little rut in the road long enough, and (how
scary is this) you must start to feel like it's normal to shop at the
mall every weekend, eat at those horrid chain restaurants (tgif, olive
garden...), watch nascar and live for the next tailgating party. Felt
like staying there would have warped my soul.
-K (in Montreal)
Jim Flom
>
> >. I'm gonna go out on a
> >limb and estimate that 75-80% of all high school students EVER
> >considered themselves outcasts, geeks, and picked on.
In crossing the line from the 'burbs to work with urban kids, I found much
LESS racism/stereotype, greater harmony and greater tolerance for diversity,
including who hangs with who. When overwhelmed with diversity one has little
choice but to embrace it. This countered the assumptions of some of my
suburban friends.
Jeff Williams
> In article <1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com>,
> 666 <son...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>In his ghostwritten 2000 autobiography, It's Not About the Bike,
>>Armstrong calls this Dallas suburb of 240,000 residents
>>"soul-deadening" and conformist to a fault.
>
>
> If you've ever seen Plano, you surely understand this.
>
found that the city planners in Plano were far less incompetant that
their counterparts in most other cities in which I've lived.
Yes, there are too many SUV (stupid user vehicles) for my liking, but I
never felt out of place riding my bike.
Yes, there were plenty of cookie-cutter strip malls. Yes, the high
schools are arranged to win the state football championship. But if
those are the worst things about the place, that ain't bad.
As for cliques, I ignore them. If someone chooses to ignore me because
I don't meet their criteria for being important, that person is probably
too stupid for me to really enjoy their company anyway.
I enjoyed living in Plano.
RonSonic
wrote:
>SteveR <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<texxdriver-66D2B...@comcast.dca.giganews.com>...
Thanks, this is pretty well just how I see it. True, some places are better than
others, and even moreso, some places are better for a particular person than
others. Lance may not have appreciated the football culture of his school, how
would a kid 6'2, 240lbs with good lateral movement have felt in a neighborhood
obsessed with cycling, or say X-country skiing. Even in a football school that
same kid is facing challenges and insecurities that are universal for a young
man trying to do something in this world. Lance may have felt ignored - would he
rather have had 10,000 people in the stands analyzing his stance and whether his
inside shoulder was up or down - blaming him if the blocking scheme fails or he
drops a pass.
Lance has vindicated himself by any measure. Doesn't guarantee the next
generation of kids with shaved legs wearing those sissy shorts is going to have
it easy. But it could help and Lance can make it easier for them. Actually this
is probably the general trend anyway, more sports, more variety in what is seen
as a worthy sport. Maybe that hasn't hit Plano, yet. Maybe it won't. Whether it
does or not all the kids who don't swim with the other fishies are going to be
beating against the stream and the ones who do will be measured by how perfectly
in sync they are with the school. Either way, it'll be painful from time to
time.
I get the impression that Lance rides angry and uses that for motivation. He may
not want to give up his grudge with Plano. Whatever works. But for most of us
there's a time to realize just how small our critics and naysayers were. A point
where we realize that the coach who gave us such grief was himself living in a
very small box defined by his own limitations of which he was painfully aware
and the kids who tried (however successfully) to act superior and cool were
themselves utterly desperate. And maybe all of this is a bit exaggerated as
everything around Armstrong seems to be.
Anyway, the riders in his home town could benefit from a visit by Lance. Maybe
he'd want to be quiet about it and keep himself to the people who helped and are
following in his tracks. Even cooler.
Ron
Moorehead Johnson
> On 25 Jul 2004 19:38:00 -0700, moorehea...@hotmail.com
> (Moorehead Johnson) wrote:
>
> >I'm a rabid Lance fan (I've also lived in Plano), but permit me to
> >make an observation - maybe someone could identify the suburb in
> >America that ISN'T "soul-deadening", "conformist", etc?
>
> I don't have experience with suburbs as a youth, but perhaps some of
> the western suburbs of Boston. And maybe some like Willamette outside
> Chicago?
