Billy “White Shoes” Johnson turns 60 today.

He’s most remembered as the American Footballer who started elaborate end zone celebrations.

He got the nickname in High School, when he dyed his shoes white on a dare.  His height kept him from Division I schools, but he played at Widener College, a Division III school in PA.

He played for the Houston Oilers, The Canadian Fooball League, and the Atlanta Falcons!

Johnson started with the Oilers as a kickoff returner, his speed helped the offense.  He celebrated his touchdowns by doing “the Funky Chicken”, a dance stemming from the song by Rufus Thomas.  It is considered the fist touchdown celebration in the NFL.

Oddly enough, his funky chicken was more well received than Tebowing!!

So, dance on, White Shoes Johnson, dance on!

And Happy 60th Birthday from another Dragon.

Just some things in my head.

I find it odd…

…that people who are supposed to believe the same things and are members of the same political party can rip each other apart for months on end, and then come back together like nothing has happened.

… that most plus size clothing is blowsy and flowery rather than dark and slimming.

…that rather than embarrass her lover, Potemkin, Catherine the Great passed a law that said no one was allowed to blow their nose on her drapes.

…that Warren Buffet really cares what people pay in taxes.

…that Michael Jordan and Nike haven’t done something to prevent the mall mess and violence caused by each release of Air Jordans.

…we consider any country in the world an ally.

…that we think we can win in Afghanistan when the Greeks, Persians, Romans, British, and Soviet Union couldn’t when each were at the height of their power.

…we continue to pour money into places that hate us, steal from us, and trash us to the world.

…that Brad Pitt left Jennifer Anniston for Angelina Jolie.

…that “Friends” lasted as long as it did.

…and kept the same cast.

…that more people don’t feel the same way I do.

I am.

Some days, I’m really dragging too.

But, since 2012 is the year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac, and I was born in the year of the Dragon 1952, I thought I’d check it out.

Now, frankly, I think horoscopes are a bunch of hooey, and remember my Dad having a hissy when we would read ours in the Dayton Daily News.

It was just for fun, it usually never even came close, but it was playing with fire as far as he was concerned.

The Chinese Zodiac has several signs just like the one we see in the paper each day.  The Dragon is the 5th cycle or sign.

According to the websites I’ve googled, the dragon personality or being born in the year of the dragon, since the dragon is a creature of legend and a symbol of good fortune, are usually good things.

OK, how can that be.  Aren’t dragons mean, fire breathing, ripping people to shreads?

It’s a sign of intense power too.

Again, a miss.  I’ve no power…none, zip, zero.

And, since the dragon is a divine creature in Oriental cultures, and brings good fortune, people born in dragon years are respected.

Yeah, right.

Dragon people are free spirits.  OK, one right so far.  I do consider myself a free spirit, and since conformation is an anathema to the dragon, I’ll go for two.  I have, in my dotage, become a bit of a non-conformist.  But in my younger days…

Dragons think rules and regulations are for other people.  Oh, crap.  This guy’s good!

Restrictions smother the creative flames of the dragon, dragons are free and uninhibited.  I’m not so sure about this one.  My inhibitions are probably normal.  The Creative piece, well, I HOPE I’m as creative as I think I am.

Dragons are beautiful, colorful, flamboyant, bundles of energy, gifted and irrepressible.

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.  Colorful:  my closet is full of black.  Flamboyant:  well…ok, maybe.

Gifted:  aren’t we all?

Irrepressible:  hardly.

But, some of this crap stuff hits the nail right on the head.  Dragons do things on a grand scale.  I would, if I had the means.  Really, I love grand things.  I have big ideas, make ornate gestures, and am ambitious.

Dragons are supposed to be fearless.  Another miss:  I’m not.  Dragons are mostly successful:  really, can we define success?

Dragons are usually enthusiastic, but that usually leaves them tired and unfulfilled.  I’m not so sure it’s the enthusiasm so much as the working all the time that leaves me tired and unfulfilled.

I suppose it’s all a guessing game.  After all, the people who came UP with this stuff were born a jillion years before I was.

One thing I find interesting is that dragon people are supposed to have generous personalities which give them the ability to attract people and make friends.  But in the end, they are really loners at heart.  They love to help, but their pride gets in the way when they need help.  And they have trouble making close bonds with others.

Honestly, doesn’t this sound like a lot of people you know?

One site summed it UP by saying that Dragons are innovative, enterprising, flexible, self-assured, brave, passionate, conceited, tactless, unanticipated, scrutinizing, and quick tempered.

Which immediately pissed me off!

I am sure this has been national news.  Who knew boring Gwinnett County could make such a stink.  After all, we’re most famous for the Runaway Bride and being known as the place where Larry Flynt (happy Jan) was shot.

But, headlines galore, a math teacher at Beaver Ruin Elementary School, which is across the street from ‘that place where I work’, has been front page news for several days here.

Doing what the school board has encouraged them to do, a teacher gave a math test which combined a social studies lesson with math.

The result was a brouhaha that enraged parents, prompted protests, calls to the Principal, school board, and picketing.

Really getting to work was a bee-atch, and well, in the end, it’s all about me.

After teaching the kids about slavery – which, I might add was a reality – and following direction of integrating (no pun intended) courses, a teacher created a math test with questions such as those pictured below.

Parents were outraged.

Furious, UP in arms, on the phone, in the faces of everyone who would listen.

The social studies lesson was about Frederick Douglas, a former slave, who was beaten, and if not cotton, I’m sure picked something.

Slavery was and remains a horrid thing.  It should be taught as a lesson of what not to do, and the teachers (there were four who used the test) were doing their job by combining lessons as directed, and reinforcing both math and social studies.

Now, one of them as resigned.  Luis Rivera, left his/her (I’m not sure as to the gender of the teacher) job on January 18 amid a personnel investigation.

I would venture to guess, and this is merely an educated guess, that Rivera had a choice, resign or get fired and lose his/her teaching credentials.  It’s happened before.  Teachers rarely get fired, they chose to resign.

The other three are still under investigation, and we…shall see.

The school board is using the old saw that the test “failed to undergo a content review”,  I say, caca del toro.  Tests are made UP every day and very few of them are reviewed.

Frankly, I have in the past made UP test on the fly, asking the questions as I went.  There was no review.

In an elementary school where 88% of the students are either Black or Hispanic – which leads us to the conclusion that fewer than 12% are Caucasian, allowing for Asians, of which in that area there are many, it isn’t the usual Black/White discrimination story.

More than 50% of the faculty and staff at the school is ‘non-White’ as well.

This isn’t a race thing.

It is just an ill-advised plan being implemented in an ill-thought out way, by dedicated teachers who were trying to balance all the balls and dance as fast as they can at the same time.  It was bad judgement, not maliciousness, as some parents would have us believe.  One angry couple, featured in the AJC, were scowling in the picture while their happy, smiling child showed them the paper.

I’ll admit, beating and picking cotton aren’t pretty things, and better examples could have been used, but they happened.

Get the hell over it!

Slavery existed, math haunts us today, and kids need to learn both.  So, if you want an integrated curriculum, plan it better or live with what you get.