Deadman’s Curve

Silver Trumpet Tree

Memory Lane

Memory Lane: The Field

In 1978, I turned eight in August. Behind my house sat a nearly 100 acre wood, as A. A. Milne would say. We called it the field, because that’s what it was. Nothing but trees and long tall wheat grass swaying in the breeze as far as my four-foot-something tall eyes could see. Mr. Derryberry, the owner of the glade, told my father once that “he couldn’t even touch it,” the value of the land was so great. My dad had wanted to raise a garden on the half acre or so of the field that bordered our yard and had made him an offer. The old farmer just turned him down flat.

The field was our primary stomping grounds, and apparently had some good history behind it. We used to play in the “ditches” dug into the flat ground, which my mom later told us were Civil War trenches. And we ran, sometimes barefoot, on the darkest tree tunnel that was supposedly inhabited by “witches.” I vividly remember reading the warning sign posted ominously at the entrance, thick with branches, foreboding. “Enter at your own risk!” with bloody skull and bones painted brightly below. Who knows whose hang out that was, but the tunnel represented a part of the old Cherokee road which ran right through the back of our field. A pond about two minutes away was stocked at one time by my dad with all sorts of fish that he would catch and release.

We also ran into the woods to the left of my backyard. We would play in the woods, setting booby traps for anyone who might innocently happen along. We, that is, my sister Lisa, my friend Rhonda and her brother Devon, would pass hours and hours riding our bikes on “Dead Man’s Curve” a dangerously sloped bike trail carved into the brown earth. Digging and searching through the rubble of what we affectionately called “The Dump” for anything that we might use in our ‘house.’ We set up screen door frames without screens between two flexible trees, made kitchen tables out of discarded plexiglass, set up ‘shelving’ with what turned out to be a dangerous substance called asbestos. And there we would place our broken ‘knickknacks’ freshly dug from the depths of God knows what kind of pollution. (And how is it that our parents thought this was harmless behavior, rooting through trash from an earlier generation?) But be assured, my parents came through our ‘houses’ and reveled in our creativity, our masterful rendition of an outdoor house. No roof, but a perfectly swept dirt floor. Seating for four, dishes occupying the shelves, a burned out tv set with the guts wrenched out. You know, the usual.

These were idyllic times, spent fashioning the future in our imaginations, in the 100 acre wood. Once when I was nine maybe, Mr. Derryberry tractored down several hundred trees and piled them into a huge great heaping mass of pine logs and branches pushed together. We quickly fell to the very important job of researching these cavernous spaces, and moving our old ‘house’ onto our new ‘ship.’ I always had an important function: because I was the smallest of the group, I got to be the scout. Talk about scary! Spiders, snakes, who knows what was sharing that pile of logs with us? We played the whole summer there, in the shade of the towering pines of that lived, respectfully keeping our distance from the electric fence which now housed cattle and had been the impetus for our ship’s creation. The cow that came to our front yard to graze, now that’s another story!

Vote for Willy!

I’ve entered Willy into the Bissell MVP contest.  Here’s the photo, now go vote!

HTTP://www.BISSELL.com/Redirect.asp?RP_id=73662

Cheer Up File

Back in 2001, when I first began to teach fourth graders at Top of the World Elementary, someone told me there would be bad days.  Days when I wasn’t sure why I was teaching, days when parents weren’t nice to me, days when students didn’t do their work, days when I would doubt I made the right career choice.  So some smart colleague (was it Susan Dick?) told me to start a cheer up file.  That’s where I should put all the cards, letters, notes, and mementos that students and parents gave to me.  So I did that.  God, that was a hard year.  I think I lost about twenty pounds that year.  I would get so busy at lunch time preparing for the last half of the day, that I’d forget to eat.

Yesterday, I got a care package from a friend in Oceanside.  When we moved to the islands, I gave away all my teaching materials from those early days of teaching.  Literally, truck loads of items like math manipulatives,  pentominoes and counting cubes, student samples from fourth and fifth graders, books, books, and more books, both for students and teachers, art supplies– you name it, I gave it away.  And somehow, I gave away my cheer up file.  Luckily, I gave these things to a friend whose daughter is in fourth grade now.  And in turn, she gave them to her daughter’s teacher.  And that teacher was kind and thoughtful enough to give this file back to me, even though I’m 3,000 miles away now.

