Remembering teachers....

Have you ever stopped to think about what made your favorite teachers so great? In the past 24 hours I have.

While I remember most of my teachers, there are only a few that really stand out. This isn’t just because I liked them on some instinctive level. These were the teachers that I actually learned from, the ones who made the subjects they were teaching me interesting, the ones whom I can personally thank for my basic grammar and spelling skills.

1^st Grade, Mrs. Thatcher – I’m sure I learned a lot from this lady. What I mostly know is that she hugged me – every day. She was kind, she was patient with a very stubborn and willful six year old who didn’t always deserve it, and she never made me feel inadequate. I’ve forgotten a lot of teachers through the years, but her kindness has always stuck with me.

7^th Grade English, Mrs. Ragland – What an amazingly fun lady! She reminded me yesterday about Momma Comma, Papa Period, and Baby Semi-colon and I couldn’t help but smile a little. And, while I can’t recall how the songs went, I can use a comma (most of the time correctly), a period, and a semi-colon. She had this way of making any subject interesting, and is the one who helped me realize that putting my thoughts on paper was the best way to rid myself of all the clutter in my head.

The first day in class she handed out a worksheet. There were instructions that I pretty much ignored. I completed the first item, which was to put my name and the date on the worksheet. At item two I hesitated, it was some off the wall request to do something humiliating. I, being the shy type, and my first day in a new school filled with people I didn’t know, wasn’t about to do something so mortifying. So, I continued to read the items on the worksheet and each one was worse than the last. Finally, the last item on the test said to only complete item number one, which I had already done. In the meantime, there were people shouting silly things and walking around the room clucking like chickens.

Back to the instructions for the worksheet – they were, “Read the entire worksheet before you begin.” It was a test to gauge our ability to follow instructions.  Thank goodness I didn’t do something ridiculous.

I also remember that she paddled me once. I don’t remember why, but I’m sure I deserved it.

12^th Grade English, Ms. Fulmer – Ms. Fulmer was a no-nonsense kind of gal. She didn’t coddle her students. She had expectations and you met them, or dealt with the consequences. However, she was also fun. She made Shakespeare interesting by making it relatable. She’d pull out all the thees, thous, and thines, and give you the dialogue in modern English so you really grasped the story.

Through 11 years of schooling I never grasped the concept of diagraming sentences, until her. She made it a point to keep every student in her class engaged for the full fifty minutes of her class. She just laughed and shook her head when David P. announced that he was going to be a gynecologist. I believe she loved her job and she loved seeing us learn. I also believe she regarded us each as individuals, respected our self-expression, and saw us as much more than the subjects of her job.

Keyboarding, Mrs. Rose – I don’t recall if it was 10^th and 11^th grade or 11^th and 12^th grade that I took her classes. She was not a favorite among students and I never understood this. I, for one, adored her.

This is a woman who kept a closet in her classroom stocked with unusual items. There were, among a few items, lipstick, deodorant, feminine hygiene products, peanut butter to get gum out of your hair, hairbrushes and combs, hairspray, and a multitude of other items you couldn’t even imagine.

She was fond of handouts that had nothing to do with the subjects she taught. In particular, I remember a day she was trying to remember what she did with a handout on STD’s. She walked around the room for ten minutes, scratching her head and muttering, “Sex, Sex, Sex. Now what did I do with that stack of handouts? Sex, sex, sex….”

How could one not love her? J

When on Facebook, I often feel proud in seeing what most of my former classmates post. Most of those that I attended high school with seem to have an above average grasp of spelling and grammar. Most of us can properly use a comma and know the difference between your and you’re. It’s because we had great teachers.

Anyway, my point was just to remember the teachers who go beyond what’s expected and remind them that they did a fabulous job. They put up with a lot and they deserve it.

I was going to write a poem...

But it didn't work out.....

I used to be a chameleon

Fading in and out

Adapting by color

Blending with my surroundings

But someone melted my crayons....

Hooptastic Hooplah!

This lady right here....

That's Debi. She makes me smile and not feel so old.  In fact, if you tell her you're too old to do something she'll say, "Says who? Why you gotta follow everyone else's rules?"

