Neverending

 

BikeHikeSafari

Books will all surround us.  Books from boxes topple from bookcases.  Boxes? In the garage?This all seems unending, moving and unpacking.  Then, how about finding space in which to place our treasures? This is all unending, a chore that we did not see at the beginning of escrow.

This brings up the subject of “unending”.  Thinking over the years, ghosts of “unending” appear to nag and torment. In the theme of “unending” lies a list, an “unending” list about those ghosts:

Replacing an engine, discovering missing parts and tools, with more auto parts littering the floor.  Oh, sure, friendly veteran sang a story about an old war injury prevented him from using manual shift, so that's why there are only 75,000 miles on the speedometer.  You drive classic car home, finding smoke and clanks following you. Not such a good deal, and when online sites send replacement parts, there is always a screw short.

Being in labor for hour after hour definitely makes the list. (45 hours? Followed by C-Section.) After ten hours, just when you beg for an epidural, an army nurse briskly tells you that it is too late to give one.  

Flights to the other side of the world.  Australia?  South Africa? Switzerland?  You find yourself in cheap seats, middle seat packed in, next to someone who hasn't taken a bath in the last year.

Keanu would do well in recess duty.

Playground duty. You are the only teacher with 300 children racing around an one acre playground.  You clutch a clipboard under one arm and grip the teacher whistle in  a tightly clenched fist.  

Waiting for Santa. You are 6 years old and this night is one wished for all year. Tick, Tick, Tick...eyes want to shut but you won't let them...tick, tick, tick...

Picking strawberries day after day after day. No joy after the fifth day. Mid-May arrives with garden full of red berries peeking from green leaves.  First day is like discovering rubies, sweet rubies. Leads onto the second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day....Enough already.  This won't ever end.

Waiting in an emergency room, filled with sneezing and coughing. You have a brain-splitting migraine and your blood pressure is 177/85.  With your head dropping to your knees and a throw-up bowl beneath, you watch as a child with sinusitis(#45) is called in.  You are #62.  You won't live to see the end of this day. 

Driving through Death Valley in summer. (Been there, done that) Long straight road over flat desolate land, you see in distance, heat waves fooling you to think it is water.  It is 121 degrees and you watch your car's gas light like a hawk.

Standing in the line at DMV, until legs are shaking, growing light-headed. Husband is home, too sick to go into the line from hell to transfer registration.  You are three months pregnant, and hours pass.  At the third hour, you tell the kind lady behind you that you are pregnant and wonder if...then you open your eyes as you lie on the floor.  Registration was expedited. 

Shopping on the day after Christmas and you find there are no bargains worth this amount of physical abuse.

YouTube has numerous of Curling videos

Being forced to watch “curling” during the Winter Olympics. Your family is Nordic, and cheer for some team.  Crushed between Olaf and Sven, you decide to develop a tummy-bug, staying in the bathroom.

Re-modeling a bathroom and/or kitchen the week before company arrives--this is your spouse's idea.  Tearing out the sink and cabinet reveal rot and mold.  Company will be staying in the hotel with you, as your entire house is being examined and treated.

Sitting in rush hour traffic on the Friday of a four-day weekend. A black juiced up muscle car is shaking with the bass turned up high.  You have windows rolled up, and yet you are vibrating as well.

Most or all of this involve unending waiting…and more waiting…including walls of boxes lined up like heavy soldiers.

 What about you?  Can you add to this list your own unending events?

This is a repost from April 2014.

Welcome Home: Belated Honor

The Wall at the center

Sometimes cleaning out boxes of photos and snips of newspapers deliver surprises.  Articles usually about hometown news have grown brown and brittle, written about old friends now dead, long ago.

But, this one article made me sit down and read the entire article.  It was from the Quincy Herald-Whig, dated November 14, 1982.  

The headline read “150,000 cheer Viet War vets”, as they dedicated the Vietnam Veterans Memorial "The Wall", inscribed with the names of comrades who were killed or missing during this very controversial war:

"On a wintry day, over 8,000 veterans including families, disabled in wheelchairs or crutches, and those still grieving for the terrible loss, or those returned who had experienced rejection---now were honored and welcomed home.

It was a time of reunion for comrades who had survived and not seen each other since the Vietnam War ended.  

It was also a time for survivors to seek out family members to tell them “Your son saved my life…I was in Quang Tri in 1968…He was a good man…” To be able to tell loved ones about this special person now gone, left both in tears and hugging.