You can't be serious. Willmette??? The setting for Risky Business?
John Hughes High? C'mon, dude - EVERY suburb in and around Chicago is
ripe with kids who feel exactly like Lance felt.
>
> >. I'm gonna go out on a
> >limb and estimate that 75-80% of all high school students EVER
> >considered themselves outcasts, geeks, and picked on.
>
> That makes is even worse.
Worse than what?
bigben
<kenle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Lance found a way to make lots of money. That's cool. Sheryl Crow whispers
>sweet nothings in his ear. Even better. But, it's still the same old
>story. The cool jock got the cool chick.
Does LA still have his recreational equipment with the cancer and all?
B. Lafferty
"gooserider" <goose...@mousepotato.com> wrote in message
news:lH6Nc.25$DZ.5...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
Tom Paterson
>Wonderful. A chance to annoy the rbr king doofus who would certainly not
>give me permission to turn
>this into a school voucher thread.
Noticed you tried, anyhow.
>He should. Weakening the public school stranglehold is performing a
>community service.
There are any number of private schools, most everywhere, that you can send
your kids to (assuming you have children). Or home school them. The
"stranglehold" is that the public schools pretty much have to accept any and
all, while the private schools can hoist up their panties and only accept the
exceptional, and boot out any who don't toe the line ("conformity").
Doublespeak as usual.
>"The time is long overdue to get rid of the outdated notion that liberal
>Democrats represent
>ordinary people. They represent such special interests as trial lawyers who
>keep our courts clogged
>with frivolous lawsuits,
Translation: "Cost good businessmen money when their defective products cause
injury or loss of life". This is a constant, take away the little guy's right
to recoup loss, and to punish the big guys for wrongdoing. Profit is holy,
little people are dirt.
>busybody environmentalists who think the government should force other
>people to live the way the greens want them to live,
Yeah, sometimes. Other times, polluting at will, endangering workers and local
residents. See: Maquiladoras. Bad things happen where there are no "green"
regulations.
>and of course the teachers' unions who think
>schools exist to provide their members with jobs." -- Thomas Sowell
Boy, if there are two things any good neocon hates, it's unions and teachers.
>Liberals also run the schools of education, the law schools, the high schools
>and the
>elementary schools."
Liberals run the LAW SCHOOLS??? O my God. Whopper whopper whopper, a three-whop
alert on that one. Need I recite the history of the law school at UT Austin,
for example?
>A school
>is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and
>tender; therein they are
>pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with
>official rubber-stamps." --
>H.L. Mencken
And having the schools run by religious nutcase neocons is going to *reduce*
pressures for conformity? Just how in hell is *that* supposed to happen?
If you don't pay taxes, where is your voucher money going to come from, gwhite?
Taken from someone else at the point of a gun? --TP
Ken Leander
> >news:ITUMc.89839$Rf.36705@edtnps84...
> >> "John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote...
> >> > Very cool that he's willing to diss people that dissed him.
> >>
> >> Yeah, not many people are willing to do that. Right.
> >>
> >Oh hell, everybody is dissed in high school.
>
> > And, that cool high school
> >running back is now bald with bad knees and works at Home Depot. Valley
> >girl 'Buffies' suckled babies and now slap their sons hard on the back of
> >their heads saying "Don't you WANT to play football like your FATHER!?"
The
> >kids mutter 'yeah', but they really mean NO.
> >
>
> It's normal to be cliquey and have disagreements with other people in
> high school (and in life). But it's not right for there to be a
> systematic in/out thing that's supported by the school and the
> community. I'm sure that football is a fine sport that teaches a lot
> of good life lessons for some participants. But if the school
> administration and community as a whole are really into that to the
> neglect of other stuff and other kids, that's wrong. That's bad.
>
> JT
I played saxophone in the band. When the gladiators took the field, we
tooted and cheered. When they won, it was fun. When they lost, it was sad.
