The Talk of New York Mosquitoes, Tourists, Kids: Nuisances of Summer By BOB YAMPOLSKY	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
蚊と観光客とちびっこギャング 夏がくると筆者は3つのものに悩まされます。それはウイルスを運ぶ蚊と、街中にあふれる観光客と、やかましい子供たち。特に子供たちは、義務制のサマースクールもさぼり、はしゃぎまわって大人たちを困らせます。一体どうすればよいのでしょうか？！

Summer in New York is usually a hot and sticky affair, but it has been a lovely summer so far. We have had day after day of bright, dry weather, where it's hot in the sun and cool in the shade, and we have not had to put on the air conditioner once this year.

Of course summer does bring some pests. I can think of three, off hand. First, there are mosquitoes. We have always had mosquitoes, but last year some of our mosquitoes were found to be carrying an exotic and potentially fatal African disease, the West Nile Virus.

Number two are the tourists, who are everywhere. Of course it's not nice to call them pests (especially because they spend so much money here), but I really do wish they would learn to walk faster.

And number three are the kids. Now as everyone with kids knows, there are two kinds of kids: your kids, and other people's kids. When I talked to the parents of my kids' classmates, the first thing everyone asks is, "What are you doing with your kids?" All across the city there are day camps, swimming classes, art classes and a myriad of other activities that have one primary purpose: to get the kids out of the house.

As for the other kind of kids, they are all over the city, of course, now that it is summer vacation. But this is a type of pest that the city has actually taken major strides in reducing, through a new mandatory summer school program.

The New York public school system has ended its policy of "social promotion," that is, the policy of sending students on to the next grade regardless of their performance in school. Now, students who do not meet the standards for their grade are required to attend and successfully complete sum mer school before they are allowed to advance.

This new summer school program has had a shaky start. Last year, students took a test at the end of the year that determined whether or not they had to go to summer school. About 52,000 children in kindergarten through 12th-grade were required to attend, but when the summer was over, the Board of Education admitted that it hadn't really kept proper attendance, and they weren't really sure how many of those kids actually went to summer school.

Then the company administering the tests admitted that it had made mistakes in grading the tests, and that about 8,000 students who were given failing scores had actually passed the tests, and had gone to summer school even though they actually didn't have to.

This year, over 300,000 students (about a third of the total student population) were told they would have to go to summer school. I applaud the city's efforts: the streets and parks have noticeably fewer children in them on weekdays. Unfortunately, there have been attendance problems, with close to 40 percent of the students not attending as they should.

Attendance was also a problem this July Fourth. I'm not a big July Fourth fan myself, but this year there were some special events planned; in particular, OpSail 2000, which was billed as one of the greatest gatherings of ships ever. And among these ships would be tall ships from around the world, which would parade one by one up the Hudson River.

Now the actual gathering of the ships was to take place in New York Harbor, off Battery Park on the southern end of Manhattan. But I knew that Battery Park would be infested with tourists, so I did the smart thing and took my kids to Riverside Park, where tourists never go.

It was crowded, but with neighborhood people, and crowded in a manageable way. We found a spot by the railing, where we would have an obstructed view of the ships, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, off in the distance, we spotted masts. The tall ships were coming! We waited. Odd, the masts did not seem to be getting any closer. Odder still, the ships seemed to be turning around. We waited some more, and then people with cell phones, who had called people watching the event on television, began spreading the news: The ships were going as far as midtown, miles to the south of us, and then were turning around.

Many people were quite upset. A lot of people had gathered in northern Manhattan to see the ships, and no one even bothered to tell us that they weren't coming. Personally, I was annoyed, but not in a big way. After all, it was a typical New York screw-up.

There were fireworks that evening the largest in New York history. I had learned my lesson, though, and I wasn't about to go downtown to see them. Instead I climbed to the roof of our building, and watched the show with my neighbors. It was a beautiful night. The fireworks were lovely and so, of course, was the Manhattan skyline. It was past the mosquitoes' feeding time. There were no tourists and no rowdy school kids.

In fact, it was so nearly perfect that I was almost able to block out my four-year-old's insistent, "Can we go home now?"

Shukan ST: July 28, 2000

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