And the Idiot of the Year Award Goes To . . .

Lovely Parent sitting next to me at the kindergarten and 1st grade Spring Performance last night.

Picture the scene, eighty six and seven year-olds singing festive tunes in front of more than 200 people! Yikes, if you are one of the adorable singers. They did wonderfully, belting out several culturally diverse songs and a few poems. Wyatt had been practicing for weeks for his "solo", a few lines in a poem about how we are all different, but all family. Too Cute! They even did a little Mexican Hat dance which had everyone (except lovely parent next to me) in stiches.

The performance ends, music teacher and all the students take a gracious bow and off they go to the cafeteria where all the parents are to pick them up. The parents shuffle along like cattle, everyone saying how cute their kids were, and how nicely everyone sang. Here comes the remark that landed the lovely parent next to me his new title: "Yeah, really nice if you take away the Spanish part". Another parent chimes in and says how they liked the performance and said offender says "Would've been better if they were speaking English" and "I wonder how the school board justifies all of this". Mind you we are in a crowd with people of all walks of life, ethnicities and ages. Idiot of the Year was there to watch his own beautiful daughter perform, not become the Rush Limbaugh of our little town.

All I can say is that I am thankful the Idiot has three daughters and no sons with impressionable brains to mold. The girls will know better and refer to their Daddy as a "stupid redneck" (I hope).

Idiot needs to keep his mouth shut and keep his racist opionions to himself. And if he can't do that then maybe he should move somewhere like say . . . Antartica (it's all white there, right?). Maybe he'd get a little frostbite on his unmentionables too.

I know that it isn't a perfect world and everywhere you look there is discrimination and outright racism, but I'd like to think that for the sake of our kids (who are benefitting from an amazing Spanish Curriculum Grant thanks to one determined first grade teacher) people could refrain from their rudeness, just for the night.

On the flip side, we couldn't have been more proud of Wyatt and his friends. Their Spanish is much better than mine was even in college. Bueno!