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; they run, except, they ran.  They sing, except, they sang.  While they are running and singing, part of it has already happened.  They climb on you and you hug them.  Except, they climbed on you and you hugged them, because those moments are already gone, too.  Even if you are still together there on the chair, more and more of what you think is “this moment” is already past.  The moments are history. They’re gone before you gently ease your children off your lap and put them to bed, both of which are already history, too.  These moments are gone and will never come again.

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.  Try not to wish your lives away just because a little piece of it isn’t to your liking at a certain moment – which is already gone before you’re even aware.

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.

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  (in the past and now!) 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?

“The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”  — Mark Twain

Let me put it this way:

Mamacita says: It makes me sad that so many parents are not allowing their children to dwell in the world of innocent fantasy.  These parents feel that to allow it is equivalent to lying to their children about what is real and what isn’t.

Don’t they understand that to a child, both worlds are real?  I’ll go one further: to all people of any age who retain their believing hearts, and who use their brains as God (and biology) intended, both worlds are real, too.

My daughter was seven when she asked the question I’d been dreading for seven years: “Mommy, is there really a Santa Claus?”

However, thanks to Caroline Quiner Ingalls, I knew exactly how to answer her. And, this answer fully satisfied my little child, and me.

Laura and Mary’s Ma knew how to explain to her children about Santa Claus without destroying their faith in miracles and magic:

. . . then Laura had a chance to speak without interrupting. She said “There isn’t any fireplace.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Ma asked her.

“Santa Claus,” Laura answered.

“Eat your supper, Laura, and let’s not cross bridges till we come to them,” said Ma.

Laura and Mary knew that Santa Claus could not come down a chimney when there was no chimney. One day Mary asked Ma how Santa Claus could come. Ma did not answer. Instead, she asked, “What do you girls want for Christmas?”

. . . “Ma!” (Laura) cried. “there IS a Santa Claus, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s a Santa Claus, said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again.

“The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can’t be just one man, don’t you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.

“Well,” said Ma. “then you see – “

“I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.

Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.

Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.

“If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said, “Yes, Laura.”

–from On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

You’re welcome.

I’m tired of my ankles turning because of the nuts. I’m tired of mowing over the nuts and flinging them towards someone else’s yard.

Everywhere I turn, it’s nuts, nuts, nuts.

I can’t even walk without stepping on nuts and tripping.

I’m reminded of a fall drive we once took, when the kids were small. We drove past a farm, and as usual slowed down so the kids could see the animals. In this case, pigs. Huge pigs. Huge male pigs. Huge male pigs who could hardly walk. And why, you might ask, couldn’t the huge male pigs walk around in their pen?

Same reason nobody can walk around in this yard. They kept stepping on their darn nuts.

The kids still talk about that trip. Well, not the TRIP, per se, but the sights. That one, in particular.  In fact, the kids still quote me.  I guess it IS pretty funny, what I said, but the truth was, I was flabbergasted by the sight of those huge nuts being stepped on by those huge sharp hoofs.  I’d tell you what I said, but I’m afraid you might not respect me any more if you knew.  Besides, one of my kids will probably tell you all in the comments anyway.

We used to have the same problem with balls, but that, like this, was purely seasonal.

Bring it on, Google.

Most of the time, THOSE parents never darkened the door of the school for any reason. Occasionally, one of them would actually show up for a conference, and I would sit there on the other side of the table gritting my teeth and gripping a pencil so tight that sometimes it broke, because nine times out of ten, the parent of my raggedy little starveling was dressed pretty darn well, and it was rare that he/she didn’t reek of cigarette smoke. In other words, money WAS being spent, but not on the child.

Cigarettes in the purse, no socks on the child. Beer in the refrigerator, no decent shoes for the child. Nice clothes on the adult, rags on the child.  Warm winter coat on the adult, a t-shirt on the child.

I can feel my blood pressure rising as I remember it.