They walked down the Mall in D.C., joined by Ret. Gen. Westmoreland, and later by President Reagan.  He had been asked to be the keynote speaker, but declined, leaving that honor to someone else who had been in Vietnam."

What caught me was the closing paragraph in the newspaper article:

“William Peyton talked about becoming a policeman when he returned from Vietnam, but never got the chance. The helicopter crew chief was killed during the 1970 invasion of Cambodia."  His mother, Minerva Peyton was moved to tears by the new memorial. “Our boys deserve the recognition,” she said. “They did the best they could, under the circumstances.”

My cousin Billy was remembered that day by my Aunt Minerva.  On this day I remember and honor Billy Peyton as well.

Source

Wednesday Words were posted on Tuesday's blog.  Head over to "Older Post/Blog" to engage in the adventure of writing.

On Retirement

Retirement is an odd event.  This event provides:  The joy of sleeping without an alarm clock jolting one awake; the joy of relishing a hobby…skill…interest leisurely; and, the joy of finding the time to go on adventures.

Even so, retirement is an exhausting event, for so many reasons.

It requires emptying the desk and throwing away papers which make you wonder “what the heck what I thinking” before making a 3 pointer in the waste basket.  The desk and filing cabinet are cousins, only the filing cabinet is far more painful.  

The filing cabinet holds years of decisions, receipts, memos, letters written, ledgers, and just about anything which someone gave you and had no other place to go.

It is somewhat like purging one’s soul and alimentary system.

Then there is enduring the “Farewell Party” with its gaudy CostCo cake, party decorations, hugging people—some of whom you could not stand then or now, and walking out the door.  Your boxes, calendar, photos, memorabilia from the Hawaii vacation, and whatever have been packed await you.

After teaching for twenty years, this is exactly what I did.  

My almost-adult kids unloaded all the above, stacked the boxes on a sturdy shelf unit, and that was it.  Some boxes were actually personal, so they saw the light of day.

But the others?  They stayed silent and dusty for about fifteen years. 

Now, we are cleaning out the garage.  Those boxes are being pulled out one by one, opened with surprise.

One surprise was that I had been extremely organized back then.  Since my book collection was once a dozen full boxes holding excellent well-written student literature, it had been condensed to eight boxes, after giving away the rest to a nearby Christian school.

Some of the precious pieces from several boxes

Unit on bears (which also taught about Northwest Tribes, longitude and latitude) had been tucked away for some use later (what, I don’t know).  

Units on Ireland (literature, language, history, Irish student textbooks) neatly surrounded by lesson plans and cards of commonly used Gaelic words.

Units on…just about any State Framework curriculum requirement.

Is it painful? You bet.  

Is it amazing?  Oh yes.  

But most of all, it is liberating.  

It is closing a door on a wonderful twenty years where both the students and I learned so much.

I did keep a box or two—one to give to my granddaughters and one for me.

It Is Time

These are not my boxes--can you imagine if?

Sorting through boxes leads to glimpses back to the past.  It still amazes me to see those glimpses and then to remember when they were important.

Teaching was my profession for two decades leaving me with boxes and boxes of that life stacked on sturdy shelves.  I can open my garage door and look at those boxes, see the labels, and think “Do I still have that?”, and then “Why do I still have that?”

We are contemplating moving—more just contemplating.  Kids are grown and gone.  Their belongings have moved with them, with a few exceptions.

With that, I know I must take a deep breath, gird the loins, and face down the lion, which are those boxes. 

It is time.

So much stuff, So little time

Source

As we move into our dotage, I am culling through boxes.  There are three categories:  GoodWill, Keep, and Good-Grief-Throw-Away.  The garage has yet to feel my wrath, but it has been warned of its place on the list.

My son is moving from New York/New Jersey to Chicago, IL.  John is in his 30s and has accumulated an amazing collection of stuff.

He moved to Illinois 2004, went to graduate school, and then moved the NYC where he has worked as an entomologist (insect expert),a consulting scientist for a major pest company. Now John has been hired by another company based in Chicago.

For most of January, he has been sorting through the boxes left unopened from his last move and the one before that.  The findings have amazed, amused, and left him saying “What was I thinking??”