So, thanks to Debi there's a hula hoop craze going on in my little world. See? Here's Debi hoopin'.

 

 

 

Now I'm hooping. J is hooping. My niece is hooping. My mother is hooping, too. My boss just decided she needs to get a hoop, as did one of my co-workers.

 

Bunch of hoopin' fools -- that's what we'll be. All because Debi reminded me that I don't have to take myself, or life, so seriously all the time.

 

Yes, it's a new post...

It occurred to me today, just now really, that I haven’t devoted any time to writing about my own personal adventures lately--Hmph, lately, as if that were an accurate representation of the time that’s passed.

It’s a shame really. There’s been so much I could have said over the last year about what’s been going on in my little corner of the world.

I’ve watched friends divorce, watched a teenage girl I know descend into some really dark place in her life and learned that I was helpless to help her, grown apart from some friends while growing closer to others, struggled with “fibromyalgia that might not be fibromyalgia”, watched my oldest boy find the love of his life and start down the path to adulthood, and my youngest boy reach the dreaded age of pimply, over-emotional almost teenager who thinks he knows everything.

I’m still working on Grace’s story. I’ve done an unbelievable amount of research in order to place family members in the right place at the right time to weave them into her story.  My greatest fear is that I will offend someone with an inaccurate depiction of their ancestor. I’ve written, and re-written as I’ve uncovered new information, made multiple timelines, and looked at more census records than anyone ought to in their lifetime. I’m so sick of names like Elizabeth, James, George, Mary, and most of all William, as an unbelievable number of my ancestors bore those names. How the hell am I supposed to remember the difference between what Mary Jane did and what Mary Margaret did, or Mary Mae, Mary Elizabeth, or Mary frickin’ Sue? There’s William Thomas, William Jasper -- there are three of those – and William David, too; all with the same last name.  Hell, they’re actually all siblings. What the Sam Hill were these people thinking when they named their darn kids?

Why is it necessary to have 4 daughters named Mary and 3 sons named William? Well, I asked myself that question and then started searching for answers. Children were usually named for someone important to the family hierarchy. The important name was always given as a first name and followed by a middle name. The middle name was the chosen name to call the child. So, Mary frickin’ Sue was really just Sue.

 My name is Sue! How do you do!

Now, if you didn’t read that in Johnny Cash’s voice I am sorely disappointed in you and not sure we can maintain our relationship without some sort of amends being made. I gladly accept cash, gift cards, and peanut butter cookies. No chocolate, as I’m not sure, since you can’t sing “My Name Is Sue”, that you won’t pull some version of Minnie from The Help. And, if you tell me you don’t know about Minnie, we’re done. Sorry… *wink*

So, I guess I’m gonna try and see if I can get back in the swing of things. In case it’s not heartbreakingly obvious, I need a little break from Grace.

xoxo

 

Unedited and rough...but proof that I'm writing

It wasn’t supposed to end this way, you know - me, laying here birthing child number nine and contemplating the end of my life.  It’s the end. You can’t tell me any different. Childbirth is messy and painful, but not like this.

It’s been four years since the last one, since the last time I paid for being loyal to that man by bringing another of his offspring into this world. Don’t misunderstand. I love my babies. I love all of them with everything I have, and more with what I don’t have. They’re my one spot of joy in this strange life I chose for myself.

My name is Grace Margaret Brown Hayes. I was barely 17 years old when I married Hannibal. Almost ten years my senior, he was. He wasn’t an incredibly handsome man but, he was oh so charming. He convinced my papa in no time that he was going to be somebody.

He was going to raise those racehorses and make a proper life for me and our children. He was going to be able to give me the moon and then some. That’s what he told papa. What he didn’t tell him was that those horses weren’t for racing on tracks while men placed friendly wagers on the outcome. Those horses, those terrible racehorses, were for outrunning the federals. They were bred for the likes of outlaws willing to pay a pretty penny for them.

But me and my precious little angels, we all paid the ultimate price for those damned horses. Always running off in the middle of the night, loading up wagons with the little bit we could have just to stay one step ahead of those federals. Hannibal never lets us acquire much of nothing. The more we have, he says, the more we got to pack up and carry with us the next time we move on. You can’t go quickly if you got to load up a bunch of nonsense to take with you, he says.