When they were hurt, we were hurt. But when you have to go to every single
game...over and over... the fun fades and the sadness wanes. It simply
becomes boring. I felt sorry for the kids playing the game. They were
pushed too hard by parents, school, and their fellow students. It was all
supposed to be a sport for fun and exercise. It was never supposed to
matter who won or lost. Life lessons? I doubt it.
The band was supposed to be about music, not pep-rallies, and gladiator
sports in the coliseum. So I quit the band in my senior year. I played
tennis. That was fun. I don't regret it. I never expected to stay in Fort
Worth for the rest of my life. I liked my high school friends but I never
wanted to keep them forever. We were all forced into the same school, for
the same reasons. We were constantly evaluated and judged, like livestock
at the county fair. When the bell rang, we moved to the next pen and grazed
on that subject for 50 minutes. Most of our subjects were chosen for us.
Our time was structured. Our thoughts were channeled. What is there to
like about that?
It doesn't matter which town or school system Lance was marched through.
Most US school systems are the same. Those who look at life a little
differently are socially isolated in our cookie cutter culture. Some kill
themselves. Many more are just miserable. I also worry about those who
thrived in that conformity. They seem like soulless automatons.
Life really is wonderful. It felt wasteful to dedicate so much of it to a
unionized educational production facility closely resembling the structure
of a Federal prison. Is there any wonder so many people want to talk about
their experiences in this thread?
Ken Leander
Ken Leander
Ken Leander
"gwhite" <gwh...@TaxesInstitutes.com> wrote in message
news:4104854B...@TaxesInstitutes.com...
...
> To the doofus who is qualified to be a public school teacher: ...|.,
Too many fingers there bud!
Brandy Alexandre
news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com:
> "It was the quintessential American suburb, with strip malls, perfect
> grid streets and faux-antebellum country clubs in between empty brown
> wasted fields," he writes. "It was populated by guys in golf shirts
> and Sansabelt pants and women in bright fake gold jewelry, and
> alienated teenagers."
Why did that suddenly remind me of the "prettiest girl in the whole
development" Citibank ad?
Actually that sounds better than I first pictured a place named "Plano,"
but his memories of the place are pretty common for the outcast teen. I'm
sure he'd hold any city in the same low regard from the same point-of-view
experiences. It's not the city's fault.
Clovis Lark
> son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote in
> news:1c7b1b07.04072...@posting.google.com:
>> "It was the quintessential American suburb, with strip malls, perfect
>> grid streets and faux-antebellum country clubs in between empty brown
>> wasted fields," he writes. "It was populated by guys in golf shirts
>> and Sansabelt pants and women in bright fake gold jewelry, and
>> alienated teenagers."
> Why did that suddenly remind me of the "prettiest girl in the whole
> development" Citibank ad?
Twirl
(Kinky Friedman)
Just a small-town girl
Till you learned to twirl
Then you set the world on fire
LiKe a drive-in Cinderella
In a Chevy named Desire
So leave your teddy-bear
At the county fair,
Honey, Hollywood’s on the phone,
For a small-town girl
From a small-town world
You’re a long, long way from home.
They say that dreams come true in Indiana
That Momma loves you up in Abilene,
And if you wish upon a star in Texarkana
Some day you may be a twirling queen.
Just a small-town girl
Till you learned to twirl
Then you set the world on fire
LiKe a drive-in Cinderella
In a Chevy named Desire
So leave your teddy-bear
At the county fair,
Honey, Hollywood’s on the phone,
For a small-town girl
From a small-town world
You’re a long, long way from home.
Then you turned around and yesterday was over,
Childhood’s like some long lost lullabye
Way back when all the pearls were in the ocean,
Way back when all the stars were in the sky.
Just a small-town girl
Till you learned to twirl
Then you set the world on fire
John Forrest Tomlinson
(Moorehead Johnson) wrote:
>>
>> >. I'm gonna go out on a
>> >limb and estimate that 75-80% of all high school students EVER
>> >considered themselves outcasts, geeks, and picked on.
