1965
THE VOICE OF WILKES COMMUNITY COLLEGE
VOLUME 22, NUMBER 2
WILKESBORO, NORTH CAROLINA
NOVEMBER 15, 1991
President’s
Message
^ 'What Is Thanksgiving?’ ’ |
Dr. Jim Randolph, President
Lawyers, Snakes & Other
Creatures That Crauil
Recently I heard a story about a uni
versity that was testing the use of lawy
ers instead of rats in laboratory experi
ments. After a year, they concluded that
lawyers make better subjects in the labs
because of the following reasons:
1. There are more lawyers than rats.
2. The lab assistants don’t get att
ached to lawyers like they do rats.
3. And, there are some things that rats
won’t do.
This story is another in a long series
of lawyer-bashing jokes that are making
the rounds today. Like, "When can you
cell that a lawyer is lying?” The answer of
course is: "When his lips are moving."
Or, "What is brown and black and looks
good attached to the neck of a lawyer?”
Give up? "A doberman pinscher!”
Lawyer jokes have always been popu
lar, however, the effort by the Bush
Administration to suggest that lawyers
and the American Bar Association
(ABA) should work toward curbing
frivolous law suits has created a defen
sive posture within the law profession
and has spurred the current prolifera
tion of jokes.
Vice President Dan Quayle, himself a
lawyer, was not greeted with open arms
at a recent ABA meeting where he pre
sented the administration’s position on
the state of the profession. I’m sure,
however, that the Vice President is
undoubtedly happy that the national
sentiment has shifted from Dan Quayle
jokes to lawyer jokes.
Q. What have you got when you have a
lawyer buried up to his neck in concrete.' A.
Not enough concrete!
Although lawyer jokes are often done
in a good-natured way (after all, we all
have friends and/or relatives who are
lawyers — and they’re nice people), it is
true that increasingly we pay more for
such things as auto insurance and health
care because providers pass along to us,
the consumers, the cost of actual and
potential lawsuits, many of which we
are told are frivolous.
It is also a fact that in the United
States the number of lawyers and law
suits have increased to a staggering
amount. The U.S. has only five percent
of the world’s population, but nearly 70
percent of all the lawyers in the world
live in the U.S. The ABA estimates that
there are over 800,000 licensed lawyers
in the U.S. Vice President Quayle high
lighted this point by stating that there
are 18 million new lawsuits filed annu
ally. After all, all these lawyers have to
have something to do.
Q. What's the definition of the ultimate
waste of space? A. A bus load of lawyers
going over a cliff with two empty seats.
From personal experience, I can tell
you that lawyers have changed in their
attitude and demeanor over the past
years. Twenty years ago, when I got a
letter from a lawyer representing a dis
missed employee or a student who
couldn’t get into the nursing program, it
was typically cordial, asking if it would
be possible to meet and discuss the
problem.
Today, a typical letter from an attor
ney starts off claiming that I had, with
out a doubt, violated his client’s civil.
Thankful It’s November
The month of November has one significant holiday: Thanksgiving. This year give
thanks for a holiday with many pluses and a lack of the minuses that plague other
festive times of the year. Note these as you reach for that drumstick:
• For once you can stuff yourself as much as any turkey ever was stuffed and win
approval instead of being made to feel guilty.
• No one complair« that it takes all day to cook dinner.
• The weather is no longer hot and muggy. It’s crisp without being so cold you have
to wrap and unwrap before going in and out.
• No nerds to kiss in the New Year of curfew demands from authority figures.
• Enough national and local football for the most die-hard of fans.
• No eggs to dye or hide or go seek.
• Thanksgiving starts a long four-day weekend.
• No earaches from firecracker noise and no crowds to fight.
• Once the turkey’s stuffed and in, a leisurely pace sets in.
• No leaves to rake, lawns to mow.
• There’s always enough food left for yummy leftovers the next few days.
• No costumes to wear or trick-or-treaters to follow around or tricksters to clean
up after.
• Everyone expects to be happy Thanksgiving Day. And they are.
• No outdoor lights to string up, presents to buy and wrap, cards to mail out.
• Giving thanks day is not controversial.
So what is Thanksgiving? November’s simple holiday with a simple history, a
simple but meaningful message and all the food you can eat. What more could you
want? Be thankful!
Thanksgiving
Easier Now
In times long past, Americans labored
long and hard for the Thanksgiving _
harvest. They nursed the corn from the
ground, baked their own bread, picked
the berries, and hunted and shot that
bird.
Little wonder there were prayers of
Thanksgiving before the meal.
Today, however, one need only stop
at the supermarket and select the choic
est of the best food in the world.
