This past Friday I volunteered at my 6th grade daughter's track meet. It was Horicon's home meet. But we went to Mayville and used there track. More on that in a minute.

I was assigned to be a timer. Something I've never done before. The person organizing the event had us each pick a "place" and time that. I took 6th place. Not every event had 6 runners, so I had some time to observe. It's always fun to observe when you find yourself in a new situation.

Here's what I saw. First, Horicon has fewer runners than some of the other schools.
Second, while my daughter was up in the stands goofing off, other kids were warming up. When I pointed this out to her she said "Oh mom, I never warm up".

• Flashing back to my own days as a student athlete, a swimmer, to the meet when my right knee hurt so bad I didn't think I could bend it, and my coach told me if I didn't get my butt in the pool and warm up, I was off the team.

Third, Horicon has some stand out runners. You can see the all the hours of hard work and preparation in their faces as they cross the finish line, red-cheeked, gasping for air, darn near ready to puke from exertion.

Fourth, Horicon kids are good sports. For example, the 6 foot tall Horicon 8th grader who shook the hand of the 5 foot tall 7th grader from another school who just barely beat him in a big race. I can only imagine how happy that 7th grader must have felt. And our 8th grader? Probably felt upset, disappointed, mad. But he showed a grace that is increasingly rare in today's world. It was one of my favorite moments of the day.

Fifth, what the heck were we doing in Mayville? Why weren't we at home for our home meet? Here's what I gathered from the talk amongst the other timers. The current track was built in the early 1970's. It was sited in a poor location, and proper drainage was not implemented. It has only been resurfaced once since then. And we do not have the space or equipment for some of the field events. (Caveat: I have done no research to verify these points....they should be taken in this context as rumor, and not fact). In short, our track is unsafe and we don't have everything we need.

Me being me, I asked what it would take to get us what we need. I should not have been surprised by the response. But no matter how many times I see it, I can't help but be taken aback.

"It costs too much money." Shrug.

Yeah, really? It costs money to build a track? No shit. I didn't expect that they just fell out of the sky like giant asphalt raindrops.

Me being me, I asked the next obvious question. How much money?

"Ohhhh, way more than we can raise. $200,000 to $400,000, at least" Shrug.

"Maybe if I won the lottery"

"I'll pray"

At the risk of offending my lottery playing, praying friends.....let me point out that the odds of the first are really low (so low that my mother calls playing the lottery a tax on people who can't calculate odds), and the odds of the second are unknowable. However, the odds of raising $200,000 to $400,000 are directly proportional to the effort put into raising said funds.

The fault may partially lie in "the city", which does not properly fund our schools. But it more largely lies with us, the citizens. When we vote down a school referendum for financing, we are voting against things like maintaining facilities. When we vote for people who openly state they will "hold the line" on taxes, or even worse "slash" taxes, we are voting against our kids' schools. Just for fun, take a Sunday afternoon and go look at a few houses in any other community. You will find that Horicon taxes are 40% to 50% LESS than other cities in the area. Your first thought may be "wow, I'm lucky". But maybe you'll wonder what everybody else has figured out that Horicon has not. I believe that thing is, running a town costs more money than Horicon currently spends. And we wonder why the place looks like it's falling apart? A small tax increase from an historic low for the benefit of all the kids in the school district may not be the worst idea in the world.

And, being a Phoenix member, my mantra is: "If the city won't do it, we will". Now I don't know if Phoenix itself wants to tackle the job of building a new track. But in this town, with all the runners I see, there ought to be a core group of committed individuals who are willing to put in the hard work to do the fundraising to make it happen. $400,000 sounds like a lot of money. But compared to the $1 Trillion (that's $1,000,000,000,000) dollar market swing we saw the other day, it's a portion of a bit of a drop in the bucket. In a word, it is "doable".

What do you want?

I'll admit it, I'm a dreamer. I spend a lot of time daydreaming. Some parts of life are really boring, such as standing in line at the grocery store, waiting for the stoplight to turn green, or when my darling husband is watching a hockey game. (He really likes hockey, and I really like him, so I only whine a little bit). Ever since I was a little kid I filled up the boring times with daydreams. I hear a lot of adults have outgrown this habit, but it's hard for me to believe. It's just so darned fun!

One of my favorite daydream themes is: "In MY perfect world....." But sometimes the world is just too big of a place to contend with. A smaller version is "In MY perfect city...." Here are some things that would exist if Horicon was MY perfect city:

A first rate, not-too-expensive coffee shop, open from 5:30 a.m. to at least midnight, 7 days a week. Several menu items would contain chocolate.

A small but well staffed art museum with a few precious treasures, a lot of local art, and classes for kids and adults alike.

Adult choirs and bands of all sorts.

Teenage garage bands. Can't help it. I was a teenager in the '90's.

Backyard chickens.

A Fourth of July parade and fireworks. Yes I know they are all alike. But a town just doesn't seem like a real town to me without Fourth of July celebrations.

Local craftspeople who make household stuff. I don't really even care what kind of stuff. If it's made well, priced well, and useful in my house, I'd rather buy it from a local producer. And by priced well, I don't mean cheap. If I wanted cheap crap for a cheap price that traveled 7,000 miles to get to my house and would definitely break in 2 years or less, I know where to by that already.

An open access science lab. My microbiology professor is responsible for this one. He helped me overcome my fear of the bunson burner, taught me how to make agar and how to use the autoclave. But now I'm not in school anymore!

O.K., that last one is a little weird. But it's a daydream, so that is allowed.

Now that I've subjected you to my wandering imagination, I'd like you to return the favor. What do you wish for? What would make Horicon the city of your dreams? I bet you've thought of something that hasn't crossed anyone else's mind. Take a risk and share it. If you'd rather just tell one person (me), go ahead and e-mail me at jrettmann@gmail.com.