Why, why, WHY, when these poor kids are constantly removed from these ‘homes,’ are they just as constantly put right back in to be mistreated just like before? Sometimes, in fact most times, ‘keeping the family together’ is NOT important. Sometimes, splitting a family apart is the best thing that could ever happen to it. When parents do not behave like adults, they have no business inflicting it on innocent children. Get the kids out of that house, and put them where they’ll be fed and clothed and loved. Any adult who would buy cigarettes when his/her child has no socks, is a monster, not fit to raise a child. Addictions? Cry me a river. The needs of children always come before any needs of an adult. And especially before an adult’s hobby, toy, or habit.  In fact, the needs of children come before ANYTHING remotely to do with an adult.

“Wahwahwah, don’t I deserve to have a life?”  Actually, no, you don’t.  Not until you have made sure your children’s needs have been taken care of, and, sadly enough for you, sometimes the bars have closed by the time you can go.  Of course, there’s always the 24-hour WalMart – you can throw a t-shirt on over your thong and your spike heels and get your cigarettes there.  Hey, you might even show up later on People of Walmart!  8-year-old Susie can watch the younger kids till you get home.  Wake her up and put her to work; she’s used to it.

Look around. Every person has a story to tell. Sometimes you can tell by their outsides, and sometimes you can’t.

Most of the time, that story has something to do with their home, and who was there, and who WASN’T there.

Some people are parents via biology or adoption, and others are parents via fate. There is no guarantee which kind will be the best kind.

I would bet money, though, if I had any money, that an adult who would put his/her own selfish wants and addictions over and above the needs of a little child, is not even going to be in the running. Shame on them. Shame, and more shame.

I do not understand many things in this world, and one of them is this: when “everybody” knows a home is not a fit place for a child, why does “everybody” talk about that fact, yet allow the child to remain in the home?

“What a shame, those poor kids, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, gambling, live-in lovers, possible molestation. . . . .” and then we watch them get on the bus, knowing they’re going “home” to hell house.

I know that mistakes are made all the time, in removing children from so-called ‘homes,’ but I think even more mistakes are made all the time in NOT removing children. Why should their worthless parents have all the rights, and the children have none?

I am so down tonight. I wish I could gather up all these kids and wash them, and feed them, and put clean socks on their feet, and intact shoes, and pretty clothes. I wish I could fill Christmas stockings and Easter baskets for them, and hug them, and give each one a doll or toy of some kind that would be their very own and nobody else’s. And if their worthless deadbeat parent tried to take it and sell it for drugs or booze, I hope a sensor in it would explode and wipe that bum off the face of the earth. Peace on earth, yes.

Read it right: “Peace on earth to men of good will.”

The other kind can bite me.

Remember that anecdote about the young bride whose husband asked her why she cut the beef roast in half before she put it in the pan?

She told him she did it that way because her mother always did it that way.

So the young husband asked his mother-in-law why she had always cut the beef roast in half before she put it in the pan. Her reply? She did it that way because HER mother had always done it that way.

At the next family dinner, the husband asked his wife’s grandmother why she had always cut the beef roast in half before putting it in the pan. Her reply? Because her mother had always done it that way.

His wife’s great-grandmother was still alive, so he went to the nursing home and asked her why she always cut the beef roast in half before putting it in the pan. Her reply?

“I only had the one small pan, and the only way a roast would fit in it was if it was first cut into two pieces.”

When my children visit, I often think of this story. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it might as well be, because so many of the things we do make no sense except in the context of the past.

Both of my children love grilled cheese sandwiches. I mean, who doesn’t? Secondly, neither of my children will touch a grilled cheese sandwich unless it is made with Velveeta.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I can grant these wishes because A. I won’t eat a grilled cheese sandwich unless it was made with Velveeta, either, and B. Velveeta is a name brand food I can actually AFFORD!

When my son visits, he often requests grilled cheese sandwiches the minute he enters the house.  When he was a little boy, the only way he could eat a grilled cheese sandwich was if I mashed it down flat with the spatula after the Velveeta had melted. THEN his little mouth could close around it, and he could eat the sandwich “like a man.”

He’s an adult now, but he still wants his grilled cheese sandwiches flattened with the spatula. Why?  Because that’s how his mother always made them.

When he gets married, I can’t wait to hear his wife’s reaction when he asks her to mash a perfectly good sandwich flat. Will she question it, or just do it?

