Ten-year-old Leland Jones has one cool memory to fall back on this Presidents Day.
He was in Washington, D.C., last month to see President Barack Obama get sworn in for a second term.
Leland also had a request for the most powerful man in the U.S., which he sent him in a letter as part of a class project at the Howard School in Atlanta.
“… Can you get more equipment at Chastain Park because all the equipment is old, rusty, and squeaky?” he implored.
Oh, and one more thing, Mr. President.
“Can you make corn snakes legal to have?” Jones wrote.
Yes, Georgia regulations outlaw holding corn snakes as pets.
By phone, Leland said, “Corn snakes are really cool animals and people don’t know a lot about them. So I was thinking I should discover new things about them.”
His letter mixes the aplomb and aspirations that show up in most of the letters that Kitts Cadette’s class sent to Obama in January.
She got the children to participate in the national “Mail to the Chief” program as a way to help them learn penmanship, writing, editing and more.
“It symbolized who we are (as Americans) and the ability of everyone, even a child, to engage and to have the opportunity to share,” Cadette said.
She and her class of students, who have language-learning disabilities, had discussions about what one would write to the president, what kind of advice they would give him and changes they would like to see. The conversations veered from subjects they heard from friends, such as the state of local playgrounds, and to what parents discuss at the dinner table, such as taxes.
“Some were on a personal note,” Cadette said. “One’s dad had gotten a parking ticket.”
The result of that classroom conversation? Several suggested Obama put in a presidential fix.
“I was wondering if you could lower fees for parking tickets, because they are getting higher and higher,” Sarah wrote. (Most students did not want their last names used.)
For themselves, several children pleaded with Obama to use his bully pulpit to help them out with homework loads.
“Abandon homework from the world because I don’t like it neither does my family and everyone else I know,” Cameron wrote.
A student named Jack suggested an international pet trading group to help find homes for unloved animals.
Sam asked for sodas in school.
“We have to get a little sugar in our bodies because we need energy for talking, and working,” he wrote.
In the advice category?
“If you need assistive technology, you should talk to Jennifer T.,” wrote Aiden. “She knows everything about assistive technology.”
And finally, another student named Jack asked the question we all want to know the answer to:
“How do you respond to Congress when they don’t do their job?” he asked.
Cadette said she hopes to get some kind of response from the White House.
So, if you get the answer to that one, Jack, let us know.
See copies of Kitts Cadette’s class letters to President Barack Obama on ajc.com
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