>>
>> That makes is even worse.
>
>Worse than what?
Worse than only a few people feeling alienated.
JT
gwhite
Tom Paterson wrote:
>
> >From: gwhite
>
> >Wonderful. A chance to annoy the rbr king doofus who would certainly not
> >give me permission to turn
> >this into a school voucher thread.
>
> Noticed you tried, anyhow.
>
Dumbass, you weren't the doofus I was talking about.
PK
I'm assuming Nikki didn't write a book dogging her HS and the city. :-)
PK
> Leisa
>
>
Mike
Yes.
John Smith
>
> In article <o4XMc.20704$Mi6....@newssvr24.news.prodigy.com>, Chuck> > news:250720041554231738%skipsp...@charter.net...
> >
> > <snip>
> > >
> > > What he doesn't mention is that Plano can be so damned bad it was the
> > > heroin capital of North Texas last time I checked. The day the water &
> > > sewer department of the city fired me and messed up my college program
> > > was a fine day in retrospect because I got the hell outa there and
> > > eventually made something of myself in Hollywood. :-)
> >
> >
> > Hey Skipper!!
> >
> > How's it going?
> >
> > I remember you now from Hollywood.
> >
> > How's Gilligan and that hottie, Mary Ann doing these days?
>
> Better than Tina Louise, little buddy.
Now THAT was funny! Good one! (Still LOL)
John
gwhite
Tom Paterson wrote:
>
> >From: gwhite
> >Liberals also run the schools of education, the law schools, the high schools
> >and the
> >elementary schools."
>
> Liberals run the LAW SCHOOLS??? O my God. Whopper whopper whopper, a three-whop
> alert on that one. Need I recite the history of the law school at UT Austin,
> for example?
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/davidhorowitz/printdh20030421.shtml
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams090303.asp
"Meanwhile, freshmen at William College can explore such esoteric areas as an English course on
“man’s desire ... to take, order, idealize and copy nature’s bounty while humanizing, plundering and
destroying the environment” even though there is no comprehensive course in history..... University
academics will resist an attempt to make them accountable to those who pay their salaries. One
solution: Remove obstacles to accountability, such as tenure. At the same time, privatize as much of
the university system as possible so that it becomes responsive to “clients”—that is, to the parents
and students who purchase and consume its services." --
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/031111McElroy.html
"By the way, there is one last academic danger you must face: the commencement address. This
bromide-filled talk invariably reinforces the same falsehoods you have heard in your classrooms. The
speaker will tell you that your highest moral obligation is to choose a career in which you pursue
not your own interests, but those of society. You will hear the statement that self-sacrifice is the
noblest ideal for which any American could strive.
The truth is exactly the opposite. America was founded on the principle of individualism, the
principle that the individual is sovereign and has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. In America, virtue was meant to consist not of self-negation, but of
self-assertion--not of collective servitude, but of individual achievement. Defying centuries of
statist political thought, the Founding Fathers declared for the first time that the individual does
not exist to serve the government, but that the government exists solely to protect the rights of
the individual." --- http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2787
> >A school
> >is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and
> >tender; therein they are
> >pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with
> >official rubber-stamps." --
> >H.L. Mencken
>
> And having the schools run by religious nutcase neocons is going to *reduce*
> pressures for conformity? Just how in hell is *that* supposed to happen?
"Socialization
The primary advantage of socialist education, we are told, is socialization. [LOL] The ability to
sniff the behinds of those around you, and ascertain your position in the pack, your place in the
pecking order. In adult prisons, rapists help to put and keep 'fresh meat' in its place. In kiddy
penal institutions, bullies serve the same purpose. Several studies, including my own MS thesis,
have measured the social maturity of home-educated children. This characteristic is normally far
higher in kids who were raised in their families, than in those who were surrendered to The Lord of
the Flies. It's easy to pick out the home-schooled kids at family reunions. They're the ones who can
organize the younger cousins into games, or comfortably discuss politics with the sober aunts and
uncles.
