~it's a given~

There are several things that I've tried to do in this life.  Some I've been very successful at and others woefully not so successful at.  So let me just say this from the "get go"~

"I'm glad that my family did not rely on my ability as a pottery painter to put food on the table in our household.  If they would have, I'm afraid there would have been 3 very hungry children."

I took a trip with my daughter this afternoon to a place here in Montrose called "Amazing Glaze" where we both spent an afternoon at a table filled with brushes of all types, paint all over the place to choose from, and the determination to turn a piece of bisque into a beautiful work of art. It was a brand new experience for me, my very first time ever.  I was assured it would be quite fun and it turned out to be a very enjoyable experience.  A little over 2 hours after we started, both of us determined our pieces to be complete.  Now all that is left is the firing of each of them in their kiln.  They will be ready for me to pick them up at week's end.  I will be anxious to see how they look in their finished glazed state.

Shoot, it looked so easy at first but it was a little bit more than just dipping a brush into a little vial of paint and creating your own masterpiece.

I didn't know if my hand was steady enough to do this.  I made about a gazillion mistakes but was reminded that it's only my first try at it.  Like I said, the good Lord knew that I'd make a much better teacher than I would a painter.  Having said all of that, I rest my case.

I've done a whole lot of "first" things in my life.  Some of them I wanted to do again because they were lots of fun.  Things like power parachuting for example.  It was a totally last minute decision to head up in the air, flying around in a contraption that looks something akin to a go-cart with a colorful parachute packed in behind.  For the record, it was great.  Wait a minute.  I'm going to stand corrected on that one.  It was better than great.  The first time I did it was a little unnerving in the initial minutes of preparation on the ground but just as soon as I got into the air, I knew that I'd want to go again sometime.  And for the record, I did.  Twice more.

It's not near as scary as it looks and if you have never tried it, please take the chance to do so some day.  I have power parachuted all 3 times near my old home in Hutchinson, Kansas.  For less than $100, you can have the ride of your life.

A few years back I wanted to learn how to shoot a small handgun, shotgun, and rifle.  Since I had never done it before, it was really kind of scary at first but once I aimed at the target and fired my first shot, it got easier.  Not too crazy about the "kick" that a shotgun has but I was able to figure it out.  I'm in a part of the world right now where many of the women I work with at school hunt on a regular basis.  It's totally commonplace for them to handle guns of all types and calibers.  For me, I had the desire to give it a try for the "first time".  It was not so bad after all but once again, how thankful I am that my family didn't depend upon my hunting prowess to provide food for the table.

It only took me slightly under 200 rounds of ammunition but I actually managed to get one "bulls eye".  I wanted to get over my fear of handling a gun and I was able to do just that.

Once for the very first time, I rode my bike more than 75 miles in one day.  It wasn't easy but I made it.  That was the last time I was able to accomplish that feat but at least I did it once.  Unfortunately for me, only 8 weeks later I tried to jump a curb on my bike for the very first time and came away  with little success.  9 months later, I finally got the long arm cast off of "Old Lefty".

In order to get over my fear of snakes, I journeyed to Oklahoma City a couple of summers back and met with my good friend Kyle who has a whole menagerie of them at his house.  It was not really the most comfortable of adventures but after I left there, I no longer feared those things that had scared the living daylights out of me all of my life.  Before I left, I held a snake for the very first time in my life and for the record, once has proven to be enough.

Everything was going fine until my "new friend" decided to start heading up towards my left shoulder.  Would I enjoy a life as a herpetologist?  Nah, probably not but at least for one time in my life I felt brave enough to at least give handling a snake a fair try.  I think that my mouth was agape as it was getting ready to form the word "help!".

Well, so I'd never make a snake handler or trick stunt bicycle rider in life.  Probably wouldn't be a professional bicyclist who made money on the circuit.  You can figure that I'd make a poor security guard and by the way I only like to ride in a power parachute.  I don't have any desire to be the driver.  But all of that doesn't matter because I'm doing exactly what I want to each day by entering the classroom and having the life that I cherish the most.  I'm a teacher and that suits me just fine.  I need nothing else.

I don't know if I will ever paint another piece of pottery in my life but at least for this day I was able to try something that was very much out of my comfort zone and enjoy time with my daughter.  How about it, my dear family and friends.  Is there something that you haven't tried yet that you'd like to?  What is holding you back?  Whatever it is, why not give it a try?  You won't regret it if you do but you might regret it if you don't.

~upon fulfilling my promise~

I fulfilled the promise that I made to my doctor, several friends and family members, and to myself a couple of days ago.  I went over to the local hospital here in Montrose and kept the appointment I made for my mammogram.  Since that particular type of diagnostic testing is recommended for women on an annual basis, I guess you could say that I was behind just a bit.  I'd rather not say how far behind I was in scheduling one.  It was not all that painful and was done by a very caring and knowledgable person.  When I was finished, I asked her if she too remembered to come each year for her own. The answer she gave to me was very straightforward and most sincere.

"Yes.  I always get mine done.  I see too much bad stuff each day as I do my job.  I'd be a fool not to."

So having said all of that, I am glad that mine is done.  Annually means that in 2015 another one will be scheduled.  Just like the kind woman who did my procedure, I'd really be a fool not to.

As much as I dreaded the going just this past Wednesday morning, a really nice thing did happen to me along the way.  Prior to going back to the procedure room, I had to check in with an office worker who took all of my insurance information.  She asked me the usual questions, like address and name of employer.  When she got to the part about the address for my school, I had to admit that I really didn't know.  Then she asked for the school's phone number and I too came up blank on that question.  I was starting to feel pretty "inadequate" in responding to all of her queries so in order to save "face" I came up with the standard answer I always give to people around here when I don't know as much about the area as others do.

"I just moved here from Kansas last year but you would think that I would at least know the address and phone number of my school.  Sorry about that!  I promise to know them the next time."

When she heard me say that, her hands left the computer keyboard and she looked at me with the strangest of looks.  She asked me what part of Kansas I was from and when I told her that it was a place called "Hutchinson", a huge smile came upon her face and her eyes began to twinkle.

"I'm from Wichita!", she told me and in my heart it was as if I had found another "new best friend".  

We talked for a few minutes as she was waiting for the forms to print out.  I shared with her that we were going home for the Christmas holidays and that we're going to stay in Hutchinson but are planning to make several journeys over to Wichita while we were there.  When I spoke of wanting to go the Spice Merchant and Gander Mountain to shop, she told me that she loved to shop in those two stores and how much she missed it.  I mentioned how I hoped to be able to eat at "The Artichoke" while we were there and honestly, I thought tears may have come to her eyes.  She held her hand over her heart and told me how I lucky I was to get to go there.  She misses Kansas as much as I do some days.

