~reflections on a basketball game~

You can learn a lot about people when you take tickets at a basketball game.
Leastwise I did last night.

At our school, everyone does their share at taking tickets at each home game.  It's not a paying position, rather it is just something that you do.  It was actually a pretty nice experience as things like that go.  Thankful that I can still add in my head and make change back for folks. My nearly 4 hours went by pretty fast and before I knew it, the time had come to count up the proceeds and balance the books.

Yet in the meantime, I found out a great deal about the community that I teach in simply by watching the people who came to the game.  I liked what I learned.

For one thing, those who are over 62 get in free to basketball games at our school.  It was sweet to see all of those people stop by the table and happily exclaim that they definitely fit that description.  You could tell by the looks on their faces that coming to the high school game was a highlight of their week.  They joked back and forth with one another, often encouraging me to check the other person's ID's before I really let them in for free.  

For the record, I didn't check.
But it sure made me happy to see them there supporting the local teams.

One of those "senior citizens" lingered a bit longer at the table.  I told him that he and his wife, both local folks, could just head on in and enjoy the game.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crisp $100 bill.  At first I didn't know why he was trying to pay me but I soon learned as he pressed the bill into my hands.

"Please put this in the till.  Our school needs this."
And he was right.
We surely do.

School funding for the state of Oklahoma goes by two names, "Slim" and "None".  School districts in the Sooner State, just like many of those across America, scrap for every dollar that they can receive.  Budgets are sliced to beyond the bare bones, staff is not hired, and those that remain take up the slack.  Not too much a person can do about it.  It is what it is.

Dismal at times.

My salary as a veteran teacher of 40 years now is $15,000 less than what I made when I retired in Kansas.  I was advised many times by different people to remember that I would make very little in comparison to what I was used to.  My paycheck definitely shows it each month, but we get by just fine.  As I have always said, I never got into this business for the money. 

I got into it because I love children and the chance to be called their teacher.
Simple as that.

That wonderful gentleman who lives in our community knows the value of a good education. He knows very well how much it takes to have a successful school, and he also knows that the current budget can come up short from time to time.  That's why he gave me that $100 bill last night.

It wasn't necessary.
He did it anyways.

Today I have been thinking about that man and his kind offering of extra money to the school district that I now teach at.  The more I thought about him, the more I realized that he gave me more than $100 last evening.  He gave he something else as well, a gift that he didn't realize he was giving.

Through his kind heart and gentle spirit, he gave me the gift of hope.

Sometimes it's easy to think that no one understands the struggles that we sometimes go through as educators.  So many educators, myself included, reach deep into our pockets to provide the things that we know our students need because there isn't enough money in our budget.    I haven't met a teacher yet who didn't do that and even more so, I've never met one who truly complained about it.  It's just what we do.  

I believe that wonderful benefactor of Big Pasture School District understands the need so very well.  Last night his simple act of kindness lifted the spirits of one tired school teacher.  

And she was me.

These are the 19 reasons that I get up each and every day.  They deserve a chance in this life to have the very best education that any kid could receive.  Some very kind friends in Kansas made sure that all of them had KU shirts to wear.  The goodness of people never ceases to amaze me.

I told Mike when he married me that he got more than just a wife.  I reminded him that I came with 3 children of my own plus about thousand or so that have called me by the name of "teacher" throughout the years.  He married me anyways.

a part of me still remains here

Sunday morning
2:34 a.m

Can't sleep.
Might as well do something.

It's really quiet in this motel room as well it should be at 2:30 in the morning.  Most normal people are sound asleep now, resting up and recharging their brains for the day ahead.  Mine told me an hour ago that it had reached "full power", I guess.  Rather than continue to toss and turn in bed, I just made the decision to get up and write.  I'm hoping this will be the ticket to get back to sleep in just a short while.

Time will tell.
We shall see.

Mike and I are home in Kansas for a very short time.  We left our home along the Red River about 6:30 a.m. yesterday and made the easy drive northward to a place that has meant so much to me.  I've been gone now for well over 3 years and each time I return my goal is to soak up as much of "home" as I can before I need to return to my new home in Texas.

So much about this town has changed.
So much remains just as I always remembered it.

This has been the first visit back to Hutch since I left that I didn't run into someone who I knew. Usually before, I could count on seeing an old friend at the grocery store or at the local gas station. Not this time.  I'm not sure that has much meaning other than people I once knew weren't running the same route as I was yesterday.  Before we leave this morning, I may yet have the chance to have an unexpected visit with someone.

I always refer to that pleasant opportunity by one name.
I call it a "God thing".

I have gazed at all of the houses and stores that we have driven by here in town.  It was fun to read the signs, especially those that announced upcoming events.  It's been entertaining to listen to what people are saying in the stores as we shop or wait to go through the check out line.  There has to be a smile on my face while I do so.  They are talking about my town, a place where I spent a whole lot of time.  I want to say, "Hey I know what you are talking about!  I used to live here."

But I don't.
I have a new home now.

As we were driving along yesterday and visiting some of the places that I always loved to frequent, I told Mike that a part of me still missed this place.  It's not the same kind of longing that I once had, especially at first.  Yet it is there and I cannot deny its existence.  There is something about being here that continues to tug at my heart and perhaps that is for good reason.

A part of me still remains here.
It's the piece of my tender heart that I left behind.

In just a few hours more, we will be on the way back home again to a very wonderful life upon the plains of Texas.  There is a new home there, a much different community, climate not like the one I'm used to here, a boy I used to know from the "land of long ago and far, far away", and 19 eight and nine-year olds who call me "teacher".  I'm actually doing very well in my new life and for that I give thanks.

The Lord has been good to me.
I cannot complain.

Maybe you have been just like me.  Perhaps you uprooted yourself from a place of familiarity and began a new life in a land quite removed from the one you were used to.  From time to time, even you might feel the longing that I sometimes do to return to the place of your birth.  I don't think that's a bad thing.  As a matter of fact, it seems perfectly normal to me.  Sometimes you just have to go "home" for a spell and so that's what you do.

You go home.
You find the place where you left a whole bunch of yourself at.

Sunday morning
3:00 a.m.

It did the trick.
Time to get some sleep.

It was the view looking up one summer's day a couple of years ago in Montrose, Colorado.  The same God who watched over me in Kansas went with me to the Rocky Mountains, and then the plains of the great Lone Star state.  No need to worry about how I am doing.  I'm in the best of hands.