If most people today could aspire to government work from high school graduation to retirement,
public education might make sense. Training people to beg permission before using the bathroom makes
them more dependable line workers. In terms of preparation for the real world, however, the
home-schooling family links effort with reward, input with output, in a direct manner that social
promotions obscure. The discipline of independent learning, imparted early, equips kids with the
preparation they need to excel on the university level. The typical home-educated child can handle
selected community college classes soon after he hits puberty, and hungers for adult-sized
challenges."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/smedley1.html
"The biggest difference is that successful schools teach in ways that are directly the opposite from
what is fashionable in the public schools in general. Successful schools spend their time on the
three R's, they teach reading with phonics, they memorize multiplication tables, and -- above all --
they have discipline, so that a few disruptive students are not able to prevent all the others from
being educated.
Despite the self-serving claim from the teachers unions that successful schools for minorities skim
the cream from the public schools, often these successful charter schools or other private schools
admit students on the basis of a lottery, so that those they take in are no better than those they
don't." -- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell092503.asp
"Many of the pronouncements coming from those who run our public schools range from fallacies to
frauds. The new book 'No Excuses' by Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom exposes a number of these
self-serving lies.
You may have heard how hard it is to find enough teachers — and therefore how necessary it is to
raise salaries, in order to attract more people into this field. One example can demonstrate what is
wrong with this picture, though there are innumerable other examples.
A young man who graduated summa cum laude from elite Williams College decided that he wanted to be a
teacher. He sent letters and resumes to eight different school districts. Not one gave him even the
courtesy of a reply.
Does that sound like there is a teacher's shortage? Moreover, any number of other highly qualified
people have had the same experience.
The joker in the deal is that, no matter how highly qualified you are, your desire to become a
teacher is not likely to get off the ground unless you have jumped through the bureaucratic hoops
that keep people out of this field — thereby protecting the jobs of unionized incompetents who are
already in our schools.
The most important of these hoops is taking unbelievably dreary and stupid courses in education.
Using these costly and time-consuming courses as a barrier, those in the education establishment
"maintain low standards and high barriers at the same time," as Secretary of Education Rod Paige has
aptly put it.
Factual studies show no correlation between taking these courses and successful teaching. Private
schools are able to get good teachers by hiring people who never took any such courses. That is
where our Williams graduate finally found a job.
The very people in the education establishment who maintain barriers to keep out teachers are the
ones constantly telling us what a shortage of teachers there is — and how more money is needed. This
is a scam that has worked for years and will probably work for more years to come." --
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell092603.asp
I bet you could write your own "silly letter." --
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100103.asp
I bet you could write the book.
> If you don't pay taxes, where is your voucher money going to come from, gwhite?
Uhmmm,.... my pocketbook?
> Taken from someone else at the point of a gun?
No dipshit, that's how you took *mine*.
While it is a change in topic, I get the feeling you are a Moore-on:
http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm
Justme
> Austin has had two.
>
> But here in the town where the cycling star was raised, Armstrong's
> name is as apt to invoke expressions of discomfort and regret as
> celebration, even as he closed in this week on an unprecedented sixth
> straight win in the Tour de France.
>
> "> In his ghostwritten 2000 autobiography, It's Not About the Bike,
> Armstrong calls this Dallas suburb of 240,000 residents
> "soul-deadening" and conformist to a fault.
>
He is dead on about my city, unfortunately...if you are above average
or below average in the Plano schools, you are screwed...they don't
know what to do with a kid who is NOT average and mainstream. The PESH
Theater Group made it to state competition and they were all but
ignored by the school, even though they came in second, I believe...no
send off, no pep rally, nothing. But by gosh, every other SPORT gets a
pep rally send off.
