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Wanderlust editor Don George goes on the road with 60 fifth-graders. BY DON GEORGE | ABOARD A GRAY LINE BUS, SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA -- william Butler Yeats wrote many wonderful poems in his day, but the one I am thinking of right now is the moving masterpiece called "Among School Children," in which Yeats casts himself as a "sixty-year-old smiling public man" visiting an English school. I am thinking of this right now because I am ensconced in a double-decker bus surrounded by 60 10-year-olds on a class trip to the California state capital: Sacramento. Yeats wasn't on a double-decker bus, which may explain why his poem never mentions barf bags, renditions of "99 bottles of beer on the wall," arguments over who gets to sit in the front, hair-pulling, head-tapping and sundry other fifth-grade activities as we approach the end of the 20th century. I have come on this trip for a number of reasons: I want to be with my daughter, Jenny, with whom I never seem to have enough time; I want to see Sacramento, which I've never visited even though it's less than 2 hours from the area I've lived in for 17 years; and I want to open a window on the world of the fifth grader in 1997. Sometimes wanderlust takes on the strangest guises. So here we are on the bus, and to tell you the truth, the kids are remarkably well-behaved. Some are playing cards, some are playing cat's cradle, some are looking at skateboarding magazines, some are whispering and giggling and then whispering some more, and some are dipping into their lunch larders and eating fruit roll-ups and chocolate-chip granola bars. It's a cloudless, sun-splashed, bright blue Northern California day, and we are passing by golden hills and green fields, but none of them, I notice, are looking out the window. Until, an hour later, we pass a vast stretch of corn and then a low green field where a half dozen cowboy-hatted men with baskets are bending and straightening, and someone shouts, "Look -- farmers!" And two dozen heads swivel, suddenly aware of the outside world. After another half hour we are cruising into downtown Sacramento, the kids and I are putting our noses to the bus windows, peering at the historic wooden buildings and the green parks and the glassy skyscrapers. Everything seems to have a government name on it. People in coats and ties sit and chat on park benches or loll on the grass with their shoes off. We like that. The bus stops near the Eagle Theater complex and we all unload. The students line up and the accompanying parents get assigned groups of six kids we're supposed to shepherd, and then we all walk down a shaded street past buildings draped with old U.S. flags, past the original California Supreme Court -- a very modest two-story corner building with tall windows -- and stop near a statue of a man on a horse. "Who do you think that is?" I ask my flock. "The Pony Express, Dad," my daughter answers, with just a touch of don't-embarrass-me-in-front- of-my-friends-OK? in her voice. "We studied it in school." So I am the only one who learns that the Pony Express originated in Sacramento and ran all the way to Missouri -- a truly staggering feat, when you think about it. Then we straggle on to the Eagle Theatre, the oldest theater in California, built in 1849 "to provide entertainment for the hordes of miners and emigrants coming to California for the Gold Rush" (as the Eagle's one-page handout says). At the theater we watch a 15-minute film on Sacramento's history, and I learn that the city grew from a hamlet of 12 buildings in the spring of 1849 to a bustling city with more than 300 buildings in the fall, and that in subsequent years it was almost completely wiped out by flood, fire and cholera. I am pressed into duty to sit among the boys and make sure they at least pretend to pay attention, but for the most part I'm superfluous. As fire ravages the city, their eyes grow wide. "Cool!" the one next to me says. After the film the docent asks the kids how many flags have flown over California in its history. I can think of two. A forest of hands shoots into the air. A boy in the back says, "Four -- the Spanish, the Russian, the Mexican and the U.S." The docent beams at the boy and then at the teachers. "Very good. You've obviously studied your California history!" I slink into the shadows. Well, when I was growing up in Connecticut, California wasn't even a state, OK? So how could I know, OK? After that we find a wide green lawn to eat our turkey sandwiches and apples. I walk over to Jenny's group and begin to rummage around in my lunch bag. Jenny looks at me. "Dad, are you planning to eat with us?" "Well, I was thinking about it. Would that be all right?" "Actually, Dad, that would make me pretty uncomfortable. Sorry," she