File this one under the heading of fall cleaning:

Reading Dorothy LePage's obituary the other day, I couldn't help but remember the first time I ever ate a BLT. Mrs. LePage was 92 when she died and in her 40s when she convinced a tomato-phobic 13-year-old to "try it. You might like it," but some things are unforgettable - rides to the North Hop and the Capron Park skating area in Mrs. LePage's car, learning to play whist, skat and other card games at her dining room table and, especially, that BLT. It was the first of many.

That's not the bass drum of a marching band practicing in the back yard. The thumping, rather, is the sound of fans jumping off the Patriots bandwagon.

Note to reps and senators: Doesn't the pressure on fans to "sacrifice" some of their season tickets mean it's time to go back to work on the Bay State's curious anti-scalping law?

I used to hear a lot about people wanting to get out of the rat race. Last time I drove up Route 1, it looked like everyone's trying to win it. What's it take to make a high performing school when a significant proportion of the students are economically disadvantaged? The question came up in light of last week's release of a No Child Left Behind report that put the Thacher Elementary School in Attleboro in particularly poor light.

A committee in Kentucky, which was a model in part for Massachusetts educational reform, took up the question through audits and site visits to eight high performing elementary schools with high percentages of disadvantaged students. Separating them from low performing schools were: School-wide ethic of high expectations for faculty, staff, and students; caring, respectful relationships; strong academic, instructional focus; systems for assessing individual students on a regular basis; collaborative decision making led by non-authoritarian principals; strong work ethic and high faculty morale; and intentional recruitment, hiring, and assignment strategies for teachers.

The recipe may sound a little too warm and fuzzy for some, but the key appears to be creating an environment that is highly conducive to learning. Of course, supplementary instruction has a place, right next to the regular assessments of student progress.

Two weeks ago we were reporting North Attleboro Selectmen Chairman John Rhyno had received more than a thousand responses to a survey about town government reform, most of them advocating a switch to a mayoral form. Last week we noted that a dozen people dropped in at the selectmen's meeting to advocate incremental changes - fixing up the town bylaws, in other words, rather than making a dramatic change.

Expect more back-and-forth surges like this, just like in the presidential election. The big difference is that, if it's done right - and anything less could result in something worse than the current system of revolving accountability - changing North Attleboro government will take even more time than the presidential campaign.

Note to letters to the editor writers: For some time, we have allowed writers' signatures to appear with only their first initial and last name. Unfortunately, that has resulted in a couple of cases of mistaken identity. From now on, we'll only be using full first names or the name by which you're best known in the community.

And if you think you could crank out a column on local affairs every couple of weeks, about the same length as this one, give me a call at the number below.

MARK FLANAGAN (mflanagan@thesunchronicle) is Opinion page editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0335.