And heaven help a team that comes in anything less than 1st place in
any sport in this city--my daughter's city volleyball team got
chastised by their coach because even though they came in FIRST place
for the season, they dared to come in 2nd for the end of season
tournament. They were told by the COACH that they "just didn't want to
be in first place as badly as the other teams did". I have seen a
father DRAG his 2nd or 3rd grade girl off the field by her elbow
because the girl didn't live up to her father's expectations...fathers
who spew their 2nd grader's softball stats around right after a game,
mothers who scream horrible things at their kid playing soccer.
Bravo for Lance...I have lived in this city for 11 years now and I
always wondered why he was always listed as being from Austin and why
Plano was never mentioned.
El Nino
> "SteveR" <texxd...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:texxdriver-8A774...@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
> > In article <ta48g0lrn547air2t...@4ax.com>,
> > RonSonic <rons...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On 25 Jul 2004 12:18:39 -0700, son...@yahoo.com (666) wrote:
> > >
> > > >July 23, 2004
> > > >
> > > >Armstrong grew to detest Plano in high school years
> > > >By THOMAS KOROSEC
> > >
> > > He's only 33, it takes many guys a little longer to outgrow that crap.
> > >
> >
> >
> > I'm 50, and I can't think of any great words to characterize the NYC
> > suburb in which I spent the majority of my HS years, but maybe I'll
> > "outgrow" that crap as well :)
> >
> > Could it be that Plano is and was to a degree as he described? His
> > recollections could be applied to just about any suburb.
>
> facade disquises the fact that it's a hotbed of heroin and coke smuggling
> and dealing, that just about the leads the world in teenage drug deaths in
> the last few years.
I can't STAND Texans. Full of BLOWHARDS with low morals. Good for
Lance that he ROSE above it all, thanks to his wonderful mother. He
owes Plano NOTHING.
Moorehead Johnson
You sounds like you had an awfully cheerful adolescence....must've been nice.
MJ
Moorehead Johnson
Sorry to pee on your parade, but that wasn't my experience at
all...when I moved to a very urban neighborhood in Chicago from the
suburbs, I saw the exact opposite - blacks on their own streets,
hispanics in their own streets, and whites on their own streets. In
the urban highschools, black kids hung out with other black kids,
hispanic kids hung out with hispanic kids, and white kids just tried
to avoid being beaten up daily. Embracing diversity is the problem,
not the solution. Perhaps if we'd stop trying to embrace "diversity"
and instead embraced commonalities, like dropping the hyphens
(african-americans, hispanic-americans, etc)and acknowledging and
embracing the fact that we're all Americans, a greater level of
tolerance for our differences would emerge.
MJ
Moorehead Johnson
> > > PLANO - New York City has had an official Lance Armstrong Day, and
> > Austin has had two.
> >
> > But here in the town where the cycling star was raised, Armstrong's
> > name is as apt to invoke expressions of discomfort and regret as
> > celebration, even as he closed in this week on an unprecedented sixth
> > straight win in the Tour de France.
> >
> > "> In his ghostwritten 2000 autobiography, It's Not About the Bike,
> > Armstrong calls this Dallas suburb of 240,000 residents
> > "soul-deadening" and conformist to a fault.
> >
>
>
> He is dead on about my city, unfortunately...if you are above average
> or below average in the Plano schools, you are screwed...
Just like in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and bumfuck Iowa. It's
the same in every American city, homie, large and small.
MJ
John Forrest Tomlinson
(Moorehead Johnson) wrote:
>"Jim Flom" <jim...@telusREMOVE.net> wrote in message news:<hL8Nc.118431$eO.98589@edtnps89>...
>> "John Forrest Tomlinson" wrote...
>> >
>> > >. I'm gonna go out on a
>> > >limb and estimate that 75-80% of all high school students EVER
>> > >considered themselves outcasts, geeks, and picked on.
>>
>> In crossing the line from the 'burbs to work with urban kids, I found much
>> LESS racism/stereotype, greater harmony and greater tolerance for diversity,
>> including who hangs with who. When overwhelmed with diversity one has little
>> choice but to embrace it. This countered the assumptions of some of my
>> suburban friends.