The strangest thing happened as we were reminiscing there together, that new found "Kansas" friend and I.  As I looked at her expression and listened to the sound of her kind voice, I realized that  I was really seeing myself.  It was a reminder to me of just how far I have come, both geographically and personally.  Meeting this woman, who normally I would not have even carried on any kind of personal conversation with, was an unexpected blessing that cold November morning.  I left there with the reminder that there are plenty of good people here in the southwestern part of Colorado who know quite well the place where I come from.  For the record, that's a really nice feeling to have.

I've lived here along the Western Slopes now for over 18 months and I've met all kinds of folks with Kansas connections.  My dentist here has land in Stafford County and he often goes there to hunt and fish for vacations.  Good friends at school have close family members that live all over the Sunflower State.  I've come across people out here who have made their homes in the Kansas City area as well as small towns in Kansas like Lindsborg, Andale, and even South Hutchinson.  I have actually come across Reno and Sedgwick County tags in parking lots here and if I can, I try to find the people who are driving those vehicles.  It never ceases to amaze me of how small this great big world of ours really is these days and the truth would be that it gets smaller each and every day.

22 sleeps more and I will be back there again and even though we are staying much longer this time, I am sure that the days will go by quickly.  I am thankful for my Kansas roots because they enabled me to become the person that I am this day.  And just for the record, I like that person.

"Walking off" at least a part of the Thanksgiving Day meal we enjoyed yesterday.  What a beautiful day it was here in the Rocky Mountains.  Hoping that the weather will hold out for our return trip home in the weeks ahead.

The break of day just now over Silverjack Mountain.  God's handiwork at its finest of hours.

~to have just enough~

Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow and all across the nation, families and friends will gather together to enjoy a feast of delicious food and and fellowship with one another.  For whatever we have, be it a plentiful bounty or just enough to get by, we should all give thanks.  No matter what our circumstances might be, somewhere out there is a person who would give anything to have the life that we do. 

 Food for thought this day.

I remember when I was a little kindergarten girl, growing up on a farm in south-central Kansas, that every day for lunch my mom fixed me the very same thing.  When the little red station wagon from school would deliver us back to our homes at noontime, I could always expect that my plate would be filled with boiled potatoes and peas, drizzled in butter with salt and pepper.  She never failed to make that and I never remember complaining about eating it all the time.  I was hungry and so I ate it.  All of it.  Even down to the last tiny little green pea swimming around on my plate.

Years later, many years in fact, my mom and I were visiting one day at her house there in Hutchinson.  Some how or another, the subject of my eating that same meal over and over again came up.  I remember asking Mom why it was that she always made it and her reply, given most sincerely, really made me pause to think.  I have never forgotten what she said that day.

"Well, the reason why I always made you boiled potatoes and peas was because that's what we always had on hand.  When you kids were little, we didn't have a lot of money.  I guess you could say that we were poor."

I gotta tell you that her answer to me that day kind of surprised me.  I never knew it was because we didn't have lots of money for things back then.  Shoot, I just thought Mom liked fixing peas and boiled potatoes every day.  Not once did I ever consider anything else and I began to look at my mother and father in a different light that day.  My admiration for my parents grew and I began to realize just how hard it must have been to feed 7 hungry children each meal of the day.  But we made it and not a one of us starved to death.  In fact, we thrived.

Sometimes I like to think about the concept of having "just enough".  You know, that idea that you don't need so much stuff in your life.  The very notion of not wanting even more than you already have is beginning to be more and more appealing to me.  As I have grown older, I've seen it increasingly in my thinking.  In the years ahead, my hope is to "pare down" my possessions as I ponder about what means the most to me in my last years on earth.  I like that way of thinking more and more each day.  My mom planted the "seed" when she showed me that beginning with a meager meal at noontime, it was quite possible to survive on the bare minimum.  Quite well as a matter of fact.

That day my mom told me about the peas and potatoes story, she also "spilled the beans" on why we always had hot buttered popcorn for our Saturday midday meal.  Once again, we kids always figured that delicious treat was very special and we couldn't imagine how envious our friends would be if they only knew that we had popcorn all the time.  The "word" according to our mom was this.

"Well, the reason we had popcorn every Saturday at noontime was because we had to wait until Saturday evening to go and get groceries in town.  Your dad was paid once a week and when the food ran out on Saturday, making popcorn was a quick and inexpensive way to make sure that you had food in your belly."

Well there went my theory of our being given treats that other kids would have gladly accepted. They did it when the food ran out.  It was just that.  So plain and simple.  We didn't starve to death or come down with any kind of vitamin deficiency or dreaded disease of the time.  In fact, we continued to thrive.

There is much for me to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Day and if you are reading this then I am sure there is much for you as well.  I'm glad that I had parents who cared enough about a little girl named "Peggy Ann" to have me, raise me up, and be there for me through all the times.  The bountiful ones as well as the lean ones.  Especially the lean ones. 

And just for the record, I still love boiled potatoes and peas.  And oh yeah, buttered popcorn too.

~and they called themselves "Jack and Janet"~

     I read to "the 22" yesterday from a book that I learned to read from as a first grader back in the good old days of Burrton Grade School, 1961.  I found a copy of it, plus the 3 other accompanying readers for the rest of first grade and second grade as well, several years back when I was a beginning teacher at Haven Grade School.  Someone was cleaning out an old reading room one day, now 37 years ago,  and several copies of those dearly beloved manuscripts,  the primers from my youth, were in a pile to be discarded.  Didn't take me long to ask if I could have them and that day after school I walked out the door with my own copies of "Jack and Janet", "Tip and Mitten", "Come Along", and "Up and Away". In all of the many moves that I have made since then, I never lost sight of them and always kept them safely tucked away.

     Now, as a sentimental old teacher, I'm so glad that I have them.

     I wasn't sure what story to read to my first-grade students at Olathe because there is not a bad story in any part of "Jack and Janet".  Those two kids lived a pretty good life, sometimes having minor trouble, but always ending up "ok" in the end.  The illustrations for each of the stories, like faded water colors in their appearance, are frozen in the era from which they were done.  When I look at them, I am really looking at myself and the wonderful times that I grew up in.  So I just opened up the book, thumbed through the pages, and settled on the story towards the back called "What About Willie?".

     The story of Willie is one of a little black and yellow calico cat that desperately is in search of a boy to love him.  Lucky for Willie, there is a boy in the story named Tommy who is equally desperate about finding a calico kitten.  There is a lot of action in the story, spine tingling if you will.  Willie gets caught out in a rainstorm and just when he thinks it will be impossible to find a home, he happens upon an open door and scurries in.  Of course that doesn't work out because he has left all kinds of muddy footprints on the floor and the lady who lives in the house shoos him out with a broom.  All's well that ends well as at the story's conclusion, Tommy and Willie do meet up and become best friends.