Third grade math and reading books from Ireland?  Old computer games that used 3.25 floppy discs?  Socks, worn out?  Since New York and much of the Northeast coast are now being hit with a “Nor’easter” storm, he has time to continue his searching while being snowed in.

I mentioned to him that I still had the three Irish milking stools that I have kept for thirty (30) years for my three grown children. Would he like me to send one to Chicago, he burst out laughing.

“You still have those?  Really? No, I don't want one...”  So I won’t be sending them to Chicago.

What would you do with these?  What should I do with them?  Any ideas?

 

What is their value $?  I have no idea...

p.s. these stools are about 70 years old. We discovered them buried under debris in our tool yard, when we lived in Ireland and owned a hotel.

Samuel Takes the Test

Source: xymonau

It is time. Nana stewed the day after the Baptist Church incident. 

Nana realized that Samuel was ready to go to the school, EDUCATION FOR THE GIFTED AND CREATIVE.  His father Nathan had done well there, after all. 

Samuel recognized the school immediately and swallowed the gall of panic.  Think, man, think!  But events moved too quickly once the doors closed and Samuel was in the company of Nana and her friend, Dr. Anna. 

Source: SeeVee

After brief introductions to a saccharine insipid Miss Bethany, Samuel was given instructions: Create as many colors as he could with the materials provided.

Samuel found himself in a pleasant circular room, softly illuminated overhead, with white board walls and tan seamless flooring.  He noted a large mirror curving around part way…Oh, seriously?  One way mirrors?!  So old school....  

Source

Walking slowly around the room and running his hands along the white board, Samuel observed several things:  the walls had no seams; he could just reach the one way mirror if he stretched enough; and, there were three floor level heating vents with no screws and a metal mesh covers.

In the center of the room was a solid round white table made of some strong resin in one piece.  There was a similar chair, again with no seams, screws, or nails.

Next to the table were five cardboard boxes, filled with supplies.  Samuel squatted down by them, eyeing them carefully.  He began to remove each item one by one, making mental notes.

Boxes large kindergarten-type crayons in red, blue, and yellow?  Do they think I need this many?

Chalk, lots of yellow, blue, and red chalk?   Hmmm…an interesting choice of medium…

Now, let’s see what else: Empty cups, jars of thick peppermint paste, boxes of tongue depressors, Elmer’s glue, tempura paint in primary colors…Don’t they realize what I can do with all of this? 

Source: ba1969

Samuel began pacing around the supplies and glancing at spots in the circular room.  He climbed up on the table, standing tall over the room.  Then he looked directly into the one-way mirror.

Miss Bethany cleared her throat.  “Clearly he is overwhelmed.  Look at his stillness, at the lack of expression.  Let’s get him out of there…”

Dr. Anna spoke quietly, “No, I think we need to give him time.”  Another doctor concurred, followed by murmurs of consent.  “Samuel is, after all Nathan’s son, Dr. Nana’s grandson.”

Nana said not a word, keeping eye contact with Samuel.  ‘Oh, Samuel, they do not know what you can do…’

Source: bies

Samuel smiled, a sweet 3 ½ year old smile.  Let the games begin…

He jumped off the table.

What will Samuel do next?  What do you think will happen?  Where will Samuel go from here?

Love is in the air...

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  Rejoicing all around!

Please don’t get me wrong—it is a wonderful day and a HUGE money maker in all sorts of ways.  Who doesn’t love Godiva chocolate?  Strawberries dipped in cheaper chocolate?  Triple-the-regular price roses with chocolate?  Champagne with chocolate?  An over-the-top Hallmark card (with chocolate)?

Yes, I am a cynic when it comes to Valentine’s Day.  Maybe it is the twenty years of teaching that crushed the joy within.  In fact, it IS the twenty years of teaching.

Valentine’s Day created pervasive insanity in the classroom.  The day of the traditional “making the individual Valentine’s Day boxes” was the instigator.  The neat stacks of red, pink, white, and lavender construction paper and the Elmer’s glue bottles set off an explosion.  From there it was always hard to contain.

The next day the cards were placed into the personalized boxes, sly smiles exchanged.  The parents brought in obscene amounts of sweets, cards were opened in a flurry, and then BAM! the day was over. 

What will my beloved and I do on Valentine’s Day?  We are going to see Garrison Keillor at Point Loma College.  Tickets cost $45+ each.  That blows the chocolate budget right there.

Here is something for your Valentine's Day pleasure: