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Wednesday, September 13, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Cutting hours at Watkins is unfortunate but sensible
Shortening the business hours at the urgent care clinic of Watkins Memorial Health Center was an unfortunate but wise decision on the part of hospital officials.
Because of rising health-care costs and limited funds, Watkins no longer is open between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. weekdays and between 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. weekends. This change, which went into effect August 21, marked the first time in more than 17 years that the clinic had not been open 24 hours a day during the fall and spring semesters.
Charles Yockey, chief of staff, said the results of a two year study indicated that an average of only two students a night were being treated at the clinic and that treatment was a necessity for only one of the two. In addition, Watkins had to have at least three to five staff members on duty at night for security reasons.
That became simply too expensive. With that much wasted personnel, the cost of services would eventually have increased, and one of the intrinsic values of having a university health center is supposed to be the reasonable cost of service.
Students pay a $69.50 health fee, included in tuition, return are offered services, through Watkins, for less than the average rate. But because of the high cost of maintaining a night staff, officials decided to expand the daytime services so that more students could get their money's worth. By combining the two staffs, Watkins can offer more timely and efficient care.
"It was simply a question of utilization. We could offer more services for more students by cutting back the hours," Yockey said.
He also said that Lawrence Memorial Hospital, 325 Main St., offered an acceptable alternative. If a student needed immediate medical care at an inconvenient hour, he or she could go there.
"It's more expensive for the individual, but that way not every student's money is being wasted," he said.
every student
James Strobi, director of student health services, estimated
that it would cost more than $300,000 to return to 24-hour-a-day
service.
service Clearly it would be convenient to have inexpensive medical care available 24 hours a day. Under the circumstances, the staff at Watkins made the best possible choice.
Craig Welch for the editorial board
Rock Chalk tries to unite campus by altering image
Rock Chalk Revue is reaching out.
The annual variety show is moving in the right direction by trying to shed its image of a Greeks-only event and helping other living groups get involved.
What has been perceived as a traditionally greek event actually began as an all campus event.
Ned Nixon, executive director of the fund-raiser, said that the reincorporation of residence halls and scholarship halls into the act was important.
"First of all, it will bring the campus closer together," he said. "Secondly, it will bring in more money for the United Way because more people from residence halls and scholarship bulls will see the show."
Nixon is right in believing that a show combining both greeks and other living groups will bring the campus closer together.
At a time when the University is trying to fight stereotypes, cooperation between living groups in Rock Chalk could go a long way toward helping groups erase preconceived notions about Greeks and residence hall residents.
Nixon said that he thought the program already was a success. The residence halls are expected to band together and submit a notebook, and the scholarship halls also were working toward that goal.
Now that the revue has reached out to the living groups, it is time for residence halls and scholarship halls to respond in kind.
For the scholarship halls and residence halls to be successful in Rock Chalk, they will need the support of many residents in both planning the events and fund-raising.
Brett Brenner for the editorial board
Members of the editorial board are David Stewart, Stan Diel, Brett Brenner, Ric Brack, Daniel Niemi, Craig Welch, Kathy Walsh, Deb Gruver, Thom Clark and Tiffany Harness.
News staff
David Stewart...Editor
Ric Brack...Managing editor
Daniel Nieml...News editor
Candy Niemann...Planning editor
Susan Diel...Editorial editor
Jennifer Corse...Campus editor
Elaine Sung...Sports editor
Laura Husar...Physics editor
Christine Wimmer...Aria/Features editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Business manager
Linda Prokop...Business manager
Debra Martin...Local advertising sales director
Jerre Medford...National/regional sales director
Jill Lowe...Marketing director
Taml Rank...Production manager
Carrie Slaninka...Assistant production manager
Margaret Townsend...Organizer
Eric Hughes...Creative director
Philip Doell...Classified manager
Jeff Meesey...Teesheets manager
Jennae Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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Fence tests neighbors' good nature
In "Mending Wall," Robert Frost wrote, "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walking in or walking out, and to whom I was like to give offense."
Our fence has been out there three years now, and it's hardly apt to say that it may have given offense to our neighbors. I mean, does a fortress only give offense to those whose company it repulses? Does it merely extend to eclipse someone's view of the sun and sky by erecting a seige wall within feet of their house?
The problem is the peculiar orientation of our house at the entrance to a short, curving, dead-end street. Our front porch faces one street in the conventional manner of all front porches. Our back door faces the other street, and all the neighbors along it. When we wanted society we could hall passers-by from the front porch; somehow it seemed indiscretion to ignore them when they came by the kitchen door.
Frost also wrote that "good fences make good neighbors." I would observe that culte-sacs make weird yards.
Consequently, we built a so-called privacy fence soon after settling into our home. This was an expensive gesture and it involved much soul-searching. After all, one of my favorite bumper stickers says, "He who destroys what men made is called a vanald. He who destroys what God made is called a developer." But then my other favorite bumper sticker says, "I'll give up my pit bull when they prv its laws from my cold, dead neck."
Stuart Beals
Staff columnist
I'm not sure what this indicates about my social adaptation; it does seem to fit with one neighbor's response to my joking, "Sorry about the way it looks, but we ran out of cash before we could put up the concertina wire and gun towers."
When work began on the fence, I keenly followed the excavation of the post holes. Earlier, I'd dug several holes for planting trees before thinking of calling the utility companies to mark the locations of underground pipes and cables. I thought the guys from the electric company were kidding when they spray-painted a serpentine line that curved in and out along the very edge of each of the hoies that I'd already dug. It turned out that a 13,000 volt feeder线 ran through the back yard, rather than along the border easement shown on the lot map. Sure enough, a different crew from the electric company traced the same line for the fence crew.
