There’s nothing like having children to knock most of our lofty expectations and plans into a cocked hat.  Other people’s children are one thing; who among us has not watched disdainfully as someone’s child melted down in public or ran wild in a grocery store or openly defied a red-faced, humiliated parent in front of “people.”

Our own kids are quite another thing.  “MY kids will never behave like that!” said we all to ourselves whilst still there and to each other when we got home again.  “Bad parenting!  We won’t have problems like that when WE have kids.”  Such statements are, naturally, curses that work well, only in reverse.

I now live such things entirely in retrospect, which, bless it, removes most of the traumatic memories and fills our heads with the good stuff.  Looking back, it’s the good memories that make me cry real tears into the photo albums of tiny little girls in fluffy dresses and hairbows, and smiling little boys in overalls and miniature red baseball caps.

The picture of my three-year-old son in a little brown suit complete with vest and tie makes me smile now, because when I focus on his bare feet, toes curling, the memory of how he had hidden his shoes “because I don’t LIKE them” right before our studio appointment has had all the “upset” removed and replaced with laughter.

The picture of my five-year-old daughter with her hair chopped off from the middle of her head to her forehead makes me smile now, too; I remember that little voice telling me with great pride that “I cut my own bangs myself so I’ll be extra pretty for kindergarten” and instead of blushing red when I look at her yearbook I now laugh out loud with delight at that perky scalped little girl  beaming with pride.

Dear Parents:  Don’t waste your energy getting upset over trifles.  A few years down the road and you’ll be laughing your asses heads off over the innocent silliness of your infinitely precious little people.

To be perfectly honest with y’all, I lose my shoes all the time, because I only wear them when I absolutely have to.  I never hid my shoes, but only because it never occurred to me.  My little son’s picture with his tiny bare feet and curled toes is far more true to form than a fully dressed and posed studio portrait would have been.

As for hair, my skills in hairdressing were and still are so non-existent that even a semi-scalping didn’t make my princess look all that different from what she would have looked like with a Mommy-made hairdo.  I did well to manage a curly ponytail cascading down her back.  Two ponytails?  The part down the back of her head was always more crooked than a dog’s hind leg.  The harder I tried, the worse it looked.

I know there were many traumatic things when my children were small, but nothing comes to mind right now.  I just remember those little people nestling and snuggling all over me, and trusting me to keep them alive, fed, clean, and happy.  I did the best I could.

They’re still alive;  they seem pretty healthy;  they’re usually clean, and I hope and pray that they’re happy.  They’re also still speaking to me, and I count that as a good sign.

Now, where did I put my shoes?

Remember, if you don’t take the trouble to find out what’s going on and what people are saying about it, you won’t KNOW what’s going on.  Not to keep updated is to choose ignorance.  Choosing ignorance is one of the most horrible things a person can do, no matter what the topic.  Education is what separates the sheep from the goats, because not to understand that everything is connected to everything else, and that nothing exists in isolation, and how to connect these dots to form ideas and understanding, is to actively choose ignorance.  We can’t help being ignorant about things we’ve never been exposed to, but to choose non-exposure is to choose ignorance.  Oh, and those people who take great pride in refusing to learn?  They are ignorance, personified.  Harsh?  I don’t really think so.  In fact, I have not even begun to express my disgust for people who are able, yet actively choose to be ignorant.  We are all ignorant of many things, but if we continue to learn, to be less ignorant daily, we’re on our way.

Oh, and please don’t forget that ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing.  Not the same thing at all, at all.

Parents, professional educators, and all inhabitants of the planet, simply must keep learning.  If we stop learning, “they” might as well bury us, because such people are as good as dead. Worse, even, because dead people don’t bring others down.  Ignorant people do.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, as Alastair Moody would say.  To choose ignorance is to choose a kind of death.

P.S.  When I took my beautiful daughter to her college dorm and went back home without her, itself a traumatic thing, “Less ignorant every day” became our rallying cry for her college education.  We still quote it, laughing, when we learn new things and share them.  Why don’t y’all use it, too?

Less ignorant daily.  Bring it on, universe.