His.

~it's Thanksgiving after all~

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, a time when people stop to pause and give thanks for everything that they have as well as everything they have not.  We will probably all eat too much and when we step on the scales in the days that follow, that extra slice of pie or scoopful of mashed potatoes will tell on us big time.  I never get too worked up about that.

It's Thanksgiving after all.

Tomorrow we will have our dinner here with my sister Sherry and brother-in-law Wes joining us at the table.  As well, we plan to have two airmen from the nearby Air Force base as our guests.  We look forward to meeting them, filling up their bellies, and allowing them to have a "taste" of home for the holidays.   

Today I have been working on cleaning up the house and finishing up some last minute things that need to be done before tomorrow.  One of the things I wanted to take care of was to pull out the leaves on the table and take it from its short version to its much longer one.  After that was done, I put all 6 chairs around it as I contemplated which table covering to use.

It didn't take me all that long to make the choice.

Last year before Mike's Aunt Margaret passed away, she told us that she wanted us to take her dining room furniture to our house and continue to use it however we saw fit.  The drawers of the china hutch were filled with fine linens, many of them made by Aunt Margaret.  I peeked inside once we got everything home to Burkburnett from Olney.  I was amazed by the many fancy pieces of linen she had.  One in particular caught my eye.  It was one that she had hand crocheted on her own and it was absolutely beautiful.  I could tell that it had not been used much and probably had been tucked into the drawers of the china cabinet for much of its time. 

I took it out, admired it, and then promptly folded it back up again and nestled it safe within the drawer.  I realized how well taken care of it had been and that it probably had never even been used more than once or twice.  I wasn't about to get it out and take the chance of ruining it somehow.  Rather, I chose to keep it in its pristine condition to honor the wonderful woman who had made it.  

I hadn't seen it for over a year.

This morning as I began to ready the dining room table for tomorrow, I had to stop and think about some type of table linen.  I wandered over to the drawer and began to rummage through the stacks and stacks of neatly pressed tablecloths, dresser scarves, pillow slips, and tea towels. It didn't take long before I found it once again, that beautiful crocheted piece that I had swore I'd always keep nice and never use.  Sure enough, it appeared just as nice as the day I put it away last October.  

Yep, there it was.  
Never used one time.

I got to thinking about something.  Why was it that I thought not using the tablecloth would honor Aunt Margaret?  What is it about stashing things away to keep for the good that makes it an honorable thing to do in the first place?  Hadn't it been made to use?  If not, what in the world was it made for?  For the life of me, I couldn't think of one reason at all.  My hands lifted it up and in no time, I had spread the beautiful piece of handiwork atop the red checked farmhouse table cloth that I had chosen to use.

It looked beautiful and happy to finally be loved.

There will be six of us at the table tomorrow, enjoying a delicious meal and the company of one another.  There will be two young men who join us who cannot go home this time for Thanksgiving Day with their families.  We shall make them feel at home with us and even though we are not the family that they are used to, we are ones who are happy to have them here.  We may spill a little gravy or a sliver of pumpkin pie on the cloth covered table.  Someone might accidentally upset their glass of tea or cup of coffee.  There's the chance that the table cloth might not fare the entire meal without a stain or two or even three.  

That won't even matter.

No belonging of ours, be it the tablecloth or a piece of fine glassware or anything else of value will ever be worth more to us than the good people who join us for a meal of thanks giving.  I believe Aunt Margaret would be happy to know that we will utilize her special piece of handwork to grace the top of the table.  I'm glad that I have chosen to use it and will be thinking of her during the meal tomorrow.

I've known far too many women, my own mother included, who refused to use the beautiful things that had been given to them during the course of their lives.  They instead would tuck it away into the dark abyss of a closet or bureau drawer, only to be found after they had passed on while their children cleaned out their mother's house.  That seems rather sad and even almost wasteful.

I intend to stop that practice tomorrow.
May my own children find my things well loved when my time on earth is through.  

Aunt Margaret passed on about 6 weeks after this photo was taken in Olney, Texas.  Mike and I were very blessed to get to Texas in time to spend an entire summer with her.  She was one of the reasons that we chose this area of the world to live in.  Our feet are planted pretty firmly here now and the name of "Renfro" is written in the red dirt of the land.

We didn't have much time, but at least we had the summer.

~thank you Aunt Beck~

I lost my Aunt Beck last evening.  

She died at the age of 103 and was the last of a generation of folks that have meant the world to me.  Rebecca was my mom's sister and her passing marks the end of a long line of aunts and uncles who helped to shape my life and mold me into the person that I was meant to be all along.  Those dear people were God's instruments and messengers here on earth in the refinement of a young girl named Peggy, and I was fortunate to have kept this last one of them for so very long.

I loved her and will miss her dearly.

It is so strange how things turn out in this life of ours.  Just a couple of days ago, the kids in my class had an historical fiction selection in their readers.  In the story, a little girl has to go and live with her uncle during the Great Depression.  It tells of how she bonded  with the uncle she never knew that she had.  At the end of the story, those hard times in American history were over and she returned home to her own parents.  I asked the kids to think about which of their relatives they would choose to live with, if that were ever necessary.  With big grins on their faces, they one by one told of someone and gave a litany of reasons as to why they were the best pick.

When they were done, I told them about my Aunt Beck and if it would have been necessary to choose, she would definitely have been the one I would live with.  When I was their age, I remember going to Aunt Beck's house to supper one night.  I guess she might have been our babysitter for the evening.  At suppertime, I was shocked to see how it would be that we ate our evening meal.  We were actually allowed to eat from a "tv tray", a new fangled contraption that I had never seen before.  The really cool thing was that on our trays there were 3 glasses of things to drink.  One was water, another milk, and the final one had something in it that I had never experienced yet.

It was a glass of soda pop.
Imagine that! 

My faint memory of the very first birthday gift I received came at age 4.  It was a pink and sparkly rubber bouncing ball.  It was just the right size for my little hands.  Aunt Beck was the one who gave it to me and even though I often lose my keys or cell phone these days, I still recall that sweet gift bestowed unto me now 57 years ago.  

Perhaps it is the little things.

I always was close to her.  When I got married 3 years ago and left Kansas, I vowed that I would make it a point to come back and see her every time that I was home.  I kept that promise faithfully. Often times our visits were with her sitting in her recliner and me kneeling on the floor beside her.  I wanted to be as close to her as I could and we would hold hands with one another as we remembered the wonderful days of yore.  Holding hands with Aunt Beck was just like holding hands with my own mom.