Sometimes, family traditions have serious beginnings and funny middles. As for the endings, there aren’t any, not really.

(Rerun.  You’re not crazy.  At least, not on this account.)

Mamacita says:  I’m guessing that many most bloggers will be posting tributes this weekend, and telling the blogosphere ‘where we were’ when the planes hit the World Trade Center. Here is mine. This is actually the second third fourth fifth sixth seventh time I’ve posted this on 9/11, so if it seems familiar, you’re not crazy. Well, not on this issue, anyway.

==

The morning began like any other; we stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, and sat back down to watch Channel One News, which had been taped at 3:00 that morning in the school library, thanks to the timer. But Channel One News didn’t come on.

Instead, the secretary’s voice, over the intercom, told the teachers to “please check your email immediately.” We did. And we found out what had happened.

I scrolled down the monitor and read the end of the message. The superintendent had ordered all teachers to be absolutely mum all day about the tragedy. We were not to answer any questions from students, and we were especially not to offer any information to them.

The day went by in a blur. Many parents drove to the school, took their kids out, and brought them home. Between classes, frightened groups of students gathered in front of their lockers and whispered, gossiped, and cried, and begged us for information. By that time, the superintendent’s order had been seconded by the principals, and we were unable to give these terrified kids any information. In the computer labs, the MSN screens told the 8th graders the truth, but they, too, were instructed NOT to talk about it to the other students. Right, like THAT happened. The story was being repeated by 8th graders, and it was being told bloody-killing-deathtrap-you’re next-video-game-style.

At noon, many of the students were picked up by parents and taken home or out for lunch. Those few who returned had a big tale to tell. The problem was, the tale was being told by children, and few if any of the facts were straight. The tale was being told scary-style, and the atmosphere in the building got more and more strained. We are only a few miles away from an immensely large Navy base, where ammunition and bombs are made, and we’ve always known it was a prime target, which means, of course, that we are, too. Many of my children’s parents worked there. The base was locked down and those parents did not come home that night.

Reasonable questions were answered with silence, or the statement: “You’ll find out when you get home.”

This, added to all the rumors and gossip spread by children, turned my little sixth graders into terrified toddlers.

As teachers, we were furious and disgusted with the superintendent’s edict. We wanted to call all the students into the gym and calmly tell them the truth in words and ways that would be age-appropriate. We wanted to hug them and assure them that it was far away and they were safe. We asked for permission to do this, and it was denied. Our orders were ‘silence.’ We hadn’t been allowed to hug them for years, of course, but there are times and places when hugs ARE appropriate. No matter, the superintendent stood firm: no information whatsoever.

The day went by, more slowly than ever a day before. The students grew more and more pale and frightened. We asked again, and again he stood firm that no information whatsoever was to be given out.

By the end of the day, the children were as brittle as Jolly Rancher Watermelon Sticks.

A few minutes before the bell rang to send them home, a little girl raised her hand and in a trembling voice that I will never forget, asked me a question. “Please, is it true that our parents are dead and our houses are burned down?”

That was it. I gathered my students close and in a calm voice explained to them exactly what had happened. I told them their parents were alive and safe, and that they all still had homes to go to.

The relief was incredible. I could feel it cascading all through the room.

I was, of course, written up for insubordination the next day, but I didn’t care. My phone had rung off the hook that night with parents thanking me for being honest with their children. That was far more important than a piece of paper that said I’d defied a stupid inappropriate order meted out by a man who belonged in the office of a used car lot, not in a position of power over children’s lives.

The next day at school, in my room, we listened to some of the music that had been ‘specially made about the tragedy. I still have those cd’s and I’ve shared them with many people over the past few years.  It is true that kids cried again, but it was good to cry. It was an appropriate time to cry. We didn’t do spelling or grammar that day. There are times when the “business as usual” mindset simply is not appropriate.

I wish administrators would realize that kids are a lot tougher than we might think. Kids are also a lot more sensitive that we might realize. It’s an odd combination, and we as educators must try our best to bring the two ends of the emotional spectrum together and help these kids learn to deal with horrible happenings and still manage to get through the day as well as possible.

Ignoring an issue will not help. Morbidly focusing on an issue will not help. Our children are not stupid, and to treat them as such is not something that builds trust. Our children deserve answers to their questions.

How can we expect our children to learn to find a happy medium if we don’t show them ourselves, when opportunities arise?

September 11, 2001 – September 11, 2011. God bless us, every one.

Your kid is raised. Stop raising him. If he’s still an immature weenie, let life hand him/her some consequences. It’s about time somebody did.

Love, Professor MeanJane

P.S. Your kid is nineteen years old and still can’t remember to bring a pencil to school. And no, he can’t borrow mine.  There are no soul-sucking “community school supplies” at this level.   If he wants a grade on a test, he can go down to the bookstore and invest in a two-dollar collegiate-licensed pencil. Yes, they are too expensive and yes, it’s ridiculous. At Target he can get a whole package for a dollar, but then he’d have to remember to bring one to class.

You are not allowing your kid to grow up, and he doesn’t have what it takes to do so himself. This is your fault. Back off. Let him struggle and fail, and then perhaps he will struggle and succeed. No, this is NOT being cruel. Cruelty is keeping your kid a kid too long, and doing all the work for him. Step back and don’t give in when he comes crying to you about how hard life is.

This is one of many reasons why I am a firm believer in mixed-age classes. At this level, I’ll have students from 17 to 80 in one room, and each has something invaluable to give to the other. I think every kid needs at least one adult who is not responsible for raising him/her, and I think every adult needs to be around kids for whom they are not responsible for raising.

Something else that’s wonderful?   We don’t really have many discipline problems at this level, and if we do, the student is escorted out of the building immediately. As such students should be at ALL levels, so our nice hardworking kids might be able to climb higher and see farther and accomplish much more, without being constantly albatrossed by discipline problems that are allowed to get worse each year by spineless administrators and parents who can’t see beyond their own child.

Remember Helen Keller, who had to be removed from her doting parents’ home in order to be educated properly, because her parents were so sorry for her that they gave in to her every whim and turned her into a smelly obnoxious beast who demanded her own way and got it in every situation. Poor little Helen, let her have it; she’s been denied so much! Annie Sullivan, however, knew better. Why can’t modern parents and administrators see it?

(Helen Keller has been in the top five of my top ten “most admired people” list since I was a small child. )

I am a firm believer in playing my best with the hand I’m dealt, but that only works when there are 52 cards to be dealt. Add “just a few more,” and the rules are changed, and it becomes a different game.

Life is good. Dig it.

And when life isn’t good, dig it anyway. If you keep digging, you’ll strike gold eventually.

Everyone has a fourth of July. It’s right there between the third and the fifth, so none of your lip now. . . .

I was looking at all the black burn marks on the deck today and wishing the kids were still little and out there making more.  Our deck is covered with many years’ worth of black burned Fourth of July spots. Isn’t everybody’s?

Please tell me your deck is covered with black spots too?  From bottle rockets and snakes and all kinds of fun noisy things?

Well, mine is, and I love the memories.

I’m afraid to ask about your sidewalk, because, well, mine has a lot of black spots on it from those “snakes” the kids used to burn when they were little. I like the spots, because they make me remember those giggling little kids, watching the coiling black snakes with big laughing eyes. The kids, not the snakes.

I’d rather have the spots, and the memories, than a life full of pristine “things.”

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone. Please be safe, and happy. Don’t step on the hot sparkler wires on the ground. Watch out for the tiny kids; sometimes they bite and keep them out of harm’s way.

I love you all. Happy Independence Day!

Shhh, listen!  Do you hear freedom ringing?  I do.

Let’s all work hard to keep it so.  Let’s not wait until we’re at the funeral home and it’s too late to say “I love you” to someone until another horrendous crisis to rally together and love our country in public.

P.S.  Loud pops, bangs, smoke, and cool colors aren’t necessarily dangerous.  Here are some great ways your kids (and you – who are we kidding?) can have a great time making loud noises and playing with smoke and cool stuff!  You’re welcome.