     As they sat on the floor around me, "the 22" listened pretty intently and I was glad for that.  As I read to them, I realized that no matter how old a story might be, children can still practice their reading skills and learn from it.  The story "What About Willie?", rather rudimentary in its basic nature, provided lots of opportunity for discussion and discuss it, we did.

"Who do you suppose Willie might be?" "What do you think might happen?"  (predicting)
"Did anything about this story remind you of something you have done or seen?" (making a text to self connection)
"Where did the story take place?" (acknowledging the setting)
"Who do we read about?"  (finding the main characters)
"Did this story remind you of another story you might have read?" (making a text to text connection)
"What happened because the kitten left muddy footprints on the lady's rug?" (understanding cause and effect)

     The times that I grew up in were so much different than life is today.  The passage of 53 years of time has brought so very many changes to the world of education and as I sit back and look at it, those changes have been monumental.  The first-grade classroom of the little girl I used to be had no modern technology in it.  There were no computers or smart boards, no I-pods or even a telephone from which the teacher could use to call the office or a parent.  There was just one teacher, dear and sainted Mrs. Hyla Bacon, and she took care of all 30 of us kids on her own.  No educational para came in to assist in reading group time and instead of going to "specials" each day, our teacher taught us art, music and p.e. within the classroom.  As I look back on it, I don't even think that Mrs. Bacon took a bathroom break.  Really.  I'm serious.  How could she have?  We were always with her.

     I'm thankful for all of the advances that we have seen in education in the half-century that has passed by us since the shy, tiny girl that I used to be was a little kid herself.  I'm glad that things come much easier now and literally, the world that I only had dreamed about being in existence way back then is now at the fingertips of anyone who wishes to learn more about it.  I appreciate the assistance of all the support teachers and staff that come in and out of my classroom each day.  Where would I be without their help?  In a "world of hurt", that's where.

     There's one more story that I want to read to them today, those 22 little people whom I love very much.  When the school day is done, I'll pack the book back up once more and take it home with me. As I shared that little piece of my life from long ago, I couldn't help but remember the teacher that taught me to read.  She gave me the foundation, the solid base that I needed, in order to be a lifelong reader and learner as well.  My hope is to do the same for all of the students in my care this year.  I owe that to Mrs. Bacon.  My sincere intent is to follow through and not just for some of my students, but for each and every one of them.

      And as for the future?  They must know how to read.

The little girl that I used to be and the grown woman that I am today says, "Thank you Mrs. Bacon.  You taught me how to read."

~and here comes the winter weather~

And here comes the winter weather~

     The snow is now falling at 5:15 in the a.m., just as was promised it would.  Looks like a pretty decent chance of it all morning long before giving way to just plenty of wind in the afternoon.  The calendar does say that it's the 23rd day of November and even though that seems way too early to have snow by my way of thinking, it is what it is.  When the plains of Kansas were covered by it last week, it seemed odd that we would still be dry in this valley.  Today we shall join them with some precipitation here along the Western Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.  It was only a matter of time.
     Seems so strange to believe that it has been nearly two years now since I made my first visit to see what life was like here in this place called "Montrose" and to visit this guy named "Mike" who just the same as me, went to the same high school back in south-central Kansas.  Nearly 4 decades seems like a bit of a long time to have a reunion but it was what it was.  When I finally made it here in the early morning hours of that Saturday morning in January of 2013, I did so by coming over the pass on Monarch Mountain.  I'll never forget driving over the summit of that big mountain in the dark of the 5:30 a.m. hour.  With absolutely no idea in the world of what I was doing or where I was really at, I just kept driving west.  For the entire journey from Salida on the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide, to the summit and down to the bottom of the mountain on the Pacific side of the Great Divide, I was virtually the only one on the highway.  No wait, I stand corrected on that one.  There was a snow plow on the top warming up its engine and getting ready to clear the way for crazy drivers who just had to cross it that day.  If I had been a kid back home in Kansas and tried a foolish stunt such as doing this all alone in the dead of winter, I'd have been grounded by my folks for a long time. Maybe even forever.  I made it and lived to tell the story.
     There is a lot to be learned about driving out here in the Great American West and some of the knowledge I had to attain the "hard way".  I had never given a thought, not even one, to the idea of avalanches or rock slides.  Both are possibilities here, very real chances for travelers who find themselves in circumstances beyond their control.  I remember listening to the weather on TV that first weekend I came out here and when the meteorologist from the Grand Junction station started talking about something called an "avalanche warning" for the high country, I had to ask Mike if I had heard that right.  He said "yes" that they do happen from time to time.  The trip back to Kansas was an eye-opener for me that weekend as I traveled back in the daylight and saw just what it was that I had crossed over in the pitch black of the night.  As I stopped for just a second to capture this image at the top of the mountain, I shook my head in wonder as to how I made it over in the first place.

     In all of the travels back and forth over the course of the past two years, I have thankfully only had trouble twice.  In February of 2013 I came out here for a visit and when the weather guys up in Grand Junction announced that a winter storm warning would be in effect during the weekend, I decided quite foolishly to make a break for it and head back early.  I only got 28 miles up the road.  Didn't even make it to Gunnison.  Shoot, I only made it to the "igloo" before getting stuck in the snow.  And by the way, just saying the word "stuck" really doesn't do the situation enough justice.  I was buried up to the bottom of the car doors and there I sat waiting for what it seemed to be a long, long time.  Fortunately some guys came along who helped me to get out and I decided then and there that rather than continue on for nearly 600 more miles that I would head back to Mike's house and wait it out.  That was the smartest thing I did that day.
     Last spring in March I headed back to Kansas to take care of a few things back there and to visit family and friends in Reno County.  No problem going over the pass this time, in fact no snow to really be seen anywhere.  I got as far as  LaJunta before deciding to stop for the night and when I awoke in the morning about 3 a.m. my motel room was very dark and cold.  A winter storm was starting to blow through and the entire town was without power.  I took out and kept on heading east but before I had even gone 10 miles, I knew that I'd probably regret my decision to leave before sun up.  Between LaJunta and Lamar, on the wide open and treeless plains of eastern Colorado and a distance of about 60 miles, I encountered one of the worst ground blizzards that I have ever seen.  Time and time again I wished that I would have just waited but when you are that far into it, the only thing to do was to just keep going and hope for the best.  There was no way to tell what side of the road you were driving on and in the early morning darkness about the only landscape you could recognize were the snow covered fields.  That was about it.
     It's definitely the time for all of us to start making sure that we have emergency supplies in our cars as we travel back and forth between work and home, or anywhere else for that matter, in the months ahead.  Blankets, water, nonperishable food supplies, a full tank of gas and a charged up cell phone are a good start to being prepared for winter driving and the accompanying challenges that it might bring.  One popular online site that I looked at also includes things such as shovels, emergency flares, road sand/salt, flashlights with extra batteries, waterproof matches and a can to melt snow in for drinking water.  Each of us, whether we live in Colorado or Kansas, or anywhere else on this earth that sees their fair share of winter weather conditions, need to be ready in the event that something goes wrong and we are stranded along the road.  Even if it's for only a short time, the wait for help to arrive can seem like hours or even days.  Friends, I kinda like having you all around in this life of ours.  Please be safe, prepared and drive careful always but especially in the winter time.
     The day is starting to break and the peppering down of snow that came at 5:30 stopped shortly after it began.  The weather report is saying we are in a winter weather advisory for a big chunk of the day so we'll see what happens.  Back in Wichita, Kansas right now the temperature is a balmy 55 degrees, 23 degrees warmer than we are here.  Our friends and family back there have as a great a chance for rain as we do for snow this day.  For all of the times that any of us have faced conditions of drought, we should always be giving thanks for the moisture in whatever form it manages to come down.
     The warm days of summertime are just a distant memory now and the wait will be long before they return once again.  The old stately Cottonwood tree just beside the clothesline is the last one to want to give up its leaves.  They have turned to brown but refuse to drop down just yet from their branches.  But even Cottonwood trees have to accept what wintertime brings and soon it will be barren just like all of the others.  We hung out the laundry yesterday morning for the last time this season and when the clothes were gathered in for folding up, the clothespins that held them securely to the line were put into an old coffee can to be stored away.  For a non-lover of winter like me, springtime seems like years and years away.  Even at its worst, winter cannot hang on forever.  It only believes that it can.