Her eyesight was going but she could still see me well enough to tell me that I looked like my mother.  I would laugh and smile back, telling her that I had seen it myself lately and that sometimes it was a little unsettling.  She said something to me about that subject that I will always remember in my heart.

"Well Peggy Ann, I think that looking like your mom is a very nice thing.  I don't miss her so much when I can see you in her place."

And so ok.  I look like my mom.  

The last time we saw one another was a just a few months back and I had every intention of going over to see her this weekend upcoming when Mike and I went back to Kansas.  I had called her a couple of weeks ago to check on her and see how things were going.  I told her that I would see her soon and she said what she always did to me about that.

"That will be just fine!  I probably will be here."

I will see her this weekend, but not at her home.  On Sunday morning before we come back home to Texas, I'll visit her final resting place where all of the other family is laid as well.  I'm sad for me, but very happy for her.  As is the case with most elders, they are more than ready to go "home".  

I don't blame them.  
Some day I will be at that point in time as well.

I believe that she is in Heaven now and I know that one day I will see her again.  In the meantime, I give thanks for every special memory I made with her in my own life and will hold each of them close to my heart.  I'm thankful that I went to see her every chance that I could.  I knew that I would not regret it if I did.

I definitely would have regretted it if I had not.

                            Thank you Aunt Beck~

~and my mom thought of everything~

My mom thought of everything.

I've been spending time going through a huge collection of books and journals that I've accumulated over the past ten years.  It was a "culling" of sorts as I determined what was the most important to keep.  I gave away several of them to my children, donated many to the local thrift store, and tucked much of the rest into the spare bedroom closet.  I was almost done tonight in going through them until I came across one last journal.

It was the little notebook that contained her funeral plans.

You know I was aware it was in there all along but you know how that old saying goes~"Out of sight, out of mind"?  Well it was.

She had the customary things that one includes in their funeral plans.  She wanted her funeral to be at her church in Hutchinson and for a dear family friend to officiate at it.  Mom had already long before paid for her funeral expenses as well as picked out her own casket.  The information with the corresponding numbers for things she purchased were well written out.  I remember the day that someone from the local funeral home came to her house to see her and explain everything that would be involved.  At that time, Mom was in reasonably good health for someone of her age.  She was in her late '70s and just felt it was time to do it.  She was very set on having things taken care before died because she didn't want us kids to have to deal with it when the time came.

I hope that I thanked her enough for doing that.
What a burden was lifted from our shoulders!

Clipped to the front couple of pages were some poems that meant a great deal to her about growing older and dying.  I had never paid much attention to them before, least wise until tonight.  I paused for a moment before finding a place on the shelf to store the journal, and read what the poems had to say.

My mom was 87 when she passed away, and truly she was more than ready to go.  She loved living, don't get me wrong, but there is something to say for not having to suffer the aches and pains that this life on earth seems to give us.  The older she became, the more her body gave out on her.  When her time came, just two weeks after her birthday, she didn't linger very long.  

Mom left us all a message on the last page of her book.  It was one that I believe she hoped would bring us much comfort and solace when she was gone.  She knew how much we would miss her and how sad we truly would be.  With pen in hand, Mom scrawled the final message at the bottom of the page.  It meant so much to read it shortly after her death.  It means even more tonight as I sit at the kitchen table and write these words.

Mom's life wasn't easy.   She worked hard, raised a huge family and helped to raise everyone else who needed a "mom" but didn't have one.  My father's death in 1982 left her a widow at the same age that I am now.  She continued to work well into her '70s in order to provide for herself and pay the monthly bills.  Towards the end of life her body began to wear out.  It became harder to walk, more difficult to breathe, and the arrival of panic attacks a couple of years before she died, was always a constant concern.  Yet she remained firm in the knowledge that her life had been a good one, despite every burden she had to shoulder alone.

I am like my mother.  I look in the mirror and see her looking back at me every single day.  At first it was scary to think that I was beginning to look just like her.  Then I got used to it and finally just embraced it.  After all, she was my mother.

I don't think I'll discard this book.  There are so many pages left unfilled and so I think that I will use it for my own funeral plans.  I'd like to make my own children's lives much easier by having things taken care of ahead of time.  My own cremation plan has been paid for long ago, and now there are just a few last things to deal with.  I hope to live a long time but if I should not, then I have done what I can do on my own.

It made sense to my mom.
It makes even more sense to me.

When our parents passed away, they didn't leave a huge inheritance to their children.  As a matter of fact, they didn't leave any. There was no valuable property or land scattered out across the country, no secret stash of gold or stocks and bonds.  Yet even in all of that, our mother left us something far more valuable than any material thing could have been.  She left us the gift of her wisdom and undying love for each of us.  

They were the simple words written into 5 pages of a notebook that instructed what to do when she died.  I love it that she said that her life was good and that she thanked the people who made sure of that.  I'm thankful for the gift she left me, the one that I can hold in my hands any time that I wish or need to.  It was just an old book, purchased from the local grocery store but the thoughts contained in it were priceless.  

They were thoughts of my mother and I look just like her.

~meet me in Heaven~

The older I have become, the more I realize that I don't need near as much of the material world that I once thought I did.  I find myself getting rid of, donating to charity, or giving to my children those things that really have lost their true meaning to me.  As the years go past me, I seem to do it more and more.

I'm going through some things now in one of our spare bedrooms and trying to decide how it was that I came upon so much stuff in the first place.  I had a five shelf bookcase in there that was filled to the brim with books.  The sad truth was that most of them were ones that I never even opened up. They just looked good at the time, and so I bought them.  Today I was cleaning that bookshelf off so that Mike can use it for storage in his new shed.  I decided that it was the perfect time to start culling through my vast collection of things to read and pare it down to only those that meant the most to me.

And so I did.

I figure I must have had about a hundred books on those shelves and so my goal was to at least get rid of 2 dozen of them.  I ended up with one more than that.  I packed a huge box for the local thrift store, chose some for my children, and the rest were put away into the closet.  I imagine that in time, even those collections of the written word will have little meaning to me any longer.  

As I was cleaning off the shelves, I came across several books that were the funeral registers for people in our family.  Several of them date back from the 1940's and 50's when my great-uncles and grandfather on the Brown side of the family passed away.  I'm not even sure why I was keeping them, but I suppose it was to honor the memory of fine people that I never once met.  I had toyed with throwing them away several years back, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Not sure why that was either.  I suppose it was in part because I felt like it was dishonorable to toss that record away, whether I knew them or not.  

