Wading In

Thursday, May 30, 2013 We need more restrictions on teen drivers By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | May 30, 2013 | 1 Comment When I was 15 ½ with my learner’s permit, I couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel with Mr. Bailey, my drivers education teacher at Armijo High School. My most memorable moment was when he had to step on the accelerator on his side of the special drivers ed car to get us going fast enough to enter the flow of traffic on the freeway. I had us creeping along like I was driving Miss Daisy. But when I turned 16, I got my license and my friends and I discovered a world of newfound freedom. A lot has changed. Back in the day kids couldn’t wait to get their learner’s permits at 15 ½ and license at 16. Today my almost 16 ½-year-old granddaughter is in no rush to get her license and anecdotally, her friends aren’t, either. They seem content to have parents taxi them about. Theo Huxtable’s admonition that “he who walks, walks alone” seems to be lost on this younger generation...

Thursday, May 23, 2013 2 measly years for a man’s life? By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | May 23, 2013 | 1 Comment Four teens who pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the June 2011 death of 70-year-old Travis Dairy owner Ho J. Kim were back in court this week. According to the reported terms of their plea deal, with good behavior and time served, they should be released before the end of summer. What the heck? I understand there’s a fifth teen who is being prosecuted for murder in this case, but this is all the justice these young thugs receive? I think back to my own father, who ran a liquor store in Vallejo during the mid-1980s. I worked for him and thought he was a tough boss, but to his customers he was cheerful, chatty and a fixture in the neighborhood (much like the way Ho J. Kim’s customers described him.) We were always concerned about the possibility of robbery. It eventually happened. Our assistant manager, a slightly built woman, was slapped and punched and knock...

Thursday, May 16, 2013 My most awkward teacher moment By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | May 16, 2013 | Leave Comment Mr. Scherr, my English teacher at Armijo High School, was just one of the people who responded positively to my column last week on teacher appreciation. However, writing about those influential teachers made me think of rather strange incident I had with a junior high teacher I had who we’ll call “Mr. Simmons.” Back in the 1990′s, Mr. Simmons invited me to speak to his class at a local middle school. It went off the rails early as he introduced me to the class as a stellar former eighth-grade student that had written an excellent essay on the attempted assassination of President Reagan. After my talk, I quietly informed Mr. Simmons that I was in the 10th grade at Armijo when Reagan was shot. But I thanked him for giving me credit for someone’s awesome essay. We laughed about it. Teachers have tons of students and it’s easy to get them mixed up. A year later, Mr. Simmons ...

 May 9, 2013 Blame these teachers for this column! By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | May 09, 2013 | 1 Comment This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. I hope students and parents take this week to say thank you to the people who work long, often thankless, hours shaping our children’s futures. These are the teachers who inspired me. Like my older brother Tony, I’d been in the gifted and talented program at my old school in Norfolk, Va. So when we moved to Novato in 1976, my third-grade teacher, Ms. Hutchinson, saw something worth cultivating in me. Not only did she challenge me, but she had me help my struggling classmates. She’s the one who recommended I be promoted from third grade to fifth. Lou Encalada was my sixth-grade teacher at Tolenas Elementary. While he had a great sense of humor and kidded with me often, he was also a stickler for discipline. Children with messy desks had them emptied in a pile on the floor and they had to organize them. (I was a regular.) He used calisth...

Thursday, May 2, 2013 Gun owners should drop dumb argument By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | May 02, 2013 | It’s time to shoot down the lamest argument in the gun debate. In what passes for the gun debate – whether it’s in Congress, on talk radio or in the letters to the editor of this and other newspapers – we hear opponents of tighter gun laws argue that new laws would only affect law-abiding citizens, since criminals won’t follow the laws. What if we used this logic in other areas? April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month and you may have noticed the various events SafeQuest Solano held, raising awareness and money for survivors. Never during any of the discussions did anyone stand up and ask why we even have laws against sexual assault, since rapists clearly ignore the laws. A rapist isn’t going to not rape simply because there’s a law against it. No, the law only stops law-abiding citizens from sexually assaulting people. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Laws are in place ...