     Have a great day out there dear family and friends!  To our dear family and friends back in "Somewhere over the rainbow", just 27 sleeps more and we shall see one another again.

The resident hummingbird from this past summer as it sits along the clothesline on a warm and sunny Colorado day.






   

~and thus we were called gleaners~

     It's mid-afternoon here along the Western Slopes and the clock on the kitchen wall reads "3:00".  The Colorado sky, once this morning a most beautiful shade of robin's egg blue,  is now dark gray and cloudy.  The storm system that they have predicted to arrive late this evening and into tomorrow is coming, slow but sure.  The arrival of the winter season is inevitable and a month from today it shall officially arrive.  Autumn is getting ready to leave us, being nudged out by "the dark" but what a gorgeous season it has been for us here in Montrose County.  With colors aplenty, we have most certainly enjoyed its presence.  Dear Autumn, we give you our thanks.

     The farmyard around our house here just outside of the city limits has been bustling today as machinery has been moved back and forth as the last of our landlord's crops are being harvested.  Acres of corn have been ready to cut this week and with precision, a John Deere combine has been making the rounds.  I stood outside to watch it this morning for a long time as it passed by while harvesting the crop.  I had to think of my own father, now long gone from the earth, and all the many acres of corn, wheat and milo he cut in his over 25 years of making the harvest circuit with his combines.  When I first moved here last summer, homesick as could be for my old home in Kansas, I took a lot of solace in the fact that we were at least living out of the city.  Being on an old homestead put me in mind of my youth back in Kansas and if I tried really hard, I could almost imagine that I was back there once again.  
     Around noontime Mike asked me if I'd like to go and pick up the leftover corn from the field that had just been harvested.  "You mean be a gleaner?", I asked him with a smile on my face and so off we went.  The temperature was still so pleasant and it was a real joy to be able to be outside in the "great outdoors" before the weather would be changing way too soon this day.  Sally the Dog went with us and with buckets in hand, we started down the rows.  
     Now I've gleaned for leftover corn before, having walked many a field with my friend from back home in Hutchinson named Ron.  Every year we did it as we picked up leftover corn from the fields near his parents' farm near the small Kansas town of Moundridge.  The corn I gathered then went straight home and into the bin to feed the hungry squirrels that lived in the trees of my front yard all winter long.  The squirrels in Kansas are so different than the ones here in Colorado, leastwise as I see it.  Here the squirrels just like to systematically mow down most everything I plant that is in their way.  Whatever we found to bring home from the field adjacent to us would be saved until the snows of January fall down.  Then we will leave it for the deer of the field that often frequent our neighborhood all year long.  It won't be much but it will at least provide some sustenance.  
     It was kind of fun actually, this trodding up and down rows of harvested corn.  In some spots we found very little but in other spots we definitely "hit the jackpot".  It was amazing to both Mike and I just how much of a harvested corn crop gets wasted, especially on the ends where the combine cannot get to it all.  We were lucky enough to find a huge tub full in the hour and a half we were there and with the clouds moving in as the temperature was dropping, we decided that we had found enough.

And for this day, we were called "the gleaners".

I am a Kansas farm girl, through and through.  I've seen many a harvest come and go, yet this was the first time I ever walked through a cornfield with a view of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in the distance.  What a most beautiful sight to behold.

First a bucket and then an entire tub full.  When food is "slim picking" for the deer herd that stays close by us in the cold days ahead, I hope that they remember to stop over to get some of the corn we picked up today.  They are like "old friends" now who stop by the house from time to time just to show us that they are still around.

     This good Saturday afternoon is nearly over and sooner than we like to think of it, the darkness of the evening shall arrive.  The temperature outside is quickly dropping and according to the weather app on my phone, the moisture that has been promised to us has a 40% chance of arriving by bedtime tonight.  The mountains around us shall receive yet another dumping of snow and how thankful I am that I do not have to cross over any of the passes tonight.  
     I thought of my dad while I was in the field and wondered what he would think of his "little girl" now living so far away from the place he always called "home".  My dad would have been happy that I was out gathering up that which was missed by the combine and I could just see him shaking his head at the amount that was left unharvested.  My father took a lot of pride in making sure that whenever one of his combines cut a field, that very little was left to waste.  It was just the way he was. 
     Although none of us will ever know what Heaven is like until we get there, I often times imagine that if there is a wheat field and a combine, then my father is having the time of his eternal life.  There are no mud holes, nothing ever gets plugged up, the farmers are always satisfied, and the wheat gets 60 bushels to the acre.  And my father?  He is forever happy.

I'm glad that Mike and I don't have to rely on gleaning to get us through the winter.  We are most blessed.  But just for today, it was a lot of fun and good exercise.  The best things in this life do not have to come with a high price tag.  All they cost is a little bit of time.  

~and this is the thing called "life"~

Seven geraniums sit upon the windowsill in the kitchen here at home in Montrose.  They were rescued from their certain fate very early in the month of September.  Nothing would have remained of them had I not brought them in and began to nurture their tender leaves indoors.  The cold and freezing temperatures of the month of November have taken all of the remaining plants and flowers that dotted the landscape around our house.  "The dark" has returned and even though the start of winter is officially still a month away now, for all intents and purposes at least on this side of the mountain, even Autumn has begun to fade away.

