And they talked some more.

The first two Mondays of every month are professional development days. Students leave at 1:10 and the developing of professionalism starts promptly at 1:15 or by Delta time 1:30. Today’s program was particularly spectacular. The librarian had spent the whole day outfitting the auditorium for patriotism. Our esteemed visitors were state and national legislators and the discussion was to be about education reform and funding. Ohhh juicy. The heavy hitter was Bennie Thompson of the second congressional district even though Trent Lott state senator and renown racist was invited he did not show.

I think it is an honor that they choose to come to Shelby to host this meeting. Recently, the school has recieved publicity, recognition, and a cash award for the gains in last year’s achievement scores. The politicians spoke about education, labor, industry and a slew of other things that were not relevant to education. Then they talked some more. And some more.

Where is my panel of preachers when I need them? I think if we held a talk off or preach off between a group of politicians and a panel of preachers we would be in for quite a show. The rules would be that you pontificate until you can pontificate no more. (“No more” said with a finger waved in the air and added emphasis.) You are eliminated if you pass out from exhaustion or if your head explodes from being talked at to the point of combustion. The last man standing wins and gets preaching rights for life. Maybe he could claim the larynxes of his defeated victims. It would be a tough battle and I am not going to make any predictions, but the preachers are way more fun to listen to and they get responses from the crowd like he’s preachin’ now, go preacher, say it like you mean it, here it comes, and that’s gonna shake the room. Wait, I change my vote …odds to the preachers particularly if they get a home field advantage.

The talking continued and clock out time drew near. The rustling and squirming in the crowd signified the approach of 3:30. During the question and answer session Mr. B raised his hand to make an announcement about the pending time stating that, “It’s clock out time and the day is up and people want to get going, can we take a quick moment to let those folks who want to leave, leave?” Mr. B… is awesome, his commentary is always tremendous. He also challenged the legislators to come back next year and report if all their talking actually morphed into any action. Go Mr. B. The superintendent asked for everybody to hold tight for a few more moments since we had such eminent guests in the house. I wonder how the legislators felt. After and hour of pontificating about the things that are changing, are going to change, and that have never changed in the last 150 years but will start changing under their guidance people were ready to call it quits. Sorry folks your time is up and we are not getting paid overtime.