Photoshop faces or abilities or personalities all you want: if you throw glitter on a dungheap, it’s still going to stink.

Before some of you arm yourselves and advance upon my home with lit torches, please be aware that I am in NO WAY discussing SPED.

I am, however, talking about students who refuse to work and parents who still expect them to be promoted, play sports, go to the prom, and wander the halls if they so desire because after all, Billy knows best about what he wants when he goes to school, and that hateful Ms. SkullDroppings has had it in for him ever since he accessed all that porn on her computer during lunch that time.  She didn’t even appreciate his expertise  in picking her lock, or in his mad computer skillz.  I mean, reallllllly.  (Bitch)  (It’s all right, Billy, Mommy understands you.)

Ahem.

A photoshopped picture isn’t really a picture of someone.  It’s only a picture of what that someone wished he/she looked like.  It’s a facade, with all the reality removed.

And any grade, privilege, promotion, award, etc, is. . . well, it’s a facade, too.  It’s fake.  It’s a facade, with all the reality removed.

Ooooh, shiny!  Pretty!

What stinks?

I’ve always thought that a person’s home should represent that person.  Perhaps I have carried this a bit too far in the decor (heh) of my current home, but hey.  I happen to like having all those bookshelves in the bathroom, and having push-button talking pictures on the walls in there.  I like my orange sofa and my red chair.  I am able to comprehend that they do not match, but the liking compensates for the ferocity of their clashing.  I like more than a dash of funk in my surroundings.  I want my house to be tasteful but groovy.

I read somewhere that having lots of pictures of friends and family members framed and hanging or sitting about the house isn’t cool.  Says who?  I LOVE seeing beloved faces on the walls and on the tabletops.

Sometimes I look at the pictures of rooms in magazines and sigh; they’re just so, well, RIGHT.  The colors match and the accessories match and there’s not a pile of shoes in sight.  In fact, those pictures seldom show any indication that anyone actually lives in those rooms.  I think this is because no one does.

In houses wherein people actually live, there are signs of life.  There is the pile of shoes under the table (well, that’s where I keep my shoes, anyway) and there are magazines, and there are books with markers in them, and there are laptops on the coffee table beside little piles of earrings.  The cushions have been known to live most of their lives on the floor or tossed behind the sofa.  Sometimes there’s an indentation on one end of the sofa arm because if the sofa is comfortable, people lie down on it.  Why isn’t there ever any cat hair on the furniture in those pictures?  What’s a home without a cat?

The kitchens are always pristine in magazine pictures.  You never see bowls of cat food and spilled water on the floors.  You never see spilled cereal mixed with cat hair and dust under the kitchen counters.  People walk across kitchen floors barefooted and never have to stop to flick off “something” clinging to the sole of their foot.

You never see ten thousand boxes of half-eaten cereal sitting around in a magazine picture.  The tables are always absolutely clear and clean, with perhaps a bowl of fruit or a vase of fresh flowers.  In my house, a bowl of fruit would last about ten minutes, and although I love fresh flowers in the house, I chose to have cats, and cats love fresh flowers, too.  In fact, they refer to a vase of fresh flowers as “the salad bar.”  Sigh.

Also?  Those magazine rooms always have curtains at the windows.  I’ve never had curtains.  However, I will have them soon enough.

We’re moving.  But I digress.  I’m also scared of the concept.

Having only to choose, and it’s a choice we are all free to make, I have chosen to LIVE in my house and to encourage others to do likewise.  We could do better, naturally, and not a day goes by when I don’t wish for just a little touch of magazine perfection, but ultimately?  We live here.  And if you stop by – and I certainly hope you do – I want you to make yourself at home, too.  Keep your shoes on; YOU are more important than a speck of dirt your shoes might track in.  (I never feel really welcome if I’m told to remove my shoes.)  (If you have white carpet, that’s a choice YOU made.)  (Not even if it were free.)  (Nope.)  I love my guests more than I care about a carpet.  Besides, I’d rather vacuum up a little dirt later than have to smell your feet all night.

I am always so very sorry for children who live in a house with white carpet, unless the adults who chose it aren’t really all that fussed about keeping it white.