And this is life.

Back home in Kansas, I grew geraniums like crazy.  I'd make a trip down to the Westlake Hardware Store on the corner of 14th and Main to buy up about 4 dozen of them on Mother's Day weekend.  They'd be those little ones in a small container, ones that would grow into beautiful and big plants if I took good care of them.  I never even paid much attention to the colors I would choose although as I look back on it now, the bright red ones were probably my favorite.  All summer long, on my front porch and in the backyard around the garden area they could be seen.  I loved them in Kansas and I still love them here in Colorado.  Plants, especially geraniums, are good for the spirit and equally good for the soul.

When I made one of my final trips back home to Kansas in July, I dug up a small piece of my mom's "live forever" plant to bring back to the mountains with me.  It was important for me to take it and try to keep it alive in a place where I now make my home.  With care I dug around it, taking the "just right" piece from the ground.  I was careful and made sure to take some of the soil with me that it was growing in.  I loved the feeling of the earth in my backyard in Hutchinson, soil that was rich and fertile.  It is the kind of soil that you love to walk barefoot through after the garden has been tilled in the springtime.  The dirt feels that good there.

Here in Colorado, at least in the area that we live in, the soil is filled with clay and I remember my frustration when I attempted to grow things in it the first summer I was here in 2013.  Mike could have probably made a fortune if he had charged me $1 for every time I uttered the phrase.....


"This is the worst soil I have ever seen in my whole life!  How can anyone even grow anything here?  I'm not trying to plant anymore seeds because they won't even make it to begin with!  Not wasting my time on it."

Geesch, talk about a whiner.  That was me.

This past summer was a whole lot better and we actually made a few more things grow.  We had fun along the way, watching the progress of our plants.  Not everything made it but not everything always made it back in Kansas either.  Mike did battle with stupid ground squirrels who really weren't stupid at all.  They were actually quite brilliant in their efforts to systematically mow off pepper plants and most of the basil.  In the end, the score ended up being "people~6 and ground squirrels~0" but without a doubt they will return to greet us come next summer and we shall be ready for them.

And with all of the ups and down of the growing season, this is life.

When the grasshoppers started appearing in late August, I knew it was time to get those 7 geranium plants indoors if I had any hope of saving them to keep during the winter.  It was weird to remember that even back in my old home on the plains of Kansas that grasshoppers came to visit.  I did the same thing back there as I now do here and all winter long, I will watch their beautiful blooms and feel happy.

Just like the geraniums, I have grown and changed here too and with a fair amount of resilience and a whole lot of refining on God's sometimes very uncomfortable anvil, even a flatlander like me has learned how to survive in a place that seemed like a foreign country in the beginning.  Not that long ago I was looking through some of the blog posts I made in June and July last year.  I hadn't even been here two entire months yet I was already at the point of giving up and returning to the Midwest.  Dear sweet Kansas, I love you and your people with all of my heart, but I no longer cry in homesickness for you each and every day and that's a good feeling.  My niche has been carved out for me here in the Rocky Mountains.  And hey, it's not like I moved here from Rhode Island or something.  I just came from the neighbor's house, right "next door".

Have a great day my dear family and friends, wherever you are on this planet called "Earth".  I am thinking of you from a place far away and remembering you all still.

Finally the ground squirrels gave up!

We learned how to dry herbs and it was fun.  Not a bumper crop or anything.  Just a start.

In the weeks before school started in mid-August.  I learned that it will take a whole lot more than homesickness and poor soil to defeat me.  I was much stronger than I would have ever thought and I like that about me.

~you could have heard a pin drop~

 You could have heard a pin drop in our normally quite busy and sometimes noisy classroom at school as "the 22" saw their teacher shed a tear of joy for something very nice that happened to me mid-morning yesterday.  Without going into all of the particulars of what happened, we had a visitor to our room who was looking for me.  She brought with her a wonderful greeting and a heart warming message for me as a teacher.  She stayed for awhile and visited with us and then was on her way.  We went back to our whole group reading time, well at least for a few minutes, before I shut the book I was reading from and looked out at them, those little people of mine.

I could feel the tears beginning to well up in my eyes and a lump in my throat began to form.  I stopped everything, right there.  I didn't even finish the lesson because there was a much greater lesson to teach them than that which was written in "the plan" for the day.  I slowly began to join them, sitting atop an empty student desk nearby and this is what I said to them.

"Children, please listen to me.  I just want you to know something and the something is that no matter what happens to us here, whether our day is going well or going "not so" well, that your teacher loves you very much.  Each of you.  All of you.  Do you know that?  That I love you?  And you guys know what I always tell you about.  If you have a teacher who does not love you, then what are you supposed to do?"

They knew the answer to that one.  Find a new teacher!

Try as hard as I might to not let a tear escape, a couple did.  Ok, ok, I really think more than a couple ran down my face.  I told them that I think of them all the time, even when we are not together.  I go home at night and take them "with me" in my thoughts and surely in my prayers.  I told them that I hoped I was making a difference to them, that what I was trying to teach them was actually sinking in.  I looked at each of them and they all looked back at me and it was so quiet, so very still in our classroom.  One sweet little guy handed me a Kleenix and believe me when I say that was a good thing.   After a few minutes, when I had told them all that was on my mind and in my heart, we got back to school work and the day continued on.  All too soon, as is the case nearly every day we are at school, the 3:10 bell rang and it was time to go home.  

And I woke up this morning to find them still on my mind.

One of the things that I have come to learn about myself as a now "twice" retired teacher, is that finally at long last after nearly 4 decades of doing this, I know one thing for certain.

I have finally become the teacher that I was always supposed to be.

You know, I always felt that I was a good teacher before.  If I had not felt so, then I would have left the field of education long before 37 years of time had passed.  I loved being a teacher way back in 1979, the year I first began as a Title I math teacher back in my hometown of Haven, and I still love it today.  But I know that something inside of me has changed and it was a change for the "even better" and for that I most thankful.  Many people continue to ask me when I will choose to retire for the "third time" and I say to them that I don't know.  Of course I cannot go on forever but as long as I am still an effective teacher and there are students who need me, then I intend to teach for a few more years.  I have found my niche, my place here in Colorado, in a little town just up the road aways from our home here in Montrose.  They call the place "Olathe".  As for me, I call it "home" during the school day and it's a place filled with so many wonderful folks who come there every day to work with one thing in mind.

They are there to do what most benefits our children.  It's as plain and simple as that.  

I still have much to learn about being a good teacher.  As for me, the learning process is ongoing and it's my intent to keep so doing.  I have role models and mentors to follow and emulate all the way up and down each hallway at school.  Every classroom is filled with them.  How much I have learned from them all by watching and evaluating the things that they have tried within their individual classrooms.  The gift, one that I will always remain beholden for,  has been mine.