Today it was different.  As I came across those funeral books, one by one I read through them a final time.  I took a picture of the pages that I thought would be of benefit in genealogy research.  After that, I held them close to my heart and said a silent prayer.  

"God, these were all good people.  They were my family.  I have taken care of these for a long time but I am choosing this day to let them go.  These folks are in Heaven now, with you and all of the family members that have left before me.  They are in a way better place than this world will ever be.  I don't need to keep these funeral books any longer.  It's time for me to discard them now."

And so I did.
For the record, I felt pretty ok about it.

I'm just like my mom who was a keeper of things that were absolutely of no value to anyone else but her.  I must have learned this by watching her good example, yet even after all of these years that have gone by, I think she too would have told me that it is fine to let them go.

I found my mom's journals again on that old bookshelf and read through them one last time. They too are going to be given away to my own children so that they can reread the things that she had upon her heart and mind.  The handwritten scrawl that she had was so heartwarming to see once again.  I smiled as I read her simple words of what she thought deemed any given day to be a good one. She wrote of seeing her children and grandchildren, and spoke of how it would have been hard to survive without their help.  If she had done the laundry that day, it was written. The temperature was recorded and the news of the block reported.  It was the simple things, the most mundane of things that she wrote of.  She kept track of what the doctor told her at an appointment, what she ate for supper, and which part of her body ached the most on that particular day.  My mom never realized that 15 years later I would be reading them once more and writing about them in this blog.

I found one other thing on the shelf, something that I will never part with.  It was an old worn out Bible that belonged to my great-uncle, William Brown.  William was a man I never met.  He died long before a little baby named Peggy Ann was born to his niece, Lois Brown Scott.  I heard stories of him though and the rest of his brothers.  I wished I could have known him. When my grandmother passed away, the little Bible was something that was left over and no one else spoke up for it.  I was the one who ended up with it that day and it's been in my possession ever since.  The binding is failing, the pages are so fragile with age, and most all of the time it is stored in a special box where hopefully nothing else will happen to it.

I didn't see it at first but after I got the Bible home, I realized that my great-uncle had left a message inside for me.  The minute I read it, I felt like I had known him all of my life and even though I had never met him, one day I knew that I'd see him again.

It was a simple, four word message.
It was one that brings me much solace.

~today I was a witness to one~

I love  a good spelling bee.

Today I was a witness to one.

Our school had their annual spelling bee this afternoon.  We've known it was coming for a month or so now.  Any child that wanted to participate could sign up to be in it.  All they had to do was practice the words and show up this afternoon.

It was as simple as that.

For the past couple of weeks, the kids and I have been having "mock" spelling bees each morning during our language arts hour.  I wanted them to get the feel of what it would be like this afternoon.  Everyone participated in the practice ones, even though not everyone wanted to be in the real thing today.  I told them they could learn from one another by working together on the practice part of it.

And so they did.

Each morning as they went out after missing a word, they returned to their desks and continued to listen to the others practicing.  They tried to say the words in their head before the person I was calling on at the time said anything.  They began to learn by osmosis as kids spelled words like tusk, lotion, backpack, London, beginning, smirk, and a gazillion more on the list.  I felt confident after this morning's practice, that things would go ok for them this afternoon.

They did well.

It was exactly as I predicted.

13 of the 17 participants in today's bee were from my 3rd grade room. For the longest time, well into 5 rounds, they stayed the course.  One by one, they tackled each word that was pronounced to them.  After the 5th round, they began to drop out on words that were among the most difficult of the list.  As each one left the front of the gymnasium, you could sense how sad many of them were.  It was hard not to get upset.  After practicing that long and hoping to be one of the final two, I can certainly understand their sorrow.

In the end, one of my young ladies was the second place winner and one of the young men was the 1st place winner.  It was so good to see the smiles on their faces as they were awarded their special plaques that proclaimed them winners in today's contest.

We stopped for a moment after it was over to take our picture.  It's an afternoon that I will always remember as one that was filled with time very well spent.

When I was a little girl, spelling was my favorite subject.  I may have been a charter member in the fifth grade of the "I Hate Math" club at Haven Grade School, but give me a list of 100 words to learn to spell and I was happy.  I have never quite figured that one out.  From 3rd grade on to 8th grade, I was always a member of the Central Kansas Sunflower League spelling contest team.  

I couldn't run very fast or hit a softball very far, but I sure could tell you how to spell just about any word put before me.

I told the kids about the time when I was an 8th grader and actually qualified to go to the county spelling bee that year.  I studied all those words like crazy and determined myself that I would be heading to the state bee that year and maybe even the national one.  I was a 13-year old with big dreams.

It didn't quite exactly go as I planned it.

I believe there were 14 of us down in the basement of the Reno County Courthouse that spring day in 1969.  I sized up the competition and just hoped I would be given words that were familiar to me.  Soon the pronouncing of the words began.  

My first few rounds were uneventful.  The words that I was given were not all that hard and if I just stopped to think about them I could do just fine.  All around me kids were being eliminated from the contest.  I was thankful that I didn't get the words they had been given, that's for sure. Finally it was down to the last 5.  I was still in.

My good fortune fell apart in that round as I was pronounced a word that I had never even heard of before.  I asked for it to be pronounced again and then to be used in a sentence.  I can remember asking for a definition of it and still not sure what in the heck that word was.  It might as well have been in another language because as far as I was concerned, it was.

It was the word haphazardly.  

Imagine that.

I had no clue as to what the word looked like, none whatsoever.  The only thing I knew was to just start spelling it and hope for the best.  I should have expected the worse.

"H-A-P", I slowly began.

I remember stopping and pausing for the longest of moments before I began again.  It's all you can do when you know that finally at long last, you have been given a word that you will misspell.  I began once again.

"H-A-P-H-A-Z-Z-A-R-D-L-Y?"I asked in a timid little girl's voice.

The pronouncer was sorry.  That wasn't correct.  Wouldn't you know it?  Only 1 "z" is needed. My illustrious career as a speller was ended.  I wouldn't be shaking the President's hand as a result of winning the national spelling bee after all.  

I went home.

Defeated.

