Food, Clothing, Shelter, and Books.
Mamacita says: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the children who grow up in households wherein there are no books are generally the kids who end up in the slow class at school. There are exceptions, of course, but I haven’t seen very many. I was always happy to see the exceptions, but I was also really surprised.
Some parents got angry when their kids brought home books. Books were suspect. Books might contain something Uncle Reverend Billy-Bob didn’t already know. Why does the kid want to read a book? Nobody else in this family does. Put the blame thing down and come watch TV with the rest of us.
I’ve posted about this before, but it bears repeating. Back when classes were grouped (don’t get me started because some of you won’t like what I would say) EVERY KID in the top class knew dozens of nursery rhymes, poems, and stories, many by heart. Down in the slowest group, few if any kids even understood the question. They didn’t know no pomes.
There are good books, poems, and stories about chaw, huntin’ dawgs, Nascar, and county fairs. Great stuff. Billy Coleman might have worn Carhartts. He might have listened to the Blue Collar guys. Travis knew there was more to life than just huntin’ dogs. Caroline Ingalls loved Jack the bulldog, but was determined that her girls get an education. Great-grandparents may have been illiterate, but by golly, their kids were going to have an education.
experience life, and do some physical labor.Invention and Re-invention
The reinvention of ME and the reason for that reinvention are both the result of an invention – specifically, computers. I was a middle school teacher, and had been for over twenty years. It was a hard job, but I loved it. When computers entered the classrooms, my job became at once more difficult and more enjoyable. The students certainly loved it; it was the administration that remained skeptical.With 46 students in one classroom, close supervision was pretty nearly impossible, but even acknowledging that fact, I was held responsible for every single thing that could possibly go wrong with students and computers. It finally got to the point where I’d had enough, and I quit. Cold. I walked out the door and never looked back. I had never done anything in my adult life except teach middle school. What would I do now? A community college heard that I was now free during the day and hired me on the spot. I didn’t even have to fill out an application. College level teaching was, and is, an experience like no other. It was a different world. It was a world in which my judgment was trusted and my technique admired. In other words, it was as unlike public school as if it were on Mars. I loved it. Love it. Still doing it. But I’m also doing something else – professional writing and social media for several businesses. A few years ago these jobs did not exist, and now, almost every business participates; they have to, or they’ll go under. This is so exciting for me – seeing my name in print, being asked to speak at conferences, being trusted with logins and passwords and reputations of businesses. . . I was created to do these jobs. Leaving the only job I’d ever had as an adult was scary. It was traumatic, after I’d had a few day to 
consider what I’d done and to wonder how I’d feed my children on personal satisfaction. In retrospect, it was the best decision I’d ever made in my life. The best decision of my life. My life’s BEST DECISION. Turning my life, and the lives of my family, completely askew, changing my getting up and my going to bed, my eating habits, my every aspect of living habits. . . buying plane tickets and making hotel reservations and wandering around huge strange cities gawking at the skyscrapers. . .being hired to speak in front of people. . . .being consulted on issues people considered me knowledgeable about. . . . I discovered that I was made for this life. Do I regret turning myself into an entirely different person? I do not. I only regret not doing it sooner.
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My Father and My Daughter: Their Day
Mamacita says: Father’s Day and my daughter’s birthday are always within a few days of each other, and this year, they’re on the same day. That is because calendars are alive and love to mess with us, and because those selfsame calendars, parts of them anyway, dwell in the past with emperors, gods, and goddesses. We can mess right back by denying our ages. But I digress.
My daughter is over 21, if anyone wants to ask me any questions. Please be sure your resume is current, including gainful employment and a love of steampunk and Renaissance cosplay.
She used to be the most beautiful baby girl in the universe, but not any more. She hasn’t been that for a long time.
She is, however, the most beautiful young woman in the universe. She’s strong and brave and smart and hilarious. She’s a lot nicer than I am. Her sense of direction is almost perfect. Her sense of ethics and behavior are superior. She can sing like an angel. She can walk into an expensive dress shop and walk out with a $300.00 dress that she got for twelve bucks and matching $125.00 shoes that cost eight – the honest way. She’s kind and caring and patient, unless she’s dealing with an idiot in which case she, sadly, takes after me. She’s the best daughter any mother could ever hope to have, even when she takes the occasional pissy fit, and even then a good margarita will fix that mood swing right up. Mommy knows how to take care of her baby girl.
I didn’t teach her to stick her head in a waterfall, but only because the subject never came up.
She owns several crowns. This is only fitting. She also owns a magic wand, but then, so do I. Do these wands work? Try us; you’ll find out.
Her cat is obese and has never been outdoors. By my way of thinking, this means she owns a fairly sentient stuffie.
Sometimes, she wears fairy shoes. This is in no way strange. <– no sarcasm intended. This is how we are, in this house. Why do you ask?
Happy Birthday, Princess.
My dad has been gone for several years now, but we never really ever stop missing the people 
we love. We recover, and get on with our lives, but the memories are still there, and aren’t we all glad they are?
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.” He was also funny and smart; he could sing and he valued education, HIGHLY. He would have been a success at college, but he never went. Instead, he sent four kids through college, and continued to work day after day in a factory, “so we would never have to.”
He taught me hundreds of poems and songs, and he liked to pick me up and stand me on a table and make me sing or recite for people. (not lately) “Purple People Eater” and Robert Frost: I still remember.
My sister Teresa 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.
By the time dad had had both legs amputated and was bedridden and too weak to feed himself or turn over, 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 runs to the grocery and drugstores while Dad was at dialysis. Let me tell you something: if ever I’m sick like that, I want Mom to take care of me. I watched her. She was divinely patient with his dreadful moods, and meticulously careful with his meds and IV’s.
My father is gone, but he still lives in my head, daily. And to that loving and playful and laughing and singing father, I want to say, “Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.”
I knew all along that mean yelling daddy wasn’t really you. I just wish my two youngest siblings had met that daddy.
So, today, June 15, I salute my beautiful baby daughter and the good daddy I loved.
This is my brother’s motorcycle, by the way. You know, the one I used to ride all over town without my mother’s knowledge. She still doesn’t know. She never will, unless YOU tell her.
I don’t think my brother knew, either. I was into the stealth before it was cool. And yes, we all wore helmets because my parents didn’t raise no stupid kids.*
*Atrocious grammar used on purpose for effect