It's been so wonderful to visit classrooms all across the country in my travels as of late.  These are students from Owego, New York who were our pen pals back in the spring of 2013.  What a wonderful school in a beautiful New England village.

From the "land of long ago and far, far away".  Where it all began for me as a student and later as a first year teacher.  

Our eighth grade class in 1969 back at Haven (KS) Grade School.  Little did I know at the time that I would someday be a teacher there.  

~and so it goes~

And so it goes.

Life, that is.

From the "other side" of the big mountain, welcome to this new week.  It's not just cold outside here in the very early morning hours.  It's freezing cold.  The temperature on the weather app of my phone says that we are at 12 degrees here in Montrose and with clear skies around us, we had to figure it would be at this low of a temperature over night.  Before we went to sleep last night, we left a trickle of water running in the bathroom and the kitchen sinks.  Waking up to frozen pipes is never fun and having been there and definitely done that in previous years, I'm glad to not have to deal with it today.    Our friends and family back in Reno and Sedgwick Counties of Kansas are sitting at only slightly warmer than we are.  Funny how six degrees more can look good on a day like this one.

When we were kids growing up back on the farm in south central Kansas, wintertime was not a fun thing to endure.  Our home, south of Haven, was an old two-story farmhouse that my parents bought and remodeled.  It was a great house and I loved living there.  The only problem, at least in the winter time, was that there was no heat upstairs and our 4 bedrooms were always so cold on winter nights such as these.  Mom put electric blankets on all of our beds one winter and that seemed to help but man, once you got ready for bed you stayed put.  Getting dressed in the morning for school was quickly turned into a 90 second event in January.  You knew what you were going to wear ahead of time and you put it on. There was no changing your mind mid-stream for a new shirt or a different pair of jeans.  It was too dang cold for that.  We didn't freeze to death from sleeping upstairs.  We only thought that we would.

The "official" start of winter is still over a month away but as usual, in the "dance of the seasons" winter always seems to like to cut in early.  I feel sorry for poor Autumn every once in a while.  To me it always seems to be the season that is short changed a bit and once winter sets in, it doesn't seem to want to leave at its appointed time on the calendar.  Kind of bossy and a little pushy but in order to enjoy the other three seasons, we must endure this upcoming one.  Even when it seems to drag on and on and on, winter cannot last forever.  It only seems as if it can.

"The 22" and I were talking the other day about making sure that they knew where their caps and gloves were before they walked out the door and started to school each day.  I hate to see tiny little hands frozen or noses and ears bright red from the coldness of the day.  Here in Montrose over the weekend, one of our local thrift stores gave away free coats, caps and gloves to any child who could use them.  It did my heart so good to see it as we drove by on our way to the store.  Lots of people with little children in tow took advantage of the kindness offered by the owners of the store.  I hope that many of our children in the Montrose County School District will be much warmer now.  Back home in Hutchinson, Kansas there is a program called "Coats for Kids", an annual event where folks can donate their good coats that they no longer need to little ones and big ones alike who would not have the chance to have one to wear.  My friends, whether I'm here in Colorado or back in Kansas, the same can be said.  It's does "take a village" to be sure that children everywhere are ok and making sure that they have warm coats on their backs with accompanying gloves and hats is a big part of it.

The days of November are so quickly flying by us and already we have found the 17th day of this month.  Soon Mike and I will be making the trip back over the big mountain and down to the other side to a wonderful place called "KANSAS".  Yesterday we sat down to try and figure out what we will do each day during the time there and although we didn't get very far, we at least got a few things lined out.  I am most grateful for the chance to return back there to my old home and to see all the family and friends that I have missed so very much.  This time when I go back, I'm sure I will find some things that have changed since I moved away.   Having left there 18 months ago, that things would perhaps be different is inevitable.  Change is not always a bad thing.

The clock says "5:00" a.m. and that it's time to get a move on.  Somewhere up the road a few miles, the little people that I will share my day with today are sound asleep in their beds.   I hope everyone is warm and cozy, dreaming of wonderful things for their life ahead.  They are little and innocent, amazing "works" of a Creator who made them.  I love them very much and even when they have to sometimes see the "cranky Mrs. Renfro", they still know that I care about them with all of my heart.  The only job they have this day is to come to school and do their best.  I encourage them to just "be kids" and enjoy their young lives to the fullest.  They will grow up someday and that day will come soon enough.  Much too quickly for their parents, sad to say but ever so true.

And so it goes.

Life that is.

The little 9-year old girl that I used to be was no different than 9-year olds today.  Sometimes "she" lost her gloves and when that happened, her mom would not let her go to school "bare handed".  We had to wear socks on our hands to stay warm until we could find our gloves again.  That used to be so embarrassing but you know what?  It worked.  Gloves were never "lost" for long.  That little girl, shown above, still lives within me.

 And now nearly 50 years later, I still lose my gloves.  And my car keys, cell phone, and several other assorted things.  And so it goes.  My life.

~upon the eating of a lard sandwich~

     Going through old photos and organizing them into meaningful groups has been an ongoing task for me since my mom passed away in September of 2007.  When I cleaned out the basement of her house back in Hutchinson, which later became my own house, I found so many boxes and envelopes filled with assorted photographs of our family life.  Now 7 years later, I am getting a bit closer to getting the old ones done but am fast replacing them with new photos of life now in the year 2014. In the years to come when my own children and grandchildren have to go through my belongings, I don't want them to have to wonder who in the world people in the photo are.  Thus, I'm doing my best to not only save them to a computer's hard drive but making "hard copies" in photo albums as well.   It shall indeed be an ongoing process.

     Yesterday as I was sorting through them, I found a bunch of photos of the "Scott side" of my genealogical tree.  It was an album filled with pictures of my dad as a little kid and later as a growing teenage boy.  I miss my father, gone now since 1982,  and it was with a bit of sadness that I allowed myself to look through them.  The sadness soon gave way to a smile on my face as I imagined my own dad as a little kid.  The man that I always knew as "bald" actually did have a lot of hair as a child growing up.  In picture after picture he always had a smile on his face, the same kind of smile that he wanted the little girl that I used to be to wear upon hers.

   

     There were 8 kids in his family, 4 boys and 4 girls.  Dad was the fourth child and was given his father's name, John.  He and his sister Marie were only a year or so apart and they were friends for life.  This may be my favorite photo of him as a little boy growing up on a farm in Harvey County, Kansas.

Oh how I wish I could have known the story behind this picture.  My dad is standing next to his older sister Betty.  The little guy is his brother, called Billy as a little boy.  The dolls in their hands are rather interesting.  Not sure if my Aunt Betty made them all play dolls with her that day or exactly what was the deal.  They all have smiles on their faces so maybe they were just having fun or something.  It was the Great Depression and children used their imagination to provide relief from the tough times they were enduring as a family and as a nation.

