Back to School Commute

Six tips for making the school run faster & safer on the environment

Georgia’s Clean Air Force, in partnership with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD), offers six easy tips for back-to-school drivers looking to save time and money, while contributing to cleaner air in metro Atlanta.

■ Be Cool and (Car) Pool: Utilize social media networks like Facebook to set up a back-to-school carpool with your neighbors. More families willing to contribute to carpooling means fewer trips to and from school. Looking to super-size your savings? Consider carpooling to work with nearby colleagues on the days you don’t lead the kids’ carpool.

■ Break From Tradition: To avoid traffic congestion, try breaking free of the traditional 9-to-5 by staggering your commute. Ask your boss if you can arrive for work later in the morning to avoid traffic or if telecommuting is an option, work from home to be more productive.

■ Steer Clear of Idling: Although idling in the pickup line at school might be the most convenient option, it is not environmentally friendly. Not only does idling waste gas and money, it’s also extremely harmful to the environment. Every 10 minutes of idling cut from your daily driving saves one pound of carbon dioxide from entering and damaging the atmosphere. Need to idle for more than 30 seconds? Turn off your engine.

■ Use an App as a Map. Avoid school traffic by using a smartphone app to reroute your drive and bypass trouble areas. With endless options for driving and mapping apps on Apple and Android products, every driver can discover the most efficient way to arrive at his or her destination. Many apps have an added bonus of in-navigation traffic updates that will redirect motorists to a less congested route.

■ Lighten Up: Carrying around unnecessary cargo? Summer is the best time to see what may be hiding in your trunk or under your seats. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fuel economy can be increased by 1 to 2 percent for every 100 pounds removed from the trunk of a vehicle.

■ Even Cars Need Checkups: Check in with a local mechanic to have a car tuneup. Mechanics can check for malfunctioning oxygen sensors, underinflated tires, clogged filters, and other factors that can reduce fuel economy over time. Getting in the habit of regular maintenance can help identify issues that may cause a failing emissions test in the future.

For additional information, visit cleanairforce.com.

Improv camp and other end of summer tales

Timmy Daddy

By Tim Sullivan

Tim Sullivan grew up in a large family in the Northeast and now lives with his small family in Oakhurst. He can be reached at tim@ sullivanfinerugs.com.

Margo’s big takeaway from the first day of 4th grade was that that her teacher Ms. Olson’s sense of humor was exactly the same as that of her Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Phillips (“Like, literally the same jokes!”). I said they must both attend the same Teacher Jokes Seminar over the summer. Margo was aghast that there would ever be such a convention. “That’s a really dumb idea, Dad.”

Ms. Phillips was a fantastic teacher, though, so I’m optimistic about this schoolyear and thrilled that it is underway. Even though it ends with the last day of July, Summer vacation finds a way to get a little long in the tooth. Aug. 1 comes around and we post the First Day of School pictures to social media with a celebratory nod to our fellow parents. Predictably, it horrifies our friends up North: “That’s cruel!” “It’s the middle of Summer!” The best reply I saw was on my friend Andisheh’s page where he explained, “once the crops are harvested, there’s nothing else for them to do.”

What they don’t understand is that the singular goal of the sweltering Atlanta summer vacation is to get through it: air conditioning, pool time, ice pops and travel if you can. We pass longer car rides vying to be the first to scream out “Chicken!” when a yellow car is spotted. Or we keep our minds sharp by guessing the next song on the radio. I scored the first point of our 10-hour drive to the Outer Banks with “Sucker” by the Jonas Brothers. It was an educated guess since Hits 1 played it once every 23 minutes or so. The only way I could tolerate that station all day was to dominate the game. My family has never been as impressed with me as when I scored with “Sweet but Psycho” by Ava Max.

Margo closed out Summer with a joke seminar of her own, the Whole World Theater Improv camp. They hold a performance on the last day, which is cute, I suppose. But Improv makes me uneasy when talented adults are performing, so watching kids is peak discomfort. The director calls out something like “You’re a penguin applying for a mortgage!” and these kids are supposed to just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind? I mean, I’ll probably re-write this sentence three or four times before you ever read it so you can imagine how difficult an hour that was for me. Margo’s first skit had something to do with broccoli. She delivered a few decent lines while her cohort simply convulsed on the ground as if he had been poisoned. Margo looked down and finished the scene with, “You good, bro?” I wasn’t.

Not surprisingly, some of the performances devolved rather quickly. Homicide and cannibalism were recurring themes, but in a Hansel and Gretel sort of way, I guess? Kids are weird. There was one girl who delivered “like poor people” as a punchline, multiple times. I cringed so hard it was an abdominal workout. Maybe Mime Camp would be better for her next summer. In between acts the director would remind the audience that these are your kids, by the way.

Luckily for the business side of Improv, most of the parents weren’t as tortured as me. Other than overusing the dab technique, Margo did great. And she loved it, which is basically 1,000 percent of what we look for in a summer camp. A few kids were legitimately talented, too, although I’d still love to see their agents steer them towards something with a script. Or just back to school to broaden their knowledge base before next year’s show. Either way, in my opinion school is a wonderful place for kids to spend the month of August. We can leave the Improv to Ms. Olson for a while.

Perspectives in Architecture

By Melody Harclerode