President Obama this week issued a call for action through United We Serve, a summer-long community service initiative beginning on Monday, June 22, and running through the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11.

Car Care

By Coleen Armstrong

By mid-September I still hadn’t had time to do anything about my bare bulletin boards. Too much early fall paperwork. But the empty wall was beginning to get on everyone’s nerves.
 
So my senior auto mechanics class asked one day if they could tack up pictures of their cars. I shrugged. It sounded a little bizarre, but I figured it was better than nothing.
 
Within a week the board was covered with snapshots of vehicles. Trucks, jeeps, cars and mini vans, all different. The only thing they had in common was that each was in remarkably good shape. No clunkers.
 
Still, I stared at the display each day after school and shook my head. Why would anyone want to take a picture of a used car? Why would anyone want to show it off?

A Player with Promise  

By Coleen Armstrong

Paul wore his black leather jacket to school nearly every day, with torn jeans and a silver cross dangling from one ear. I watched him, his light-brown, shoulder-length hair falling across his face as he concentrated on revising a third composition draft.
 
He was a unique case, all right. He dressed like a hood, but acted like a gentleman and was at heart an intellectual. I discovered that early, on the fourth day of school, when I received his first paper. It was vivid and insightful, a refreshing change from the rest of the group, still recovering from back-to-school blues.
 
By October, we'd struck a rapport. By April, I knew this was a kid I'd be hearing from for the rest of my life.
 
One day we sat together, going over some mechanical details on one of his papers. It was spring, time to look back and analyze the past year.
 
“Any regrets?” I asked casually.