Back and forth between Illinois and Indiana; so many times I felt as if the tenderest parts of my heart were laid bare on the path between. Why we have to run, I’d ask. Who cares what folks do with the horses we sell them? What they do once they have those horses ain’t any of our business. But, Hannibal doesn’t see it that way. The way he figures, the federals will find him just as guilty for selling those horses as outlaws are for using them to rob trains and the like.

So, we run. All these years we’ve run. Here Hannibal would come in the middle of the night, frantic and rushing, telling us we got 30 minutes to pack up what needs taking and get it loaded in the wagon. I don’t really know how he comes by his revelations that it’s time to move again. But, he does, and we go.

~

Much as we are now. Going, that is. Missouri it would seem this time. Hannibal feels like the only way to stop the going is to go further. He says as soon as this baby comes and I’ve healed we’ll be on our way again.  Maybe this will be the end of the going.

I hear Hannibal playing that fiddle of his. Soft and sweet to settle the children as the sun goes down.  I hear his sister Lizzie singing along as I’m thinking of how she hates that I call her Lizzie, and why can’t I call her Beth as the rest of them do.

I asked that girl to marry.

Won’t you go my way?

I asked that girl to marry.

Won’t you go my way?

Oh marry, never tarry.

Won’t you go my way?

Oh marry, never tarry.

Won’t you go my way?

Fitting, those words – marry, never tarry. Lord knows he married enough to suit himself. I’m wife number four, you know. He thinks me unaware that he didn’t divorce the others; that he just left them and went about his way.  Except for that Maryetta Shryock, she was fortunate enough to get her writ of divorce.

Of course, then there was that Boswell girl. That one he married on Independence Day while he was stationed in Memphis during the war. The way them southern girls are so damn proud of their heritage and such, it’s not farfetched to wonder what kind of respectable southern girl would marry a drunken union soldier in the middle of a war between the states.

Then there was the Canada girl. Melinda, I think. Perhaps this was the most disturbing to me of them all. They had borne one child already, a sweet cheeked baby girl named Launia Jane. He thinks I don’t know, but I’ve peeped a time or two into the cedar box he keeps under his side of the bed and on a few occasions I was able to get Lizzie to open up a little to me.

I found the photo of that angelic little babe tucked neatly into the folds of a letter from the cedar box.  It hurt my heart so to know that he would abandon such an innocent and, worse yet, that his beloved Melinda had another babe on the way. That little girl haunts me sometimes. Sometimes I even wonder whether it be my children who have Hannibal, or her children who don’t, that are the lucky ones.

I once asked Lizzie what she knew, only after making her swear not to tell that I’d been in the cedar box and that was how I knew what he’d done. She says I shouldn’t blame him so much for leaving that girl.  She says the Boswell girl’s brothers had tracked him down. That they demanded to know why he’d abandoned their sister, and that they intended to return him to her – either dead, or alive. They even said she had a boy by Hannibal and that boy needed a father.

She said that on the journey back the three of them travelled along the edge of the river. Thinking he would surely lose his life before they reached Tennessee, Hannibal took his chances with the current and leapt right off the back of his horse and into the river!

She says he thought it better to let Melinda think he was dead than it would be to crush her with the truth of the matter. That somehow, being a widow with two babies fared better for her than knowing that she was never really married at all to the father of her children.

I wonder then, what kind of woman am I that I would spend all these years with a man that I might not really be married to? I pray, especially now, that the Lord will allow me to make peace of that. Does it not count that when I married him I thought I was the only one?

I can just see now the sneers of those pasty faced women in church if they knew the secrets I harbor. The damn gossip mongers would spread my stories in no time, and all under the guise of “Christian” concern when what they really want is just to let everyone know that they have the scoop on my sorrows.

~

I’m worried now.  I haven’t the strength to move anymore. I lay here sweating buckets. That’s the price you pay for keeping warm in the winter, you birth babies in the summer.