Today when I watched my students up in the front of the gym, I remembered so much how I once was just like they are now.  I felt their nervousness as they waited for different words to be pronounced.  I empathized with the ones who made mistakes and had to go out of the contest, sometimes with tears in their eyes.  I rejoiced with the ones who made it nearly to the end and I honestly could have just cried for them each when they didn't make it to the final spots.  My heart swelled with pride to see the top two spellers and to know that the art of spelling is alive and well.

This day I was a witness to it.

It was here on the Oklahoma prairie.

In a place they once called "the Big Pasture".

~on the subject of do overs~

One of the things that I have never regretted as a teacher is the chance to give students "do overs". It has happened many times over the past nearly 40 years.  Maybe it was a spelling test that some kid forgot to study for or a math quiz that really didn't make all that much sense to them at the time.  It could have been the writing assignment that was handed in much too quickly, and I realized that they had the potential to do so much better.  It may well have been the day that as a class, they were way too noisy and rather than taking away recess, I tried giving them something instead.

The gift was a chance to have a "do over" the next day.  

I never thought much about it, just figured it was good teaching practice.  Last year though, one of my students in the 5th grade language arts class asked me the question of why I gave them a second chance so many times.

"Mrs. Renfro, how come is it that you are so nice to us?  Why do you always give us another chance ?  We really don't deserve it."

Her words, quite innocently said, caught me off guard for the moment.  I'm not sure that I had ever thought about that kind of question. Yet I took them to heart and remembered them.  I told her that it was because I was raised that way and that I'd been given plenty of second chances myself.  My life's resume is filled with them, given by people who knew I could do much more.  They held me accountable to that fact and because of that, I became a better person.  Their actions helped to refine me in order that I could become who I am today.

I owe them my thanks.

Although it has not always been easy, there is one thing I have tried to do each day as I taught the children in my classroom.  If times got a little rough on say, oh let's say days before vacation or the Halloween party or any other time when things get exciting, I have tried to remember this one thing. 

Once there was a little girl named Peggy Ann Scott.
So very long ago now, she was one of them too.

I'm going to be giving plenty of second chances this week, in fact probably a couple of them today.  Those second chances will be offered in the spirit that says I know better work could have been given.  I hope I will be the recipient of some second chances as well, wherever it is that my life takes me this school year or in any of the years to follow.

How about you?  Can the same be said of your life's experiences?  Has anyone ever given you a second chance? Dear friends, be mindful of it this day.  Wait and watch for those times when you yourself are the recipient of one.  Maybe you will have the wonderful opportunity to give someone you know another chance to do better.  

You won't regret it if you do.
You might regret it if you don't.

                                                                then

                                                                    now

                 You just never know where those second chances are going to come from.

~and I think that it is already happening~

We have an act of kindness jar in our classroom at school.  The kids filled it with marbles to overflowing last week and emptied the jar out to begin again.  Already it is starting to grow.  The only instruction I gave them this time around was this.

"This time we are not going to count saying "thank you" to someone or holding the door open for everyone.  I expect by now that you would do that automatically from your heart and so even though that act of kindness won't get us another marble in the jar, please don't stop doing it.  I want you to think of as many other things as you can.  It won't be that hard if you only look and listen to those around you."

And that was the truth.  Kind things were happening all around them and they hadn't even thought of them.

One child told me that the bus driver said "good morning" and made them feel better.  Another student said that at lunch time she noticed another kid picking up the trash that someone left behind.  Two boys came to me on Friday with the same report.  They had both been looking after the little kids on the playground, making sure that they didn't get hurt.  The sweetest little girl said that we needed to remember all the snacks that Mrs. St. Clair gives us.  

"Mrs. Renfro, we have had a bunch of snacks because Mrs. St. Clair loves us.  Now that's an act of kindness, isn't it?"  

And the list went on and on.

I hate it that the world is filled with so much hatred right now.  It's hard to explain to children who ask about it when I don't even understand it myself.  The only thing I know to do is to continue to encourage kindness where ever and whenever they can.  It might be the act of benevolence from someone other than themselves.  Perhaps they shall see their parent allowing someone to go first at the intersection or giving up their place in line at the supermarket to another person who has only a few items.  Maybe they will see their teacher show compassion when someone forgets their homework or gives a well needed "do over" on a test that didn't turn out so well.  

It could happen, you know?

I listened carefully this week to the kids.  There were still voices that said "please", "thank you", and "you're welcome" to others and somehow or another, without fail, the door was always held open by another kid.  I have faith that they are learning the lesson that I set out for this to be.  I want them to learn to be kind automatically without any regard to receiving an award for doing it.

The good news is this.
I think it is already happening.

My sisters and I learned the fine art of kindness by watching the example of our mother.  Last year when I taught at Petrolia, one of the 5th grade girls asked me how it was that I was so kind to the kids in class.  I told her it was because that was the way I was raised.  It's what my mom would have expected from me.

I'm 61 years old now and my mom has been gone for over 9 years. 
I still remember her teaching me.
I don't plan to be forgetting any time soon.

~the very least that we can do~

I'm a stickler for saying the Pledge of Allegiance correctly in my classroom.  I've been known to stop the recitation of it when we were halfway through and have the class start all over again. If someone is saying it half heartedly or too quickly, we stop and begin once more.  I've been that way for a long time, as a matter of fact 39 years of a long time.  

It's a matter of principle and patriotism to me.

Today is Veteran's Day, a time that we honor all those who have served in the armed forces of the United States.  They are those men and women who have fought and died to protect the very flag that we say the pledge to each and every day.  

I never thought too much about Veteran's Day as a kid growing up back in Kansas, that is until the summer of 1967.  My little hometown of Haven experienced the loss of two young men, only two weeks apart from the other, in the jungles of Vietnam.  Henry Fisher and Sergio Albert paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives in a conflict that was about as unpopular to be involved in as any I have ever known.  I was only 12 years old and just a kid myself, but their deaths in combat made a lasting impression upon me.  When I go home to Kansas, I often stop by their graves at Laurel Cemetery to pay my respects to them.  Those young men, forever frozen in time, did what they were called upon to do.

My brother, the late Mike Scott, was an Army veteran who served his time in Vietnam as well. I was only 10 years old when he left for that place so far away from home.  I still remember when we took Mike to the airport in Wichita to get on the plane that would deliver him from the safety of the American Midwest to the unknown of a place in southeast Asia.  Everyone tried to fight back the tears as we said our good-byes but it wasn't easy.  Everything seemed to be changing.  During his year over there, my mom would bake cookies like crazy and pack them as well as she could for mailing overseas.  Most of the time they arrived as cookie crumbles, but it didn't matter.  Those broken bits and pieces represented home to my brother. He and his buddies gladly devoured them, right down to the last crumb.  It helped my mom get through those dark and lonely days of wondering if we would ever see him again.

