Enhancing Oregon: Resolution for 2010

May the decade ahead be anything but decadent. It's the time to set the right dynamics in motion!

Aerial view of Oregon state capitol by Tim King Salem-News.com

(SALEM, Ore.) - No, I am not thinking of joining the fearsome fray and running for Oregon's next Governor. But if I were I do have several semi-revolutionary resolutions drawn from my Fantasy World to propose.

Are there any bidders out there?

1. FIRST AID FOR NEW DRIVERS: Let's request all new drivers (many of them young people) to take First Aid training as a requirement for getting a license. A car crash can prove lethal. If just one life or limb is rescued, it is well worth the effort.

2. STATE WORKER MEMORY TRAINING: How about a memory retention workshop series for all State employees over age 55? Psychologists have that know-how, and whatever improves morale and productivity is surely in the public interest.

3. MULTI MEDIA SOCIAL STUDIES: As a onetime History major, I'd love to see a new approach rather than focus on dates and data. Let's take our Colonial Era and offer typical attire (via sewing), music of that period, and revived recipes (via cooking) to get the literal taste. What a welcome change of pace for greater involvement.

4. HEALTH ED FOR THE HOMEBOUND: I strongly urge we conduct teleconference seminars to do both prevention and treatment of common ills, especially those draining our budgets. It could prove less costly than homebound visits. And it provides for peer group support.

5. ROLE MODEL COUNSELING: Student aggresssion and bullying can morph into full-blown domestic violence and criminal acts later on. We can assign at-risk kids the task of doing an interview of someone who "keeps his cool" and directly learning the how and why. One can call this an "antidote" to contamination by reckless peers.

May the decade ahead be anything but decadent. It's the time to set those dynamics in motion!

===========================================

Salem-News.com Community Writer Barry Lee Coyne brings to our readers stories from his combined career of journalism and gerontology, and explains that these paths shaped his values. This writer-therapist often views the world as the masks of comedy and tragedy placed upon the scales of justice. For him, optimism inevitably wins. "Lyrical Lee" has traveled to 30 nations aboard and was once a press intern at the UN. His first published article was in The NY Daily News in '59, dealing with the need for integrity in public office.

He also launched the nation's first tele-conference on health education for shut-ins, created the Eldermentors project in VA to pair retirees with immigrant students needing role models, and was the main catalyst behind CCTV's "Public Public" panel show here in Salem. Lee received his BA in International Relations and an MSW in community organization. He currently serves as a member of Salem's Library Advisory Board. To send Lee an email, please write to this address: notcoy@netzero.net