I want my new kilns, demmit!

A brief list of some of the world’s greatest mysteries include the following:

• Stonehenge
• The Lost City of Atlantis
• Crop Circles
• The Great Pyramic of Giza
• Why was Diego Rivera a 'chick magnet' ?

One must add to this list the mysteries of public school funding! How does it work, exactly? No one really knows for sure. Shrouded away from the cleansing light of day for centuries, it still baffles experts as well as the common man on the street.

California is tanking financially, including money for schools. Last year, however, Ah-nuld apparently found a big bag of money in a desk drawer somewhere up in Sacramento. By some miracle, this money was allocated to schools to buy stuff! Really cool stuff! Music departments purchased new band equipment that actually worked. Physical education departments purchased new running tracks and baseball bats.

With my ceramic supply catalog grasped firmly in hand, I was like a kid in a candy store. I was given the directive from the powers that be, “SPEND IT OR LOSE IT!” And spend I did. I bought a couple of potter’s wheels, a clay extruder, a kiln controller (these are way cool) and TWO KILNS, a small raku kiln and a 12 cu. ft. gas-fired downdraft (also way cool). After waiting about a year, the goodies finally arrived. I went to visit my new little friends last summer in the Camp Nick warehouse. There they were, just waiting for me. I took the wheels and other smaller things, but left the kilns there, hoping they would be delivered in due time.

I waited for a couple of weeks. I waited for a couple of months. I’ve waited almost a year and they are still in the warehouse. I spent over $10,000 of taxpayers’ money for these kilns. And they sit in the warehouse. Good use of public money, no?