Yesterday was to be "Career Day" at the high school. It was going to be one of those chances that one gets to give back to the community. It was going to be a day to help prepare our youth for the future. It was not to be.

Career Day is an event where the school invites people-they don't have to have kids in the school or even live in Moorpark-to come and discuss their careers with the students. The students get a chance to investigate some of the careers that they have been thinking about. (Choosing a career is not an easy thing to do, I know, but after 40 years of employment, I'm getting pretty close to deciding on one.) Career Day is a chance for the students to hear about life in the real world from someone who is not a teacher or a relative.

I have been fortunate enough to have been invited for the past four years, and I have enjoyed them all. I think the students enjoy it, too. We try to tell it like it is. We try to encourage, inform and do what we can to help clarify what we really do every day. And the best thing of all for the students is that they get out of class for a while.

As I said earlier, this year it was not to be. There was no Career Day yesterday. The students had to attend classes the same as always. It was a sad day all around.

You might ask, "How could this happen? Was there a fire? Was there an outbreak of disease? How could this have happened?"

There was no fire. There was no sickness. There was, however, a severe outbreak of apathy. Career Day was canceled because there were not enough volunteers to talk to the students. That's how this could have happened.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. I'm sure there are a great many reasons some folks could not give their time for our youth. After all, from start to finish, it takes over two whole hours. Yes, I'm sure of it, there must have been good reasons to pass on it this year.

Maybe Oprah was pushing a really, really good book yesterday. Some potential volunteers probably didn't want to miss Regis and

Kelly and Tyra. It could be that some folks had to be out of town on business yesterday. (I think that I'll stay away from the airport in the days around Career Day next year. It must have been really crowded.) I know how hard it can be to get a good tee time and some folks might have had one yesterday and, well, you can't give that up, can you? Others, I'm sure, had out of town visitors. (Maybe I'll have to stay away from the airports and freeways next year.)

Based on the election turnout, I don't think that there were that many people too tired out from voting.

Perhaps some others are from the old school of "I've been stuck in a lousy job for 30 years and hate going to work every day, so if they can't figure it out themselves, let them suffer." There might be a few out there who are afraid that these "kids" will come along and take their jobs away from them. After all, these "kids" at the high school are pretty sharp, so I can understand that.

I hope that no one opted out this year because it meant that they might miss lunch, because there is always a very nice spread afterward for the volunteers.

Whatever it was that forced some of you to miss Career Day this year, I'm sure the students will get over it, although they wilalways remember the day they

didn't get out of class. Like I saidthey're pretty smart. They'll figure out on their own, just like we did. But, all is not lost. The nextime some one asks, "What's the matter with kids today?" we'lhave an answer.