>
Moorehead, there is an attribution problem here -- I did not write any
of the text above. The quote marks are right, but my name shouldn't
be included.
JT
John Forrest Tomlinson
(Moorehead Johnson) wrote:
>> He is dead on about my city, unfortunately...if you are above average
>> or below average in the Plano schools, you are screwed...
>
>Just like in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and bumfuck Iowa. It's
>the same in every American city, homie, large and small.
>
I loved my high school -- it was great for me. And I wasn't an
average kid.
JT
Jim Flom
> On 27 Jul 2004 08:00:22 -0700,
As I read it, Moorehead correctly reflects the comments as coming from me.
I don't dispute a word of his, either. My experience was limited and
anecdotal, but it was refreshing and unexpected. I'll add that (again) in
my experience suburbanites have an irrational fear of urban communities and
their residents based mostly on lack of first-hand experience and their own
distorted assumptions.
JF
Justme
> Actually that sounds better than I first pictured a place named "Plano,"
> but his memories of the place are pretty common for the outcast teen. I'm
> sure he'd hold any city in the same low regard from the same point-of-view
> experiences. It's not the city's fault.
Plano got it's name from the first settlers who thought that the word
"plano" was the Spanish word for "plain". The area was all plains and
farmlands back then. Obviously, the first settlers wee not Spanish
speaking!
And then we have the phrase "Plano Princess". A verrrrryyyyyy common
thing to say around here. One of the other high schools in town has a
student parking lot that during the school year is FILLED with brand
new sport cars, etc...that are filled up with Daddy's credit car every
week.---no hand me down cars there except in the teacher parking lot!
One reason I am relieved my kids go to PESH..out of all the schools,
it is at least somewhat more balanced in the $$ field since it is in
"East Plano" and has a more diverse and NORMAL population. Ask anyone
from the area about the East Plano vs West Plano deal and you will get
an earful. The further west you go in the city, the houses quadruple
in square footage for every few miles that you go. By the time you get
to the western city limits, you start mistaking houses for hotels.
Supoosedly they are redistricting and my youngest will have to go to
one of the richer high schools. BUT she is going to take advanced
classes and those are only offered at PESH <the school that gave Mr
Armstrong a hard time> so we will get a reprieve. PESH fought to get
the district's advanced classes offered ONLY at their school because
they had a "dumb jock, no smart kids" reputation amongst all the
senior high schools and now that they have the IB <advanced> classes.
All the super smart kids who join IB in Plano, HAVE to go to PESH.
So,yeah you get snooty kids at PESH and the football atmosphere is
nauseating but the kids are not the princes and princesses of West
Plano.
At our relatively new sports center I overheard the following: there
were some black young men playing basketball and one of our team mom's
turned her nose up in the air and said "The city must be renting out
our courts to other city's kids...I mean, you know, the kids don't
look like they are from here".
SteveR
moorehea...@hotmail.com (Moorehead Johnson) wrote:
That's about the best post I've seen in this thread.
Is the US is becoming tribal?
SteveR
lp9...@aol.com (Justme) wrote:
> >
> > Actually that sounds better than I first pictured a place named "Plano,"
> > but his memories of the place are pretty common for the outcast teen. I'm
> > sure he'd hold any city in the same low regard from the same point-of-view
> > experiences. It's not the city's fault.
>
>
> Plano got it's name from the first settlers who thought that the word
> "plano" was the Spanish word for "plain". The area was all plains and
> farmlands back then. Obviously, the first settlers wee not Spanish
> speaking!
You have your history wrong. The first settlers had a dictionary, and
thus:
--Definition: Plan"o*blast, n. [Gr. ? to wander + -blast.]
Any free-swimming gonophore of a hydroid; a hydroid medusa.---
This is because in the early days, gonophores and Planonians simply
dynamited a hole in the backyard to make a swimmin' hole. The practice
was outlawed in 1496, and Plano dropped "blast" from its name.
RonSonic
It's full of humans. That's the default organizational structure among that
species.
Ron