We are currently downsizing to the max here.  My big house is packed to the gills with the accumulation of many years, and the house we are renovating from the skin out is a LOT smaller.  I am not a person who can live sanely with clutter and piles of “stuff,” (I read magazines with scissors in hand and the minute I finish, it goes in the recycle bin) and my husband saves everything.  You’ve seen “Clash of the Titans?”  (The original; not that insipid remake.)  We are the Titans.  I am also the Kraken.  And I have been released.

You’ve been warned.

People have been shopping at my house via FreeCycle like mad these past few months.  Do any of you need anything?  Whatever it is, I bet there’s one here, somewhere.

In the meantime, come on in. The love seat is occupied, but you can sit on the orange sofa. Put your feet up on the coffee table. Sure, you can take your drink into the living room. We live in this house. While you are here, you can live in it, too.

Pity the house that discourages comfort and living.  Pity the sanitized magazine house.

I much prefer a home.

Dear house in town: Steel your nerves.   We’re coming to turn you into a home.  (I’m sure you’re already breathing easier with all that ghastly wallpaper gone.)

My blog, my rules.  What up, dawggggg?

I admit it: too much Scrubs.

Here’s the post:

Is anyone else out there lucky enough to have a job that makes you so happy that all you have to do is walk into the building and you feel the positive vibes? My days seem so short now; most days I feel as though I’ve just begun, and bingo, it’s time to go to bed again.

I get tired, yes. I am exhausted, usually, by the end of the day. But even so, I love this teaching gig with a passion I didn’t even know I was still capable of after enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous public school dealings for so long.

I think that after so long in the school systems of our country, the teachers who stay evolve a mindset that is almost enslavement. We endure schedules and treatment that no other professional would dream of enduring. We allow ourselves to be used and misused and overworked, all in the name of love for our students. What other professionals have a clientele that pretty much expects to be supported, fed, dressed, taught, and catered to in every possible way, without showing the least bit of gratitude?

We get so used to it, we don’t even realize that there is another world out there, where people show each other respect.

We really do love the students, don’t get me wrong. But year after year in a public school kind of makes a teacher numb to any other possibility that might be out there for a person with these talents. Every year it gets worse and worse, even while we are thinking and saying things like “Next year it will be better.”

But it never is.

Next year, the classrooms are more overcrowded, there are fewer books, there are more dysfunctional families who seem to be in charge of the system, there are more duties, there are more responsibilities, there are more problems, there are more “incidents,” and there is less and less support. There is no respite. There is no discipline. The teacher’s union here stands idly by and allows a principal to schedule a teacher to the point that there isn’t even time in the course of the day to blow her nose. I am not exaggerating, either. The contract guarantees some prep time daily? We’ll count walking down the hall to fetch yet another class as break-time. We’ll count your driving time, from building to building, as your lunch. Ask any music teacher if I’m stretching the truth.

Yes, every year it’s worse. And a teacher doesn’t really know how bad it is, until that teacher walks out and tries something new.

Me, for instance.

And now, I teach every day in a building full of wonderful hardworking students and smiling administrators and friendly janitors and awesome bosses who TALK TO US AS THOUGH WE WERE EQUALS (instead of slaves) and the building resounds with humor and happiness and dedication.

Heck, even the restrooms here are superior. And there is ALWAYS toilet paper!!!!! The halls and classrooms are clean and well-maintained. Everyone behaves properly.

The sad and odd thing is, I did not know how bad it actually was until I left the public schools. While I was there, I was the most loyal and hardworking and dedicated person in the building. Sure, the days seems awfully long, and sometimes the despair and frustration were so thick one could cut it with a knife, but it was my obsession, to somehow be a positive force in this not-very-positive place. I came to school at 7:00; I got home around 6:00. I was determined to make a difference, a positive difference.

But, but, there was no appreciation. There was only the expectation that if I could do that, I should be doing even more.

I couldn’t keep on.

But now? I feel positive every day. I love coming to school. All I have to do is walk into this building and I am instantly wide-awake and happy.

Sure, there are some, um, “interesting” students here, but MOST of them are pure quality.