Anyway, rather than wall out anyone, we intended to wall in our two preschoolers. The plan was to make a sanctuary of the back yard in which they could gambol, and thereby make a sanctuary of the house in which we parents could gather strewn toys, if not our strenn thoughts. Ideally, we would retire to our music and reading, occasionally bending an indulgent ear to the peals of laughter coming from the back yard.
to do it.
This actually happened a few times. On the other hand, there have been days when it seemed that the outdoor yard could become the place where one of them really would tie the other to a tree and pile fagouts on his feet, instead of just threatening
One solution was to engage the boys in making the back yard a nature sanctuary, with the material assistance of the fence. The five-year-old built a bluebird house and mounted it on one of the fence posts. After a year, a pair of bluebirds finally moved into it. Unfortunately, we returned from a vacation to find the birdhouse vacated and five plundered bluebird eggs scattered beneath it. Apparently, the fence provided easy access to the house for whatever raided the nest.
However, the fence did indirectly protect a painted turtle that sought shelter from the attention of a neighbor boy who had waylaid it in a nearby creek. The boy put down the turtle to foment some other mischief, and the turtle escaped to a shady corner of the fence. This particular corner also sheltered a hitherto undiscovered wasp nest. Its inhabitants secured the turtle's liberty by visiting savage air strikes upon anyone who approached.
Since then, the hedge we planted has begun to soften the blunt, monolithic aspect of the fence. Neighborhood urchins think it makes a great home-run fence for games of whiffle ball and, yes, a siege wall over which to arch mud balls. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because their parents have mellowed on the fence, the kids no longer hunker down over their handle-bars and ride in tight-lipped fright past "old man Beals".
New fences more likely test good neighbors rather than make them; old fences, well, they make for a neighborhood.
▶ Stuart Beals is a Lawrence graduate student majoring in Journalism.
Boy copes with best friend's death
On a night not too long ago, a boy named Jason Davis, who is nine years old, was in his family's living room writing on a piece of paper. His mother assumed he was doing his homework.
Jason seemed to be expending considerable effort in his writing; his mother thought the school project must be quite important to him.
When he finished, he walked over and handed the piece of paper to his mother. It took her only a moment to realize that this was no homework assignment.
"I kind of choked up as I was reading the words," she said. Her name is Terry Davis; she is 43 and works at Humana Hospital in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
She did her best to regain her composure. "This is beautiful, Jason," she said to her son. "Why did you decide to do this?"
"Just because I wanted to," the boy said.
Bob Greene Syndicated columnist
"The doctors found out he had it in February, and he was gone by July." Jason's mother said.
that became the hero. The years ago, Jason's best friend died. The boy's name was Marcel Widmer. Jason and Marcel had been inseparable. Marcel became sick with a particularly cruel kind of cancer.
Jason Davis had never talked much about his best friend's death; he had even decided not to go to the funeral. In his room he kept a photograph of the two of them together, but he seldom spoke of Marcel. That is what surprised me. All of the papers of paper were words he had never heard Jason say but loud.
These are the words — the words Jason wrote:
"I had a friend named Marcel. Every time he
"I knew that Marcel was on his mind," she said. "When Marcel first became ill, Jason asked me, 'How sick is he? Is he going to die?' I said, 'Jason, sometimes people get sick, and they don't get well.' And Jason said, 'Like Aunt Sophie?' And I said 'That's right, Jason. Sometimes people don't get better.'"
Jason's mother did not know how to respond to what she saw on the piece of the paper.
came over to my house to play we always did fun things together. We both grew up together. We went to preschool together and we went to kindergarten together. The best time we ever had was when I slept over at his house for the first time. We stayed up until midnight. But when he was in the first grade he died. I didn't know what death was because I was only six years old. But when I was in first grade I found out what death meant. He gave me a teddy bear. Sometimes I have nightmares about him. But every time I wake up in the middle of the night I go straight to the picture and I look at the picture. And I remember all the good times we had and I feel like Marcel is there with me. And if I had one wish, just one wish, it would be to bring Marcel back to life."
Jason's father, Fred Davis, 44, a sales representative, was aware that his son was still carrying around the memory of Marcel, but he honored Jason's unspeak request not to initiate conversations about it until Jason was ready.
"I couldn't help it," he said. "I thought of all the times I had the two of them together."
When Fred Davis read the words his son had written, he found himself crying.
"I think or inh every day," she said. When Marcel was in the house, just before he did the nursing room and with teddy bears to give to the young patients. The nurses came to Marcel's room and gave him a bear. As they were leaving, Marcel asked if he could have another one. That's the bear Jason keeps in his room. Marcel died with one of the teddy bears next to him. The other one went to Jason.
"I couldn't help it," he said. "I thought of all times I had seen the two of them together." Jason said he thought about his friend all the time.
"I sleep with it every night." Jason said. "It's white, and it has a black nose."
Just as Jason had never told his parents the things he wrote down on that piece of paper, he never said to Marcel just how much their friendship meant to him. Often it's difficult for friends to put those kinds of emotions into words; it must be especially hard when you're six years old.
"I think of him every day." Jason said.
"I didn't tell him," Jason said.
"But I know that he knows."
▶ Bob Greene is a syndicated columnist
CAMP UHNEELY
BY SCOTT PATTY