We had the most beautiful Veteran's Day program yesterday at school.  The kids sang their hearts out with spirit and meaning.  Veterans that were in attendance were ushered in right before the program started.  My heart swelled with joy to see people in the audience rising to their feet and giving them a standing ovation.  

Towards the end of the ceremony a moment of silence was observed for those veterans who had already passed.  In the stillness of our gym, the sound of "Taps" could be heard.  When it was played yesterday during our practice time, tears began to come to my eyes.  It was the first time I had heard it since my brother's funeral in 2007.  It was very meaningful to me.

The trumpet's mournful sound, signaling day's end or the very end of life itself, reminds us all that the blood of many Americans has fallen in order that we might enjoy the freedoms that we have today.  

Pausing on one day of the year to remember and honor them is the very least that we can do.

In the summer of 2013, Mike and I had the opportunity to visit the "Traveling Wall" in Montrose, Colorado.  It is a replica of the permanent one that honors those who died in Vietnam.  I'm standing by the panel that bears the name of Henry Fisher, a young man from my hometown of Haven, Kansas.

~and Layne is one of them~

It was the sweetest thing to see the look on that young man's face this morning as he approached me just as soon as he made his way into the classroom.  I couldn't figure out for a moment what on earth he was carrying in his hands.  Upon closer examination, I could see that he'd been building again.

"Hey I made this for you, Mrs. Renfro.  It's your classroom!"

Sure enough he was right.
It was.  

I couldn't believe my eyes as I stared down at his creation.  For goodness sake, it WAS just like our classroom.  There in miniature, including the tiniest of details, were some of the things that surround me during the 7 hours that we are all together in one room.  It was amazing!  Really, very amazing.

There was the little teacher, which of course was me.  She sits at her own desk appropriately labeled "Mrs. Renfro".  You might notice the computer screen in front of her with the logo on it as well as an apple for the teacher on her desk.  Now it's a little hard to tell from looking at the photo, but in one hand she has her pointer for pointing out those things that are much too high for her to reach.  In the other hand rests her cell phone.  I smiled when I saw this and had to think for a minute why he included it.  More than likely it's because it's the only place I have a timer when I need to use one.  The little guy to the left in the picture is the young man who designed this whole thing.  He is one of "the 19" and his name is Layne.  He's a builder extraordinaire.

He remembered to put the sink right behind me, just like it is in our classroom.

Layne even made the place where I hang my purse and you might notice that $100 bill just waiting for me to spend it.  He didn't spare any of the details.  For the record, I wish I did have a $100 bill.

This bird's eye view puts it all in perspective.  See that whiteboard?  It's just like the one in our room and all of the black on it is our math problems, I believe.  There are extra chairs for kids to sit on and although you can't see it, there is actually a blue KU poster hanging along one side of it.  By the way, I'm also wearing a KU blue t-shirt, just like I always do.  I'm telling you, this kid doesn't miss much.

And here he is.

Receiving this special gift this morning reminded me of a somber thought.  In my mind, I can see this young man growing up some day and becoming an engineer or an architect or hey, maybe something totally different.  I see such wonderful things ahead for him in his future. In the years that will come after third grade, Layne will grow and change.  I am older now and at age 61,  I would like to think that I will be around long enough to see him reach adulthood. Maybe I can.

Perhaps I will not.

But if I am not around when that time comes, I will always be glad that I was his teacher this year.  I'm doing everything I can for him while he is in my care.  I want to have no regrets as to how I taught him and all of the other kids as well.  They mean everything to me.  

Everything.

Sometimes the days in our classroom are rough and other times they run smoothly.  We are a classroom community and as such we practice the fine art of sticking together.  No matter how the day goes or how it ends up, when those 19 children head out the door for home, I want them to know how much they are loved by me and that their place in this room is special.

Layne is one of them.
 

~and it was a place at the table~

And so the days go by.

November is pushing onward and before we realize it, the eleventh month shall be halfway over. The holidays are fast approaching.  Soon it shall be time to set the Thanksgiving Day table.  Not long after that day of giving thanks, the Christmas tree shall go up.  The older I get, the more I realize one thing.

Time is fleeting.

Last year, Mike and I began what we hope is a yearly tradition for the Thanksgiving Day celebration.  We were able to host two airmen from nearby Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls.  Mike had seen an advertisement on a local television station asking for volunteer families to accept an airman or two into their homes.  These would be young people who simply couldn't go home for the Thanksgiving Day feast with their own families.  

Mike called me while my sister and I were in Kansas finishing up the necessities for selling my home there.  He asked me if it would be ok for us to do it, and I couldn't think of any reason why it wouldn't be.  

So we did.

We ended up that day with two very nice young men.  They came into our home, wide eyed and with smiles on their faces.  Both of them were kind of quiet at first, but as the morning drew on we could tell that they were really happy to have a "home" to be in.  For both of them, it was their first holiday away from their own families, and so they became "our family" for the day.

They had great appetites and for that we were grateful.  We had cooked way too much for those who would be there.  The first thing I told them as they came through our living room door was that they'd better have empty stomachs and hollow legs.  I intended to fill them up and then some. It worked out just fine.  We ate, watched football all afternoon, ate some more, and then finally at 5 p.m. we took them back to the base.  As they got out of the car, each carried bags of leftovers that we hoped they'd eat later on.  It felt good to know they had eaten plenty.

It was one of the most rewarding of things we have ever done.

We went ahead to sign up for this Thanksgiving Day as well.  People who agree to host someone do not know who it is ahead of time.  You just show up at the main gate, sign in, and drive over to where they are waiting for you.  It's actually quite simple.  

As a country and a great nation, we need to do as much as we can to honor and take care of our soldiers.  Maybe the normal person, just like us, can't do a huge amount.  We can't change what will happen to them, where they will be transferred, or what conflict they might have to go through.  Yet for one day, the last Thursday in the month of November, we can do something.  It doesn't cost anything hardly at all, just the willingness to help out and one other important thing.

A place at the table.