Today, I sat down to peruse the items that I thought would cheer me up.  There are cards from parents and principals who appreciated my efforts, notes from kids I only taught for two days when I had to transfer up to Thurston, pictures, gifts, thoughtful ideas the students had…to say thank you to me in their own special way.  Here are some names that popped up time and again.  If you are one of my cheer up file friends, it’s my turn to say thank you.

Hailey Zoellner, Heather Coulter, Kelsey Linton, Elissa Shopoff (who never signed her name but had the most memorable handwriting!), Melia Watkins, Mr. Maxsenti, Mrs. Hilleman, Dr. C, Ron LaMotte, Nicole Thomas, Ryan (Morgan’s best friend) who loved Harry Potter and legos, Lasslie Martinez, and many more.

Today, I wonder if I will ever get to teach again.  I miss it now more than ever.  These early memories temper my own feelings about teaching middle schoolers.  The ones who act all cool, and don’t know how to say thanks.  I have another cheer up file from my middle schoolers.  It’s here somewhere.  Maybe one day, I’ll get a card or a letter from some one person who claims that I’ve made a difference in their lives all those years ago.  And to Marlena, who gave me the best compliment a teacher could ever hope for:  that I remind her of the book the The Secret.

I cannot possibly name all the kids who have made my teaching career memorable.  But it’s for you that I devote myself to teaching.  I can forgive and forget all the parents who misunderstood me, who treated me unkindly, or unfairly.  But I will never forget the names and faces of those of you who said I made a difference.

GMA

This morning I watched a program with a hidden camera posted at a deli in Linden, New York.  The set up was to see how people in the deli reacted to a display of racism by the supposed cook/owner toward a couple of Mexian day laborers.  The first man took the side of the cook, agreeing that if the men couldn’t speak English, they shouldn’t be served though the two certainly had money.  It saddens me to know that America is still so steeped in biggotry and hatred.  Thankfully, not everyone reacted with malice toward the laborers!  Some stood up to the owner and were ready to walk out on behalf of the two experiencing the discrimination.  Worthwhile to note,  I heard this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: 

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”

How to go about being the change you wish to see in the world?  Speak up.  Do the right thing.  Stick up for the little guy.  Know when to walk away.  Keep your temper in check.  Realize that everyone thinks differently and has different values.  Honor theirs and yours.

On many levels, I failed at the above on the golf course.  But I did speak up for the environment, the silent sufferer of an ignorant man’s ill will.  So, on behalf of the fish, turtles, birds, and beach, the little guys, I forgive you, ignorant man.

Love Your Mother

I don’t like to argue.  I don’t enjoy lecturing.  But there are a couple things which I feel very strongly about and one of those things is to not litter.  Put trash where it belongs, in the container.  Why is that so hard for some folks?  Why do people not care about all the trash they let fly? 

So I go out to enjoy a nice windy day at the golf course.  Cloudy, but not too gray;  first hole, golfer in front of us unwinds his cellophane from his cigars, puts it in his open glove compartment, and watches as it flies with the wind.  No motion to pick it up, not even a second glance.  So I get out of my cart to pick it up, put it in the trash, and go to tell the guy, there’s a couple things that I feel strongly about.  He doesn’t get it.  Says he doesn’t want to be lectured.  So I walk off the course.  I’m not associating myself with someone of such vast ignorance.  I do not want people to think that I condone his littering.  Nor his nonchallant attitude about it.  Nor the fact that if I were a man telling him, he might’ve listened, let alone acted.

So I discover that the only people who can truly learn, are those who WANT to learn.  This man has no desire to learn anything.  Now I know why the islanders look at the visitors (read, mainlanders) like they are from another planet.  I guess in Texas it’s okay to pour oil down the stormdrains, or put your plastic grocery bags in the back of your pick up truck.  I guess in Texas, they don’t care enough about their environment to take care of it.  I guess in Texas, they do things just a bit differently.  But let’s be realistic.  Just because this bozo is from Texas, doesn’t mean all Texans are this way.  Just because I’m from the south, that doesn’t make me racist.  But this is the kind of ignorance that makes everyone in the US look like an idiot.  How little effort it takes to go to the trash can, and how little respect some have for Mother Earth.  At least I said something and acted.  Maybe that small action will have an impact upon the man.  Probably not.  But could you stand idly by and watch people trash your beach?  Your forests?  Your ski slopes?  Where is Iron Eyes Cody when you need him?

Happy… New Year?

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