says sweetly, " but would you mind eating somewhere else?" Ah, the joys of fatherhood. So I eat with the other parents and munchingly contemplate the passage of time. The highlight of the day for me is our post-lunch visit to the state Capitol: It's a spectacular building, intricately and gorgeously decorated on the inside. As we file through the halls -- the boys snatching the girls' cameras and pulling their hair, the girls wandering off to look at floor tiles or wall paintings, the boys surreptitiously practicing karate kicks or trying to step on each other's sneakers -- we learn that the state maintains 15 offices around the world, including Belgium, South Africa, Israel and England, and that the state's economy surpassed China's last year to make California the seventh largest economic power in the world, with a yearly production of more than $1 trillion. "What do you think is the state's largest industry?" the docent asks. "Farming!" one student replies. "Computers," another pipes up. "That's very good -- those are No. 3 and No. 4," he says. "Now, what do people watch all around the world?" "Movies!" another says, and many heads nod in agreement. "TV shows!" another adds with great relish. "That's right," the docent smiles. "Media and communications is the second largest industry. In fact, 80 percent of the world's media and communications business comes from California. Now what do you think is number one?" Everyone thinks. Even the camera-snatchers and sneaker-kickers stop to think. The docent says, "When you go to San Francisco, where are the people in the street from?" "San Francisco!" someone says. "Are all of them from San Francisco?" he asks. "No, they're from all over the world!" someone else answers. "That's right. Lots and lots of people visit San Francisco and other parts of the state every year. Now can you think what the largest industry is?" "Tourism!" several students say at once, and everyone feels very satisfied. Then we walk up the winding stairs to the Assembly Gallery, where the representatives are debating a bill. I find this view of democracy in action very thrilling, but the students around me find a little more thrilling the news that one of the boys might be holding a dance party at his house. A dance party? I think. Fifth-graders? As I ponder this, the docent is whispering that the Legislature passes between 900 and 1,000 laws a year. And while the boys are talking about dance parties, some of the legislators are behaving equally badly, ignoring the speaker and cracking jokes among themselves, riffling through papers on their desks, stretching back and yawning. It's all mind-boggling. Suddenly a caucus is called and the Democrats all file out for a meeting, just as some of the girls titter about a new relationship among their classmates. I have seen this relationship blossoming on the trip up -- if a boy repeatedly jumping into the lap of a girl on a school bus can be called blossoming. The docent takes advantage of the caucus to tell us that there are 80 assemblymen and 40 senators, and that bills have to pass both houses before going to the governor. "If the governor vetoes a bill, can the Legislature still pass it?" someone asks. "You students have really done your homework," the docent beams. The most astonishing fact for me is the last one the docent tells us: that the representatives vote on 50 to 100 bills a day. As we walk into the sunlight, I gather my group and say, "OK, let's practice a little math here. How many hours are there in a work day?" "If it's 8 to 5, that's nine hours," they say. "Right. Now let's suppose the legislators take an hour for lunch" -- one of the parents says, "Yeah, right!" -- "that leaves how many working hours?" "Eight." "Right. And the docent said between 50 to 100 bills a day, so let's say 75 in an average day. How many bills per hour is that?" They calculate. "A little more than nine." "Right. And how many minutes are there in an hour? Uh-huh. So how many minutes per vote do they have?" More head-scratching. "A little more than six." "Yup. So our representatives are voting on a bill every six minutes? Do you think they can have any idea what they're voting on at that pace?" There is a long silence as six fifth-grade minds puzzle over that one. Finally they all look at me, and shake their heads. Just like me.
- - - - - - - - - - - - Don George is the
Editor of Wanderlust. You can e-mail him at dgeorge@salonmagazine.com.
- - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Wanderlust is published every Monday evening at 6 p.m. PDT in Salon. Send all reader mail to wanderlust@salonmagazine.com. To receive a colorful weekly update on what's happening in Wanderlust, sign up here. Published articles are housed in the Wanderlust archives. |
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