Zach was one of those young men who joined us that Thanksgiving Day.  He came back over several times.  This photo was taken on Super Bowl Sunday earlier this year.  We have been thankful to stay in touch with him and his wonderful family.  

~and it was a fire to stay warm by~

It's a fairly cool, cloudy and very wet day here in north central Texas with the temperature resting in the high 60's.  When we woke up this morning, the first thing Mike and I talked about was building a fire in the fireplace and staying home for the rest of the day.

And so we did.

We could have gotten by without it I suppose, but why would we want to?  Earlier this summer, we had someone come out and inspect the chimney to be sure that it was safe to burn wood in this winter.  After a few minor adjustments, the guy who did it pronounced it "good as new". We were lucky to find a neighbor down the street a ways who had just felled a huge pecan tree a few days before.  Fireplace wood was for sale at a great price and Mike ordered a couple of loads of it.  We hope to have plenty to burn throughout the weeks ahead.  Time will tell just how cold this coming season of winter shall be.

It's funny how something like a fireplace going can stir up many memories.  As I was sitting at the hearth and warming up my backside, I couldn't help to think of a time long ago when we lived in a house just north of Haven, Kansas.  I can't remember sometimes where I put my cellphone, but I can remember just about everything from our stay at Mr. Moore's place.

I was only 8 years old when we first moved to Haven in late December of 1963.  Our family rented a house 3 miles north of our new community.  A sweet and elderly man named John Moore was our landlord. He was so good to us in many ways, and ended up being the "grandpa" that my little sister and I never had.  That little farmhouse was our home for the next 5 1/2 years, a place that provided plenty of memories of childhood days gone by.

In the winter time it was cold there.  Our main source of heat was a floor furnace that was between the living and dining rooms.  My little sister and I used to stand on that thing until the rubber of the soles of our tennis shoes would start to smell as if it could catch fire at any moment.  It was our signal that it was time to move on, lest we would have to explain to our mom why our shoes had huge holes in them.  You know, it never sounded like a fun thing to do.

We had no fancy washer and dryer back then, only an old wringer washer that mom used on the back porch.  In the winter time, she would hang the wet laundry on a wooden rack that she positioned by the floor furnace.  There it would dry.  As I type these words, I marvel at the thought of how much we didn't have back in those days.  Yet it really didn't matter.

We were happy anyways.

Every once in a while when the cold winds would turn bitter, Mom would chop some wood to burn in the small fireplace that was positioned against the east wall of the dining room.  It certainly wasn't energy efficient, but at least it provided some degree of extra warmth.  I realize how hard Mom had to work to make the house warm.  Our father had heart disease and chopping wood was not something he was allowed to do.  So Mom would bundle herself up as best she could and head out to the old grove of trees just north of our place.  With ax in hand, she would set to work.  I regret that I never said "thank you" for all of things she did to keep us safe and warm back then.

I have a feeling she might have already known how much we kids appreciated it.

Mike, Sally, and Crosby have enjoyed that wonderful fire we built today.  They are in the living room now, cozy and warm as they watch the football game together.  Every once in a while if I'm not working on some school work, I head in there and bask a bit in the fire's glow myself.

It feels nice.

Today has been the best day ever.  We stayed home and don't feel any pressure to do anything further.  Both of us, hey even you who read this blog post, need to have days like this one more often.  I'd love to take my blood pressure right now.  I'm going to guess it's as perfect as it could be.  I'm so thankful to have good memories to fall back on these days.  Our parents did the best they could for us and even though our family of 9 didn't have much extra money for things, it really didn't matter.  They kept us fed, safe, loved, and warm.  

It may have been only an old furnace and a makeshift kind of fireplace, but one thing is for sure.

It was a fire to stay warm by.

                                          All 3 of them are living "the life of Riley" today.  

~a thousand other things~

November 4, 1969 was a long time ago now.
It was 47 years of a "long time ago."
Yet I still remember that ill-fated day and probably will never forget.

My little sister and I were walking home from school.  It was a 7 or 8 block walk from the old high school in Haven down to our folks' cafe in the south part of town.  We had just gotten out of school for the day and had actually made it to the post office before a car belonging to a dear friend pulled up and waved us over.

It was one of the women who worked for our folks, Mabel Nicklaus, and she told us that our mom had asked her to pick us up from school and take us over to her house.  We thought that was kind of weird, but Mabel was our friend and we knew that whatever she told us was the right thing to do.  

So we went.

After being at Mabel's house for an hour or so, the phone rang and I could tell that she was talking to our mom.  After she hung up, we all got back into Mabel's car and headed the 4 blocks away where our family's restaurant and service station was.  When we got there, the curtains were being drawn and the last of the customers was being ushered out the door.  It seemed so strange.  It was only 4:30 in the afternoon.  Why was everything closing up?  We stayed open until 10:00 p.m. every evening.  We were always there.

We soon found out.

I began to put things together.  Something was wrong.  Really wrong.  Immediately I thought of my father.  I knew he had been cutting milo that day over by Burrton.  I wondered if something had happened to him.  I remember asking Mabel if there was something wrong and if it was about my dad.  She didn't say anything but she sure looked sad.

Our mom met us in the kitchen area and I will never, ever forget what she told us that day.  I'm 61 years old now but the 14-year old that I used to be, seared that message into her heart. There it shall remain.  With tears in her eyes, she told us.

"Janice had an accident and we don't have her anymore.  She was killed."

When you are 14, the last thing on your mind is losing someone from your family.  You know how it is when you are a kid.  You wake up in the morning, get ready for school, grab your books, and head out the door.  You go to class, talk to your friends, have lunch, and wait for the final bell to mercifully ring.  When the day is over, you expect to just go on home to your normal life. Your normal, boring life.

But not that day.

Everyone was sad and crying.  Our parents filled us in on what had happened. It was about Janice, an older sister of mine.  She was married and had two little girls.  At age 27, she and her husband were living in the house that the oldest 5 of us kids grew up in, nestled deep inside the sand hills of Harvey County, Kansas. She was heading home from town that afternoon and was really only about 3 miles from home. Janice stopped at the stop sign by Farmer's Corner just outside of Halstead, Kansas.  She looked up for an instant and began to drive across the highway.

Janice never saw the semi that hit her.
Now that I am older, I actually take much solace in that.
At least she didn't suffer.  Janice didn't even know what hit her.