I still work the long hours. But I am appreciated, and treated like the professional I’d forgotten I was, all those years.

And now, I truly believe I am helping to make a positive difference. I can see it. I can hear it.

Scheisse, I love my job.

The really ironic thing is that in spite of all the negative things about the public schools, I still believe that this nation’s schools are the hope of our future. There is such potential in every classroom, such stories to be told, such wondrous talent and creativity and sensitivity and music concealed behind the t-shirts and the grubby jeans and exposed underwear and defiant raising of the eyebrows and the punky hair and the chips-on-the-shoulders and the trendy slang and the stubborn glares. . . . there is poetry behind the obscenities, and magnificent scientific discoveries behind the unwillingness to conform.

It’s too bad teachers are no longer allowed to cultivate it.

Why can’t we be allowed to step back and bask in the glow of unbridled enthusiasm, and throw ourselves into helping students learn and discover and grow, grow, grow, both physically and mentally and socially and culturally and scientifically. . . . .

What happened to us as a people, as a culture, as a nation, that our idea of ’school’ has sunk to the level of equating success with a number on a piece of paper?

I do tend to rant, don’t I. My apologies.

I miss what my former job might have been, in a perfect world.

But oh golly, I do love my job now!!!!

Factor in individuality, talent, brains, work habits, etc, and you can’t help but have a set of expectations, and expectations should be met.

I know that there are exceptions to this and most other things, but I honestly believe that every kid should do his/her best, because NOT to do so just isn’t good enough, no-allowance-today-boy.

Of course, I also believe that a good parent knows what’s going on in his/her kids’ classrooms, too. That is, we should be aware that our kids, this grading period, are studying about the Revolutionary War, reading “The Giver,” writing little newspapers about things that happened in 1774, making recipe books with directions for preparing foods that the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) might have eaten, researching which Nation was already here and where they were forced to relocate and how do you feel about that, studying 50 words and their unique rules and exceptions to those rules, learning all about Peer Gynt and how to at least hum a few of the more popular melodies, and how to deal with fractions in everyday life (see recipe book assignment, above.)

And now I wish I were back in the fourth grade, doing just such things. Sigh.

Of course, nowadays there isn’t much time for creative assignments because the teachers are forced to use the time they might have utilized for such, to review and prepare for the almighty standardized test.

Personally? I believe that tests are sometimes necessary and occasionally important, but I also believe that the questions should pertain to “things every fourth-grader should know based on the available books and the creativity of the teachers,” not “things that are being pounded into every fourth-grader’s head starting three weeks before the Test because some old guys in the State Department who were influenced by a book salesman said so.” In other words, give each child a test based on standard fourth-grade curriculum. It would better benefit the child, and it would also better tell which children were at grade level, not that grade level is even the real goal.

As a child, I was always six or seven grade levels above the rest in anything regarding reading, writing, spelling, grammar, history, etc, but down in the depths of second grade remediation in math.

Guess what. I didn’t care then and I don’t care now.

In ten years, whatever your child scores on that test won’t mean anything, either.

What are those tests, anyway? They are tests put together by people who haven’t been in a classroom for years, if ever. It’s a test that is embraced by textbook publishers and salesmen, in hopes that the inevitable low scores will inspire schools to purchase THEIR books, because the new books all have individual State Standards written right in them and golly gee whiz, if the school buys OUR books, the students will do much better on those tests.

Eh, I’m rambling again. I really despise a school system that puts such emphasis on one test score that it ignores or neglects the really important part of a child’s education, to wit, the learning of things that will enable the child to better take care of himself/herself and others as an adult, to appreciate and love the writings and pictures and history of those who came before, to understand and appreciate music and art, and to be a part of a little community in which every child has an important role. Our students these days don’t understand how one vote can make or break an entire government. Some students don’t even know anyone who votes.

For some of our students, the teachers are the only adults they know who work for a living.

Many homeschoolers are turning out children with superior educations and abilities, and many are simply teaching their children that isolation from ‘other’ people is better and that it’s nobody’s business if you are fifteen and still don’t want to try to learn to read yet but be careful because if you raise the curtains, big government will SEE what we’re doing, or not doing, and try to interfere and make you LEARN to read so you can be JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER CLONES.

Sometimes it seems like a losing battle, and yet, these are our children, the hope of our nation, and we have to keep trying.

After a certain age, I do not believe that blaming one’s shortcomings on one’s background or family is a viable argument. Ultimately, each person must stand on his/her own feet and walk out into the sunshine and shadow of life and do it all alone. We must not send our children out there unprepared, and yet, what do we do when the families support their children in their desire to NOT work at it?

I keep saying this but here it is again: There are certain skills that intelligent persons simply must have, at certain ages. When one becomes a self-sustaining adult, (which status of course many ‘adults’ never attain because their families and they themselves allowed them to go through school without doing or learning anything!!!) (My SELF ESTEEM!!!!!!) a decent person will be armed with skills, marketable skills, with which to earn one’s own living.

To allow any person to leave any kind of school without these skills is a crime. And a high school diploma given to any person without these skills is a joke.

If your child is 27 and still isn’t interested in learning to read and is still playing video games all day and still hasn’t learned to write and doesn’t know how to spell or reason. . . . well, I guess you all know my opinion of your child. And of you. And yes, it does become my business after a certain point because my tax dollars will be supporting your bum kid.

I worry about us as a society, I really do.

Mamacita says:  There are many things that are wrong with and in this country – many, many things. Open a newspaper, watch television, listen to the radio, surf around the blogosphere, pretty much all we hear about are the things that are wrong.

We SHOULD be hearing about them, too; if we don’t hear about them, we can’t work to make them right. One of the many things this country does do right is allow its citizens to talk about what it does wrong.

Making wrong things right is what we do here. It’s what this country was founded for. We’d still be a British colony if it wasn’t important for us to work hard to make wrong things right.

Any time more than four people get together for anything, one of them is going to want to do wrong. The other three have to help that one wrong person do right, but it actually goes deeper than that.

It has, sadly, become the responsibility of the other three to help that one person WANT to do right. Doing anything without understanding, and against one’s will, isn’t progress of any kind; doing anything without understanding, and against one’s will, is a kind of slavery. Uneducated people sometimes have to be dealt with in this way, and that is a shame, and that is also entirely their own fault.  Everyone has access to education in this country. Some schools are better than others, but any of them will at least teach a child to read if that child lets it. and whether or not a child lets it is the responsibility of the child and the child’s family. A family that does not allow the school to teach its child to read is a bad, bad family.

This country has always valued education as the means to promote the understanding that would help a person realize that. It used to work, too, until education was forced to include things that the family unit is supposed to teach and provide, as well. We are fast becoming a welfare state, and that is a definite downgrade from being an education state.

And why is the family unit not providing and teaching what it’s supposed to provide and teach, these days? Most family still are, but many families prefer to mooch off the government rolls. They have chosen to give up their independence and become the permanent poor relations, supported by those citizens who do still work. This was supposed to be a temporary fix, and people are supposed to be just a little big ashamed of being in this position. Welfare is supposed to be a somewhat embarrassing short-term episode in a person’s life, preceding a wage-earning job and giving a worker some income while he/she is seeking full-time work. We’ve removed all the embarrassment in the name of self esteem, and that was a mistake.

But you really don’t want to get me started about the self-esteem movement. I consider it to be like most other movements: full of the same sort of fecal matter.

Every day, more and more people join the welfare rolls, and for many it’s not the temporary helping hand it was meant to be. For many, it’s now a way of life. Some people believe that the welfare way is a right, and other people SHOULD be supporting them, sometimes forever. This was not the intention of welfare. It was intended to be temporary. It was never meant to be permanent.

An uneducated, or undereducated population is a dangerous thing. It quickly becomes a parasite, not an asset, sucking the lifeblood out of resources that really ought to be aimed elsewhere.

Ronald Reagan, who was not perfect, but then, neither are any of us, said “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”  In this, he  was right.

This country was founded by hard workers. This country has, as one of its foundations, education for the masses. It’s there, for free, for anybody who lives here to take full advantage of. To become an adult in this country and still not know how to read and write and support oneself is a disgrace, and that disgrace is not the country’s disgrace; it is a personal disgrace. In other words, if you do/did not take advantage of the opportunity to go to school; if you let yourself grow up without acquiring a single useful skill; if you allowed yourself to become an adult and did not learn how to support yourself, shame on you. I can’t think of a worse epithet for you than that. I know that shame is now politically incorrect, but that’s ridiculous, as are most political correctness attempts. Without shame, many people will never make themselves get up, walk out the door, and start earning their living themselves. Parasites are ugly. Parasites add nothing; they only subtract. Parasites destroy beauty. Parasites steal from others to enhance themselves without effort.

Those who are able-bodied and able to work, should work, for to take charity when one is fully able to do without it is a shameful thing. NO job is too menial if you don’t have one. No job is too menial if one is truly determined to do what is right. And what is right is to support oneself and any dependents one has acquired along the way.

Some of our immigrant ancestors were doctors and lawyers and professors back in the old country; they came here and took jobs as janitors and scrubwomen so their children could have the benefits this country offered. And since their children learned to speak the language, their job horizons were brighter than those of their parents. It is still so, today. Those who are educated have more options. They deserve more, too.

People who choose to take charity when they are perfectly capable of getting up and getting a job are to be despised for the societal leeches that that are. For every adult who uses welfare money to buy cigarettes, there is a little child somewhere NOT getting milk because there wasn’t any more money. The degradation of these adults is earned, of their own free will and decisions, and they deserve every bit of the disgust they receive.

The people who are the true citizens of this country, the true patriots, are those who made sure they had marketable skills and the ability to read, write, and generally take care of themselves and of others.

There are many people living here who claim to hate this country, and who work to bring it further down. There are people living here who rejoice in the streets when bad things happen to this country. I suggest that these people leave and leave now, and live elsewhere and see if any other country would put up with their whines and violence and gleeful reactions when others get hurt.

Those who insist on living here, yet reject the education, the opportunities for supporting themselves, and who feel justified in spending other people’s hard-earned money, are not the true Americans. They are parasites, and they are killing the rest of us.

Yes, this country has many faults. I defy anyone to name any other country that would put up with some of yours, or mine.

Freedom. Independence. Education for the masses. Rights. Responsibilities.

That is what we are. Take advantage of these things, if you have the guts and the brains and the heart and the decency. Ignore them if you don’t. That’s the freedom part.

Understand, though, that the hardworking educated population is getting very tired of supporting those who choose not to work, choose not to be educated, and choose not to behave themselves properly. We are also very tired of supporting anyone who does not understand that the right to swing his fist ends where the other person’s nose begins.

And those who claim their rights had better be prepared to stand up to their responsibilities as well. You can’t have one without the other, and keep either for long.

This country has learned many lessons: slavery is gone, discrimination is legally gone, although many people still have some lessons to learn (EDUCATION! DECENT FAMILIES!) Europeans came here to an already populated country and took over, without regard for people who had lived here for hundreds of years and already had well-established civilizations. Think how you would feel if aliens landed in spaceships and took over this country, completely disregarding your prior claim to your home and demanding that you leave immediately so they might build their culture on top of yours, and labeling and treating you as some kind of violent savage if you protested and tried to defend your property?

The point is – and I do tend to ramble late at night and other times as well – we made, and make, mistakes. Big ones. We must use our education to help right those wrongs, and help the nation aim for other and better goals. Learning from the past is what educated people do; dwelling on the past, not so much.

Aristotle said, “Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men, as the living are to the dead.” He was right.

Those who care only about themselves are not much good in any other circumstance. People who become accustomed to getting something for nothing become pretty much useless, too.

We must all get up, get to work, get cracking, get learning, get smarter every day. When we stop learning, they might as well bury us, as Lucy Maude Montgomery once said. (Quick! What did she write?)

Nowhere in the world is there any other country as free as ours. Nowhere else can everybody be educated. Nowhere else can we all go where we want, when we want, wear what we want, say what we want. . . .

In some countries, even if you have the money you still can’t have some things or go some places; it’s all about social levels.

If I said we didn’t have social levels here, it would be a joke because everybody knows that we do, even though we’re not supposed to. But here, our social levels are pretty much determined and evaluated by our education and behavior, not who your daddy was, or wasn’t.

In this country, we have equality of opportunity. If you think we don’t, you aren’t looking hard enough. Opportunity does knock, but you have to be smart enough to answer the door when it does, and to recognize it for what it is when you see it. That’s the education part.

Edison nailed it when he said that “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ”

Everybody gripes about the state of the nation. You do; I do; everybody does. There’s a lot to gripe about. But I honestly believe that there is even more to rejoice about, and to be grateful for, and to appreciate.

If everybody swept their own front steps, the whole world would be clean.

I don’t mind loaning someone my broom, but I do expect him/her to do his/her own sweeping.

I’m glad I live here. I’m glad you do, too.

But it is a crying shame that so many people don’t do their fair share and expect us to do it for them. Sweep your own steps. It’s not rocket science.

Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day. Watch out for aliens; they shoot to kill. I seen it in a movie oncet, with Will Smith. It were cul.

Mamacita says:  Sunday is Independence Day! And, if you do not believe in that, then, Sunday is the Fourth of July.

Deny it if you will, but you will be wrong. You have a fourth of July. Everybody has a fourth of July. It’s right there between the third and the fifth, so none of your lip now. If you live here, this country’s history is now your history, too.

When our kids were younger, we used to use our deck as a launching pad for bottle rockets. Well, the actual launching pad was a pop bottle, but who can find those any more? Now, we just jam the rocket between the cracks in the deck boards, light it, and stand back. Our deck is covered with black burn marks, but I kind of like that. It makes me remember happy summers with small children.

Oh, hush. We watched them carefully.

When the kids were older, we used to set off the big stuff in the back yard while the children sat safely on that same deck, watching. But I won’t go there in case there are any of those prissy types reading.

Our sidewalk is covered with black spots, too. That’s where we set off the coiling snakes. I’m still kind of partial to those. I like to look at the sidewalk spots, too, because they make me remember those giggling little kids, watching the coiling black snakes with big laughing eyes. The kids, not the snakes.

Nothing perfect can be truly beautiful. I’d rather have my spotty sidewalks and the memories than a pristine landscaped lawn. Good thing, too, since our grass is over a foot high in places the regular mower can’t go. The tractor’s in the shop.

I’ve always liked that quotation. I also believe it is absolutely true. I think about it whenever I’m feeling particularly cowardly. It helps me overcome it. Words help me overcome it.

I’ve always stood in awe before the power of words.

With words, simple words, we can delve into the past and the future, and all the various time blends that scientists must use big words to explain, but which writers can explain simply by using one or two of the helping verbs Ol’ Miz Roberts made us memorize back in seventh grade.

Time machines in stories show the blending of times with numerals and fast-motion, whipping past the window of the machine, or by numbers going backwards or forwards on a dial.

Writers just use a helping verb or two.

Scientists discuss the concept of time, past time, present time, future time, using diagrams and equations and big, big words.  Writers just stick a “have” or “had” or a “will” in front of a plain old verb to show the same thing.

Past and future are the easiest to measure. They are also the easiest to understand, or comprehend.  “Already happened” and “not happened yet” are no biggie.

It’s the present that’s the most difficult to comprehend and measure, because even with all of our scientific knowledge, inventions, devices, equations, whatever, the present is too fleeting to measure. The actual ‘present’ is so fleeting, we can’t even realize it ourselves. By the time we do, it’s already gone. Blink, and it’s past. Breathe, and it’s past. Sit still; each beat of your heart is in the past, because by the time you are aware, it’s too late, it’s gone.

Look at your children. They’re in the present, sure, if you want to call it that. Watch them sleeping. Each rise and fall of the covers is already part of the past. History. It’s already happened, and it will never happen again. Not that particular breathe. Not that particular heartbeat. Watch them play; this moment will never come again.  Look at the pictures you took only a few seconds ago.  Those moments are gone.  The expression on your child’s face, the way his hair falls over his eyes when he’s played outside for a while, the Kool-aid smiles, that particular shirt. . . Gone.

So often we say that we can’t WAIT for a particular phase or week or school year, etc, to be over with. Be careful what you wish, my dears. . . . When it’s gone, it’s gone.  My mom used to tell me – usually in the midst of a particularly awful phase – not to wish my children’s lives away, but I didn’t understand what she meant then.  I do now.

The actual present can’t be measured, not by us, not yet. Use it carefully, for once you’re aware of it, it’s already part of your history.

And your history, and mine, are, of course, part of the history of mankind.

Ah, the power of words, that we can so clearly express the elements of time with just a few simple helping verbs.  Scientists can’t do it yet.  Only writers can do it, with our magic wands called pens.  The typing fingers of a writer can make the past come alive again, and the present seem permanent, and the future? A time of hope and joy, which I hope is true for all of us.

I wondered about it. (simple past: one-shot deal, it’s over.)

For many years, I have wondered about it. (present perfect: I was wondering in the past and I’m STILL wondering. Two times are represented here, one in the past and one in the present.)

I had wondered about it before I said something. (past perfect: both actions are in the past, but one is more recent than the other. Two times are represented; both past.)

I have always enjoyed teaching this concept, and with adult students, it’s even more awesome. I’ve had students weep, during this lesson.

Words are powerful. A pen in the hand is power. Use words carefully, and properly. Choose them wisely.

Remember, there’s a big difference between a wise man and a wise guy. And which would you prefer: a day off or an off day?

I love the power, magic, and majesty of words.  Maybe this is one reason I hate texting and  cutesy codes so thoroughly

U dig?

*Annie Dillard

I’ve posted a lot in the past about my dying father: blind, both legs amputated above the knee, on kidney dialysis, eating via a stomach tube, etc. That was an accurate picture, but it wasn’t the only picture. It is also not the picture I have in my mind’s eye when I think of my father. At least, not usually.

My father – my REAL father – the father who was intact, before the diabetes devoured him, was tall, and strong, and hilarious. He was handsome – Hollywood handsome. He liked new experiences. He liked to travel. He sang. He cracked terrible jokes. He read voraciously.  He was smart – really, really smart. He would have liked to have gone to college, but it wasn’t possible.  Instead, he sent four kids through college, and continued to work day after day in a factory “so we would never have to.”  He tried hard, and he did the best he could with what he had.

Dad wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. He and all of his brothers and their father before them were quick-tempered and easy to, as Mom used to say, “set off.” My Other Sister and I had a daddy who was playful and laughing. My two younger siblings had a daddy who was cranky and yelling. Dad’s illness began long before anybody realized it, including himself, and the personality changes were just brushed aside as part of the aging process or, possibly, his true colors. Nobody actually said “true colors, ” but we all thought it.

It wasn’t until both of dad’s legs had been amputated and he was blind and bedridden and too weak to feed himself or turn over, that we all realized that the diabetes had begun to affect his mind long before it took his body.

He stayed at home and Mom took care of him. I don’t think she went anywhere for three or four years, except her hasty runs to the grocery and drugstores while Dad was at dialysis.

As I said, he was a fantastic father to his older children. With the younger kids, his various illnesses had started to affect him, and things in the house were different. Some of it wasn’t his fault, and some of it was. In this way, he was no different from any of us. Whatever may have crossed his mind from time to time, he never entertained the thought of leaving his family. I’m sure he was tempted to, as who isn’t? In fact, we KNOW he was tempted, but he had made a promise and he kept it. In my parents’ home, promises meant something.

On Father’s Day, I will think of my father with love and a few head-shakings and a lot of forgiveness and smiling. And, a few things that I haven’t forgiven yet.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. I knew all along that mean yelling daddy wasn’t really you.

In the picture, you see my father before he was struck down. That is my brother’s motorcycle, but Dad liked to take it around town of a late afternoon.

So did I, in fact. Please don’t tell Mom.

(I add to this post a little bit every Father’s Day.  If some of it seems familiar, thank you for being a loyal reader!)