Johnson Rod

My last blog pointed out how proud I was of ridding our house of ants, then followed that achievement by painting the entire downstairs of our two-story house. But since pride goeth before a fall, I could almost count on something else popping up at home to quell my enthusiasm.

Sure enough, only hours after last Saturday’s blog was posted, our air conditioning unit went on the fritz. Luckily, our home is cooled by two pumps – one for the upstairs and one for downstairs -- with the pump failing for the upstairs. Everyone in the family stayed downstairs for the remainder of Saturday and all of Sunday, with the temperature upstairs reaching 99 degrees one time when I checked.

The repairman was at our house at 8 a.m. Monday and gave me a detailed explanation of the problem, and I was pleased that the bottom line for fixing the unit was only $120.

“Yeah, it was your start capacitor,” the repairman began to tell me. “Those capacitors used to run on oil but the government ended all that with the environment thing, so now every capacitor wears out after maybe three years of torque-starts to cycle the motor.”

“Do what?” I thought to myself.

I can hold a pretty good conversation about cars and most home improvement projects, but air conditioners and furnaces – not so much. The guy could have told me that the air conditioner needed a new Johnson rod and I would have gone along with it.

Sorry. Only Seinfeld fans would understand that Johnson rod reference.

The Bell Tolls

Back when I attended grades K-12 and then took six years to earn my four-year college degree, I never began a school year prior to Labor Day weekend. The first day of a new school year was always Sept. 5 or 6 or 7.

That’s why it always surprises me when wife Jenny, a teacher at Spring Hill (Tenn.) Elementary School, begins every school year at the end of July. Jenny was back at school this week on July 25 to attend teacher and administration meetings in anticipation of students arriving back to class this coming Monday, Aug. 1.

But there is actually a method to this madness of being in school with basically two months of summer remaining, as current-day temperatures hover around 95 degrees. Spring Hill and the rest of the overseeing Maury County Public Schools district adheres to a year-round school calendar, with everything beginning in late July and ending in late May. The late May graduation is one advantage of year-round schools – I never graduated from any grade prior to June 14 or 15.

Plus the year-round schools get two weeks of vacation in October, a long Christmas vacation, and a two-week vacation in the spring. However, that is being altered a bit this year by having some days cut from both the fall and spring vacations, then those cut-days are being added to dates throughout the year that will allow for a few three-day weekends and a few four-day weekends.

Jenny says she likes the year-round calendar.

“We still get a full two months for summer vacation, and looking forward to that break in October is really nice,” she says.

So good luck, Spring Hill Elementary and all Maury County Public Schools as you already embark upon 2011-2012. It’s still boiling hot outdoors, so I hope all classrooms have good air conditioning units that have no chance of Johnson rods ever breaking.