Mamacita says:  That’s a quotation; that’s not me saying “damn,” although I frequently occasionally do. I am, to my shame, greatly afflicted with “potty mouth,” and although I managed to control it somewhat while my children were tiny,  it’s back, in full force. Honestly? I need help.

But I digress. No two people are alike, but both of them are expected to progress at the same rate by our public schools.

Our children are expected to learn to read and write by a certain age lest they be labeled “special education” and given an IEP and pulled from the classroom to be tutored in the Reading Room. Most of them are little boys.

Old hippies like me sometimes have a hard time admitting that there really are gender differences that no amount of “environment” is going to change. One of those differences is this: a lot of little boys need a few more years than a lot of little girls need, to mature enough so that their bodies and brains can sit still, together, long enough to learn how to read and write. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.

I saw this miracle happen over and over again. With my own eyes I saw it. Sometimes, when I tried to tell other teachers, especially elementary teachers, about this awakening, they did not believe me. “I had that boy in third grade and I’m telling you, Jane, that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a reader, a good student. He just can’t do it.”

And I’m telling you, Madeline, that I don’t give a rat’s ass* what the child did in your class. I am trying to tell you that in my class, the boy can read. One week he couldn’t, and the next week, he could. And he’s ecstatic.

My point? Do I have to have one? I guess I could drag one in by the hind legs if you must have a point. How about this one:

Hold off on the IEP’s and the labeling until the kid is in middle school. Tutor, yes. Give special help, yes. Hang a label on his forehead and put it in his permanent record? Not so fast there, Teach. Don’t do it Not yet. Not just for reading. Save the labeling for the children who genuinely need the help; don’t fill up the room with little boys who just need a few more years to mature.

Same-sex classrooms in the lower grades? Why not? It might work. It would certainly be better for the little girls who, most of them, just naturally catch on to the reading faster; they could move on! It would be better for the little boys, too; they wouldn’t feel pressured and might get comfortable enough to relax and blossom, too.

Many of our most highly esteemed scientists, inventors, etc, were late bloomers. Edison wasn’t even allowed to continue at his school; he was so slow, he held the others back!

Let’s give our little boys a break, what say, people?

And by the way, taking away a child’s recess because he couldn’t finish his vocabulary words quickly is cruel and unusual punishment. I suppose the boy would then be punished because he was extra wiggly since his ‘outlet’ was taken from him? Energetic little children NEED to be let loose on the playground several times a day!!! Taking away recesses for punishment or to make more room for standardized test review is the action of a halfwit who knows nothing about either education OR children and probably hasn’t been in a classroom since 1972 teacher, politician, superintendent, or some other administrator who falls into the ‘nimrod’ category of typical la la land unawareness of real people and how we live. Probably people who do that don’t know how to access their email, either, or use a computer. But then, that’s what secretaries are for.

I put up with this for 26 years. No wonder I had a potty mouth.

And by the way, this guv’ment standard of requiring our tiny first and second graders to sit still for NINETY MINUTES and read without interruption is ignorance in action on the part of whoever thought that one up. Tell me, Mr. Standards: Can YOU sit absolutely still for ninety minutes and read without interruption? I thought not.

*Dammit **, there I go again.

** Crap.

Mamacita says:  I first saw this cartoon a few years ago when I was thin and I thought it was funny.

Of course, I didn’t know then that it wasn’t a cartoon at all, but an actual documented photo of evil recurring entities, plotting to destroy the self-esteem of a lady who looks a lot like me and who is really very nice unless you piss her off.

Years ago, I gave in to them then out of pain and frustration and nasty medications that invited these entities to take up residence without even feeding them, but this time? I’m going to win.

Example: There were doughnuts in the lounge today at the college, but I didn’t touch them. Of course, I am not all that fond of doughnuts but even so.

Thank goodness there wasn’t a big bowl of M&M’s in the lounge. I’d be defeated instantly.

Plain or peanut: I’m not particular in my obsession for them. Obsession, I’m telling you.

It’s not my fault. I should be getting government money, in fact.  It’s nothing that can be controlled by any normal means.  It’s a disability.

I have OCM&MD.*

I’d stop if I could. Don’t let them near me. It’s not my fault. Pay me.

*Obsessive/Compulsive M&M Disorder