A simple "thank you” and another
harvest for Thanksgiving is complete.
ini iiFM
President’s Message
continued
legal, moral and inalienable rights, and
that I was going to pay dearly for my
blatant mistake — lawyers like to use
the word blatant. He usually throws in
that he will take this all the way to the
Supreme Court and that he has won
5,000 cases just like this for a total of
$15 billion (of which, I assumed, his
clients received a total of $15.95).
As the number of lawyers has in
creased, correspondingly, the number
of people who have been harassed,
bothered, and bewildered by one or
more lawyers has increased. Certainly
this must be why people like a good
lawyer joke.
Q. How can you tell if a car hit a possum
or a lawyer? A. There are skid marks on the
road where the possum is hit.
I suppose that I shouldn’t make fun of
lawyers. Some of our students here at
WCC may be considering careers in
law. I don’t want to discourage them but
wish them the best of luck. And who’s
to say, maybe the next round of jokes
will be about college presidents.
Q. How many college presidents does it
lake to turn off a light. A. Who knows,
there have been no documented cases show
ing that a college president is smart enough
to find a light switch!
The American
Way
Make America Work For You
The reality of "Making America
Work For You,” means meeting vision
and opportunity with practical action
— the spirit of participation and public
service ... Australia, the lucky country
"down under,” where I come from and
America, the lucky country "up over,”
are both lands of great opportunity ... I
have learned from my time in your
country that America works hard,
America participates, and that America
does not shirk its responsibility in a
world that looks to it as a beacon of
freedom and leadership... It is up to the
individual to make America — or for
that matter any country — work for
themselves and their neighbor by work
ing for their country, and in a free, open
democracy like America anyone has the
opportunity to participate through pub
lic service.
— Ian Woodward
Exchange Student from Australia
Why Ak We At
WILKES
COMMUNIIY COLLEGE?
TECHNOLOGY
COMMUNHY
COMMriMENT
ACADEMICS
Good Reasons For You
To Be There Too!
Glenys Fisher -By way of Hawaii,
I came to North Carolina
On June 23, 1990,1 left my home in
Auckland, New Zealand, as part of a five
man, one woman crew, to deliver a 55-
foot racing yacht to Hawaii f9r the
Kenwood Cup Yachting Series. The 6-
week ocean crossing represented the
first leg of my quest to recapture the
romantic life I had experienced working
on a yacht in the Greek Islands ten years
earlier.
This is the story of how I came from
the waters of the South Pacific to live in
the mountains for North Carolina.
My name in Glenys Fisher. I entered
Wilkes Community College this fall in
order to take courses toward the Asso
ciate degree in Nursing. I am happy that
my odyssey led me here. It is beautiful,
the people are friendly and polite, and 1
can begin to bring my long-time ambi
tion to be a professional nurse to
fruition.
In New Zealand I lived beside the sea.
Auckland, affectionately known to it’s
inhabitants as "the city of sails,” is the
largest and most northern city in New
Zealand. It is built on an isthmus, a
bridge of land only one mile wide at it’s
narrowest point. The city, sprawling
below dormant volcanoes is edged by
two harbours, the Waitemata (meaning
"sparkling waters”) and the Manukau.
Sailing the Hauraki Gulf, sprinkled with
sparsely inhabited islands, is the avid
pursuit of sports-people and pleasure
seekers alike.
New Zealand is a paradise for those
who love the outdoors. In Moari (the
language and name of the indigenous
people who came from Hawaii some
1,000 years before New Zealand was
colonized by the English) it is called
Aotearoa, which means "land of the
long white cloud.” Aotearoa is devastat-
ingly beautiful from the peaks of the
Southern Alps to the deep fjiords; over
tumbling waterfalls inside primeval rain
forests, out to white and black sand surf
beaches that line the west and east coasts
resf)ectively.
New Zealand is beautiful, however
the Caribbean called.
After enjoying the hospitality of my
newfound American friends in Hawaii,
San Francisco, Lake Tahoe and New
port, Rhode Island, I secured a job on a
65-foot Morgan sailboat which we char
tered out of Connecticut, then delivered
to Florida. I felt very international sail
ing through New York City and cruising
the eastern coast of the USA. Upon
reaching Fort Lauderdale 1 sought out
the captain of an Ocean 80 yacht that is
based in Antigua. Hired as the cook, I
flew out with the skipper to Antigua the
next day, stopping over for two days in
Puerto Rico.
After working on the Ocean 80 for a
month or two, 1 decided to stay in the
US Virgin Islands and work on yachts
chartering out of St. Thomas. In the
Virgin Islands I met my husband with
whom I now live in a log cabin nestled in
the woods of Deep Gap.
My memories of the halcyon days in
Greece were never relived. Having
grown older, the ingredients in my
recipe for happiness have changed. 1
have found fulfillment, not from sailing
and traveling, but by enjoying stability
in my home life and. growth through
studying at Wilkes Community College.
— Glenys Fisher