Her little 8-month old daughter Kimberly was in the front seat beside her.  The car seat she was sitting in would absolutely never pass the stringent safety standards of today.  Back in that time nearly half a century ago, that's all kids ever used.  Miraculously, Kimberly lived but she was hurt so badly that she would always be an invalid for the rest of her life.  After months and months of being in the hospital, a little tiny child now blind and both mentally and physically handicapped, came home to live with our family.

Oh, how she was loved!

Mom always kind of felt bad for something she had wished for many years before.  She was a woman who loved little babies and I'm sure that when the time came that the last of her 7 babies was no longer a little one, she really missed having one around.   Mom always said that she wished she could have a baby that never grew up, one that always stayed a baby.  She got her wish with Kimberly and it was a sad realization for her.

My folks took care of Kimberly for the next 13 years.  So many sacrifices were made by all of us but in the end it was so worth it.  At age 13 Kimberly had become too big for my mom to lift and take care of any longer.  She spent her remaining ten years of life living in the Winfield State Hospital.  Ironically, she died at age 23 on November 3, 1992.  It was nearly 23 years to the day that the accident happened.  

The years went by and I have forgotten exactly what my sister looked like.  A Christmas Eve fire in 1976 at my parents' home destroyed all of the photos we had of her.  I regret that I cannot even remember her voice.  I only carry any memory of her in my heart. Time went on and the young 14-year old girl I was then, became much older.  

I remember her today because I believe she is in Heaven.  My mom and dad, brother Mike, and my sweet niece Kimberly are with her too.  Perhaps she would be surprised to see what her little sister Peggy grew up to be.  I have outlived her age by 34 years, an accomplishment that I do not take lightly.  By God's grace, my life has been spared all these many years that have passed by.

My sister's part of the "plan" was much shorter than mine.  In the quick span of 27 years, she lived her whole life.  When I turned 27, I vowed to never take for granted each year that was given to me.  That's one reason why I am not upset to tell people, especially my children at school, how old I am.  Not everyone gets to grow older.  

It's a good thing that we never know for sure how long it is that we have on this earth.  Because we do not, we all should be living our lives to the fullest, each and every day.  Never take the time for granted my dear friends.

My sister would wish that for you.
So do I.

                                         Janice missed out on so many things.
                                        She never saw me grow up and build my first snowman.
                                        She never saw a thousand other things.

~in a little place on the Oklahoma prairie~

Really, it's just an old canning jar filled with marbles.  It's a whole lot like the rock jar in our room, filled with old rocks that represent each of the kids in class as well as many adults. There's nothing valuable, leastwise monetarily, in either of them but to the kids in our room at school they mean the world.  They represent who we are.

It was my sister Sherry who came up with the idea.  She suggested that I could use the huge jar of marbles that she had kept in her 4th grade classroom to make a jar filled with acts of kindness.  Once she had done the very same thing, teaching one of those "life lessons" that are among my favorite to use.  I had been visiting with her about the fact that occasionally we all need reminders of kindness, especially when the days seem long and stressful.  After she told me about the marble jar, I figured I'd give it a try.

So I did.

About a week or so ago, I told the kids that we were going to look for acts of kindness as they happened around us in our classroom as well as any other place that we might be at during the school day.  I didn't give them any further directions, just to look for things that made them feel like a kindness had been shown to them.  I left it at that.

It didn't take long.

"Someone helped me up when I fell on the playground at noon today."
"Did you hear that Mrs. Renfro?  She said 'thank you' when you gave her that."
"Oh, Mrs. Renfro you just did an act of kindness when you told us we could have a do-over on Monday on that test if we needed to."
"I was in the lunchroom today and I was having trouble getting my yogurt opened up and he helped me do it."
"Mrs. Renfro just did an act of kindness when she told us not to worry about her vase getting broken.  She told us that we were worth much more to her than any old vase."
"I noticed someone standing and holding the door open for all the kids at recess today Mrs. Renfro.  She didn't even have to do that, but she did."
"I just had an act of kindness done for me.  He saw I didn't have a pencil and made sure that I used one of his."

And it went on, and on, and on.

The jar is getting quite full now and the kids realized it earlier this afternoon.  Oh my goodness, you can't imagine how many acts of sincere kindness were displayed and noticed.  I could hardly teach my math lesson for being stopped to hear a report of one more benevolent act being done.  It warmed my heart to hear it.  The jar had done what I had hoped it would.

The kids wanted to know how full that Mason jar had to be before I would say that they were through filling it up.  Today I determined that they would need it to be filled so full that I could not put a lid on it and tighten it shut.  Trust me when I tell you that it won't take them long tomorrow.  They know that a treat is coming their way when that last and final marble is dropped in.

With all the ugliness in the world right now, it's wonderful to remember to be kind.  You never know what type of a day another person may be having.  It might be an "ok" day but it has the potential to be one that is not ok.  How far would a little kindness go to make a difference? What would it hurt to try?

I want my students to be able to be kind, not because they can drop a marble in a jar and reap the rewards once it is full, but rather I want them to learn to be kind for one reason only. They need to learn to perform random acts of kindness simply because of one thing.

It is the right thing to do.

We are working hard every single day at school to prepare ourselves to be proficient enough to pass on to the 4th grade next year.  It is our goal to score exemplary when we take the Oklahoma state assessments in the spring. We read all the time, work math until we dream of the numbers in our sleep, and write of all the experiences that we have encountered in a very short time on this place called "planet Earth".  I have tried to teach them so much already and in the weeks to come there will be even more ahead of them to learn.  It's a daunting task for all concerned.

By year's end, I hope I will have guided them to be the best of readers and mathematicians.  My desire is to give them the ability to communicate through their writing skills and to develop a sincere love of doing it.  Yet even in all of that, I still maintain that the best lessons I can teach them are the lessons of life.  You can be the smartest man or woman on Earth, but if you don't know how to be kind to others, how gifted you are really doesn't matter anyways.

There's nothing like the sound of a marble clinking in a glass jar.  "The 19" and I are learning together.  I hope they will remember these special lessons in the years that lie ahead.  I am older now and sadly the chances are good that I won't be around when they have children of their own. Yet, it's ok because I'm doing everything I can for them while I am still here.  They may not recall what I taught them about finding the main idea in a passage or what the author's purpose really was in writing a story.  They may never consider doing 50 addition or subtraction facts in 2 minutes or less as they enter college.  I hope they do remember one very important thing.

I hope they remember how much a teacher named Mrs. Renfro loved them and the year we spent together in a little place on the Oklahoma prairie.