Today was the vote on our local school budget, and if there is one fact as immutable as the law of gravity, it is that the Utica City School budget is ALWAYS voted down. Now, I would have no particular reason to root for its passage under normal circumstances--I attended (note that I did not say "graduated from") Utica schools, and found them only slightly more cheerful than Devil's Island. (When my high school principal died two years ago, it was very nearly the happiest day of my life.) But, irony of supreme ironies, I MARRIED a teacher in the Utica system. So I do have a reason to cheer for budget passage, not that budget passage will ever actually occur--it puts food on the table and Saranac Pilsener in the fridge.

(The "education gap" between my wife and I is nothing worth mentioning--I am Sue's third husband, and the first without a PhD. She asserts that I am smarter than either one, even as a GED-toting autodidact.)

Now, you might get the idea that the people of Utica, N.Y. are narrow-minded skinflints--and your idea would not be wrong. People have been hopping over the city line for decades to the suburban towns that invest much more in education--Clinton, Whitesboro, and New Hartford. So, who's left? You guessed it--the old cheapskates who think everything should cost what it did in 1932, and the poor whites, blacks, and latinos who can't afford to relocate. The resentment between those two groups is so thick you could spread it on toast. And the schools, as a result, are way underfunded.

So Sue and I live in the city, within one half-mile of her middle school--which makes her an exception even among teachers in the district. (Many reside in the aforementioned suburbs.) So we voted for the budget--not that it will do any good. Until we start funding our schools decently, Utica will continue to lurch toward oblivion--only the Saranac Brewery will remain standing.

(Apropos of nothing, I am listening to my Joseph Robichaux CD as I compose this--great stuff! I looked for the New Orleans Rhythm Boys reissues for years until we got the Electric Internet in our house--and found them within hours. Hooray for the Internet!)