     Tucked inside the back of an old frame, behind a photo that was visible in the front, I found a photo that I had never seen before.  It was one of my grandparents on the Scott side of the house and it actually looked as if it had been cut apart from a bigger photo in order to place it into a much smaller frame.  The years since the 1930's when the picture was taken have taken their toll on it and just as soon as I scanned the photo into my computer, I put it right back where I found it and hope that it can last a while longer.

John and Bessie Belle Scott-probably ca mid-to late 1930's, taken in Newton, Kansas where they were living at the time.  My grandpa died with a full head of hair.  His sons were all bald in their adult years.  My dad would say, "Go figure."

       I'm so glad that I was paying attention to what my mom told me about going through the old boxes and envelopes in her house at home.  I told her, as I visited her in the nursing home one day, that I was going to start sorting through things at her house and was there anything special that I should be on the "look out" for.  I might never have located the photo, shown above, had I not taken the time to look inside of the frame.  She gave me some very sage advice and I did exactly what she said.

"Peggy, you be sure to go through every single box there is.  Sort through every envelope.  I can't remember where I have tucked everything away.  Don't hurry.  Take your time."

     I wish I could have found a million dollars for her in all of her many boxes of belongings but I did not.  I think I did find about $50 in odd change and even a couple of gift cards that she didn't realize she had.  But even greater than finding money or a Sears card that she could use to buy her much loved "Zip and Dash" dresses, I found myself and my own family history tucked in among the stacks of things that were there.  The boxes marked "Grandma Scott's pictures" contained so many photographs that I can only remember looking at a couple of times in my life  before.  Mom had saved them all and even as much as meant to me that day as I cleaned out the basement nearly 11 years ago now, those photos mean even more to me today.  Things that all of the money in the world could never buy have much more value in my life now.

     Daddy was a little boy who grew up in a family that struggled all the way through the Great Depression.   Times were lean, lean, lean for them all.  He never talked much of it but mom always told the story of how our father took lard sandwiches in his lunch box nearly every day to school.  He wasn't the only one, others were in the same dire straights.  I don't imagine that my father ever complained and was thankful that his mother was such a good baker and could always provide fresh bread for her children to eat.  The idea of lard being spread upon two pieces of bread to make a sandwich has never been very appealing to me but then I've never had to live in times such as he did.  He made it and so did everyone else in his family.  They stuck together.  They had to.  There was no other way.

     Every single person in my father's immediate family is now long gone and the pictures are all that I have left to remember any of them by.  So many of our family photos were lost in my parents' house fire on Christmas Eve of 1976 and I only have vague recollections of what those pictures were of.  When Grandma Scott passed away a few years later, my parents stored away her photos in boxes at their new house and thankfully they were safe for viewing in the years to come ahead.  A little girl named "Peggy Ann" found out who she was, the family that she will always be a part of, that winter's day back in 2003.  They are priceless images of a time long gone by us of people that meant the world to me.

A photo taken on Christmas Day of 1976, just one day after the fire came to destroy their home and every single belonging they had.  Luckily we still had the cafe to go to and that's where this photo was taken of my parents and my grandmothers.  They still managed to smile despite everything that they had just gone through together.  Probably because they valued human life way more than things that could always be replaced somehow.

Christmas Day of 1977~
He was such a kind man, a gentle person.  I never once remember him yelling at me or giving me a spanking for things I had done wrong.  Daddy had this way about him.  When he was sad or disappointed in us for whatever reason, seeing the sadness on his face was much more punishment than giving any of us kids a spanking.  God knew exactly what He was doing (no surprises here) when this man was chosen to be my dad.  One day when I was visiting my mom in the nursing home, she took my hands in hers and began to look at my fingers.  I asked her what was wrong.  She told me that my hands, especially my fingers, looked just like his did.  I never forgot what she told me that afternoon.  It was a comforting thing to me, the little girl that will always be his.

Strange how you  remember things, like the best gifts your parents ever gave you growing up.  My father gave me the finest present ever in May of 1973.  He put off leaving on the wheat harvest by one day in order that he could attend my high school graduation.  It was the gift of John Scott's "presence" that meant absolutely everything in the world to the 17-year old girl that I once was.


   

so about Monarch Mountain

From the other side of the big mountain, a good Saturday morning to you all~

     I've been watching the webcams posted atop Monarch Mountain a lot these past few days as the winter time storms that have been promised to the high country have most assuredly arrived.  In the last 48 hours they have received nearly 15 inches of snow.  Great for the skiers who long to hit the slopes each weekend.  Not so great for folks trying to get to the other side of it all.  Even for a Kansas farm girl like me, it's hard to imagine a place that regularly gets over 350 inches of snowfall each season.  Drivers here must learn quickly to have respect for the mountain.  The drop down is a little unnerving and that is putting it very mildly.
     With a smile on my face, I remember back to about a year ago this time when we were listening to the news out of the Grand Junction television station and the weather guy was talking about all of the upcoming storms that were fast approaching nearly all of the mountainous areas of this part of the state.  The station's meteorologist was admonishing people to take extreme caution if they were traveling on any of the roads in the state, but especially to be more than careful if they were going to be crossing over any of the passes.  In fact, I remember so clearly his comment to his audience of listeners about traveling anywhere in general throughout the state during the winter months.

"Hey, I just advise everyone that in the wintertime folks should just stay on this side of the Continental Divide," he said.  

I remember equally well my comment back to Mike about what we had just heard him say.

"Well that guy is crazy if he thinks that a snow covered pass is going to stop me from going over one.  He is obviously not from Kansas!"

