We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

T.S. Eliot

 

 

I attended an elementary school run by nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph in the 1950s. Although starting with the second grade the school building was new and as modern as possible, it, like the 100 year old building it replaced had no cafeteria. There may have been a kitchen attached to the gymnatorium, but it was for parish events, not student lunches. Those were brought by students usually in brown paper bags.

For some reason, especially in the lower grades, being assigned menial tasks by the nuns was seen as an honor. The assigning of such tasks as erasing the chalk boards, clapping the erasers, for those who grew up with only white boards, clapping the erasers meant going outside and smacking the erasers together to get the chalk from the blackboards out of them, and going to the dumpster behind the school to empty the classroom wastepaper baskets, only involved boys either because such work was not a girl thing because they were weak and not equal to the task, or, perhaps, the girls were smart enough to avoid the assignments so eagerly accepted by the dull witted boys who actually saw privilege in doing them.

One daily task was retrieving the milk.

While we brought our lunches with us, after collecting the milk money the nun who was in charge of the classroom would choose four boys who would go the building’s side door where the dairy truck unloaded the school’s daily supply of milk, two boys taking the full tray of 24 pint sized cartons of milk while the other two took an empty milk crate and put in the number over 24 that the nun had written on a piece of paper, and bring it all to the classroom.

In an orderly fashion, nuns loving things done in orderly fashion, students filed up to the milk crates by rows, took one carton of milk and, as they returned to their seats, would take a paper straw from the box of straws on the window sill.

At the end of lunch two boys would walk up and down between the rows of desks, collecting all the lunchtime trash including the milk cartons and straws, and take it all out to the dumpster

This was the routine before, during, and after my eight years at that school.

There was no problem with the straws, and, if recycling was in vogue then, the paper bags, wax paper wrap, napkins, milk cartons, and straws would have been recycled.

Somewhere along the line plastic straws got introduced into a society that grew up with and used paper straws, and, so, away went the paper straw.

To return to paper straws would reduce the trash floating around in the oceans and choking sea creatures, while the discarded paper straws could be recycled or left to decompose in landfills.
Other side effects that have also commonly be reported are viagra 100mg mastercard erectile dysfunction and erratic ejaculatory behavior. Male who are suffering with best price for sildenafil erectile dysfunction problem must stop using it and inform the doctor immediately, and must start taking the alternative medication as prescribed by the doctor, if gets affected by its side-effects such as- itchiness, skin rashes, chest tightening, chest pain, hearing problem, shortness of breath, dizziness, painful or prolonged erection, and/or changes in vision. First of cialis bulk all it has an Extreme Antioxidant Capacity. You will have to take this medicine twice or thrice in a week can be risky for the overall health of super cialis cheap men.
This was during the Cold War when Eisenhower was president and God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. It was not an age of radical liberalism, but the days of patriotism and a belief in the greatness of the country.

The irony now is that returning to paper straws is seen as introducing a new socialist utensil to the country, one that is actually in tune with the desire of those who want to “Make America Great Again by promoting a return to something that was used when the greatness of America had expanded, but has become a symbol of a betrayal of American values.

Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign manager, has introduced the campaign slogan “Making Straws Great Again”.

Since, as he claims,

“Liberal paper straws don’t work”

Trump’s reelection campaign is now selling Trump-branded straws from the Trump campaign store.

“STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP and buy your pack of recyclable straws today.”

A pack of 10 straws sells for $15, coming out to a cost of $1.50 a straw, as compared to a big bag of straws you can get at Dollar Tree for a buck, and are “Laser engraved” with the name Trump.

As with plastic shopping bags, some cities and companies across the country have announced that they will phase out plastic straws with disposable paper straws and re-usable metal ones.

When he was asked about paper vs plastic Trump said,

“I do think we have bigger problems than plastic straws. You have a little straw, but what about the plates, the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger and they’re made of the same material? Everybody focuses on the straws, but there’s a lot of other things to focus on.”

Apparently he does not understand that change has to begin somewhere, perhaps in incremental steps as opposed to the impossible approach of waiting to do it all at once.

After all, a journey begins with a single step.

Elizabeth Harring, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, has announced that after the Trump straws were made available, they quickly sold out.

Donald Trump Jr. joked that the straws

“may not be legal in some states.”