Who’s taking care of my babies? Creasie, my oldest living girl, is only ten. That’s hardly old enough to bear my daily burden. She’s not strong enough to scrub out the wash, I’ve not yet taught her to cure the fatback when we slaughter the hog, or to make the maple pie that Sherman loves for his birthday. Had my sweet Clara Jane lived, she would have known what to do. I would have been able to teach her all she needed to know to care for my sweet brood.

Poor Lizzie is weary; hours of mopping the sweat off my brow and cleaning up bloody sheets. The sweet metallic scent of blood seems to permeate the walls of this room.  She can’t be doing it all, can she?

A little self examination to start the day...

I had someone ask me to do something yesterday. Something I really don’t want to do. It’s not just a simple “I don’t want to” either. It’s more like not wanting to because it goes against my principles.

I just can’t see myself stepping over my own line in the sand to do something like this for anyone, much less someone who is only a casual acquaintance. Which explains a lot; because anyone who knows me well knows that I wouldn’t do this thing.

So what’s the big task? Well, being that it’s not my business to air in detail, all I can say is it’s something that, if I do it, will have me guilty of several things on my “Never Do This” list. Things like lying and interfering in a marriage.  It’s not going to happen.

So, all that’s got me wondering and trying to examine myself through the eyes of a casual acquaintance. What have I said or done that would lead him to believe I would do what he’s asking? True, he gave me an out in the instance that I didn’t feel comfortable. But, now I’m left with the uncomfortable task of saying no and explaining why the answer is no. When, truth be told, if I were always portraying myself as the person I claim to be, he would have known the answer without having to ask. Right?

I used to have friends named Lindsey and Sheldon

Have you ever been totally relieved to be free of a friendship that became a burden and a stressor, only to find yourself constantly bombarded with thoughts of that person? Wondering what’s new?

I’m currently in that place. It’s absurd. Completely and totally absurd!

In regard to Sheldon:

I think it wouldn’t be such a problem except for the fact that I work in the same building as she does. I usually can go weeks or months without laying eyes on her and then, suddenly, I see her two or three times a week over the last couple of months.

If this is some kind of divine message, I’m not buying it.

For clarification, she doesn’t read my blog that I’m aware of. I didn’t start it until after the friendship was over. So, unless she’s added stalker to her other unfavorable traits, she shouldn’t even be aware that there is a blog in existence. Besides, I ain’t saying anything here I ain’t said to her already.

It wasn’t one of those you’re-not-a-good-person-so-I-don’t-want-to-be-your-friend-anymore kind of things. She is a good person. She’s just different and hard to have any kind of relationship with. The problem was that I couldn’t keep up with her ever increasing demands, her strange set of rules that she expects the world to follow despite their lack of logic, her need to know my every move, and the fact that she, as a never married person with no children, couldn’t seem to understand that my first responsibility was to my husband and children.  It was kind of like being friends with Sheldon Cooper, only Sheldon has average intelligence in this case.

I remember her asking me to go somewhere with her and I told her I needed to check with my family first. That’s what you do when you have a family. She told me my priorities were messed up because I had to answer to a man before making plans. I told Sheldon that she just answered her own question about why no one wanted to be married to her.

And that was the end of that. And I think it's completely absurd that I give a flying eff what she's doing now.

In regard to Lindsey, you know, the famous one:

My old friend from the teen years. We went through some stuff, big stuff, the kind of stuff that most friends never have to go through. But she had a problem that was bigger than our friendship. After 13 years of trying to help her through it, I realized there was nothing I could do for her. I realized that until that moment when everyone abandoned her and she had no one left to bail her out, she would never get help or get better. I realized that I was enabling her and it was time for me to go. I couldn’t be her crutch anymore.

But, there are things I miss about her and I’ll always love her. And, I still wonder about her all the time even though I know that we’re better off without one another. I’ve seen her twice since the friendship ended 11 years ago. She finally got that help. I still pray every day that she’ll be ok.

But, I saw her two youngest children the other day and it made that loss seem fresh all over again. I don’t think this one will ever not hurt. And maybe, I really don’t question why the wondering stuck. Because nothing I remember in regard to her, nothing I wonder, is really absurd at all.