     In the weeks and months that have gone by since I made that statement, I would like to think I've grown and changed a bit.  So the truth be told, that weatherman probably was more right than I gave him credit for at the time.  Desperately homesick for Kansas last year, I made the journey back and forth countless times.  Mostly it was without incident but I always remembered in the back of my mind that the weather, even when it looked good at the lower elevations, could change just like that once you found the top of the mountains.  I stayed in close contact with Mike, always letting him know where I was at.  I never took out without a full tank of gas, emergency supplies of food, water, blanket and charged up cell phone.  Thankfully they were never needed.  In some cases, it might have been even downright miraculous that nothing ever happened to me along the way.
     It has been a long time since I've seen my old home in Kansas.  By the time that Mike and I return at  Christmas it will have been 5 long months.  To some that may sound a little on the crazy side, to think of 5 months being an extended period of time but to me it kind of seems like an eternity.  When I left Reno County on August 1st, it was still the "dog days" of summer and school had not even yet begun.  Our arrival will be on the day before winter "officially" begins and I'm pretty much certain that it won't be  "flip flop" weather or anything.  But that doesn't matter to me.  I'm going back home.
     Even though we have been able to set aside several days of vacation to visit our family and friends back over there, the time will fly by us at record speed.  This weekend we are sitting down to figure out some kind of itinerary to at least tentatively follow for the days that we will be there.  Both the Renfro and the Scott families are all back in the Midwest.  It will be so wonderful to see them all and spend time with them once again. I'm going to make about a gazillion trips through the Bogey's drive-thru, visit my favorite thrift store on Main Street in Hutch, go to church somewhere on Sunday, and catch up with as many friends as I can.  I'll get to cross off a couple of things from my "list of 60 things to do before I turn 60",  numbers 19, 24, 34, 43, and 46 for sure.  If the weather holds good, I might even tackle numbers 14 and 30.  I have never missed a Kansas Christmas yet and I don't aim for this year to be the first.
     The snow is falling on Monarch Mountain as I type these words to you this morning.  All day long there is a 50% chance for the "white stuff" to continue.  Looking out the kitchen window, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of traffic heading east towards Gunnison on Highway 50 right now.  That might be because all of the really sane people are still sound asleep in their beds at 4:30 in the morning.  I don't know.  As daybreak arrives, cars and trucks will begin their journeys with some going east and the others going west.  Regardless of the weather conditions some folks still have to make the trip to Gunnison, up the road to the east about 60 miles, going through Arrowhead Canyon.  The twisting and winding roads of that part of the drive east can be "interesting" in good weather.  Snow pack, nearly zero visibility, and ice cover only add to the excitement.  Still others must make the trip on eastward as they head towards Salida, a drive of about 130 miles or so from here in Montrose.  Only one thing stands in their way.

Monarch Mountain

     After a year and half of living in southwestern Colorado, I have finally settled in to life amidst the Rocky Mountains. I make my home here with Mike and Sally the Dog and as it is said "Life is Good".  Every Monday-Friday I am blessed to spend my waking hours with 22 most interesting first-graders whom I love dearly as well as to work with the finest of people around at Olathe Elementary.  They are dear and special friends who have now become like my "second family".  No matter whether I lived in Kansas or here in Colorado, God has most surely been with me.  Although I was just about positive that I would die from never seeing my "homeland" again, amazingly I did not.  Homesickness did not get the best of me.  I only thought it would :)

In the wintertime, all of the snow is piled up against the visitor's center and gift shop.  It always seems to weird to drive by it and not be able to read the sign that tells that you have found Monarch Crest.  This picture was actually taken in the spring time as the mounds of snow slowly began to disappear.

Late May in 2013 on the day that I moved here to begin a new life in the mountains.

December of last year~There was no way that I was going to miss it!

It reminded me of a Christmas card when we reached the top of the summit last year in December as we made our way home to Kansas.  There is real beauty on Monarch Mountain, no matter what time of the year you are there.  I have much respect for it.

This past summer in July as we made a day trip over the big mountain, stopping to ride the tram to the summit at 12,000 feet.

On the "other side" of the mountain we found our dear friends from Kansas, LeRoy and Anne in Salida, joining them for lunch in Salida.  The Willis' are good people whom we hold close in our hearts.

   
   

~it was fitting to have a visitor~

It was fitting that we had a visitor in our classroom yesterday, a veteran of the Vietnam War.  Lizzy's grandfather came to see us and talk about what it was like to be a soldier at that time.  The kids listened intently as he showed them his Army uniforms and one of them was of particular interest to me.  As he held up his dress uniform, he showed the kids the emblem on the upper coat sleeve that denoted his ending rank of "Specialist 4th Class".  Once I heard him say that and my eyes caught sight of it myself, it brought back a wonderful memory from long ago.  I asked him if I could look at it up close and I did.  It was then I recalled that my brother Mike, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War himself,  was a Specialist 4th Class as well.  As a fifth-grade girl now so very long ago in the little south central Kansas town of Haven,  I'd seen the very same insignia on his clothing and I paused for a moment to remember that.

Ironic as my life sometimes seems to me, yesterday was even more so.  November 12th marked not only a visit from a great man who wanted to share with his granddaughter's class of first grade students his experiences as a soldier, it was also the 7th anniversary of my brother's death from ALS. Although thankfully my brother came home alive from Vietnam, in the years that would follow he would keep most of those experiences to himself.  He just didn't speak of it.  I thanked Lizzy's grandfather for so doing in our classroom.  It was important to me that my students hear his message.

Right before he left, we did the Pledge of Allegiance with him.  He was so kind as to hold "Old Glory" for us.  The kids stood straight and tall and probably did the best job ever of saying the pledge to their country.  It was nice and fitting that a man who had fought for our country in a war that wasn't all that popular, to be there standing like a giant among those little people in our classroom.

After a few questions to him, I told the kids something that I really meant sincerely.

"Children, listen to me.  Do you know that you have just learned a "life lesson"?  There is no book on my desk, no lesson plan that could have ever taught you what this man has just told you about.  These kinds of lessons are important to learn.  Maybe, even the most important.  I want you to learn them and keep them in your heart and on your mind always. Please don't forget."

I'm one of the "old-timers" at school but that's ok.  It's kind of fun to actually be one now.  I appreciate so much the amount of hard work that educators in my school and every other school in the nation put forth each day to make sure that students receive the education that they deserve and need to succeed in this life.  We all check and recheck how our curriculum and instruction aligns with the standards.  We do the very best we can, given the time allotted to us.  We hope for the very best results for all of our students on tests that lie ahead of them.  No one is slacking off. There are cars in the parking lot long before school begins and cars that remain long after school is out.  Some are there on the weekends and if they are not at school on Saturday or Sunday, they are more than likely working on things for their classroom at home.  No one gives up.   I commend everyone I work with for giving way more than 100% to the jobs they are assigned.  God bless you guys all for it.

But from this teacher's heart, I guess I have a message.  It's a hope that someone will see it and run with the idea.  Perhaps you are already doing it and if so, that makes me most happy and the message, most respectfully given, is this~

"Dear friends and colleagues every once in a while look for an opportunity to teach a life lesson.  Close your teacher's manual and walk away from your desks and Smartboards. For that moment in time, don't even worry about whether or not what you are ready to share with one another is on any of your state's standards.  Sometimes you have to say, "It's ok if it is not."  Chances to offer a lesson such as these come in the strangest of places and the weirdest of times during the day.  But they are there and you will see them if you only look for them.  "Lessons of life" provide character building and refining for your students but they also can and do give you as the teacher, a chance to continue to refine your character as well.  I stand firmly behind this belief~a child can be the best reader in their class or the smartest mathematician.  Their writing can be awesome and wonderful.  But what about their character?  What about their heart and conscience?  To me, those things matter the most.  Teachers and friends everywhere in the field of education, I thank you all for everything that you do on behalf of a child.  They need you to be there for them and guess what?  You always are."

Time went on~

Blessed beyond measure to be a teacher, even still.