To Teach

When I am an old lady sitting on my porch, rocking on my chair, thinking about my life, I bet that I will feel the greatest gift I was ever given was the opportunity to teach. 

This past week I have spent a lot of time thinking about teaching, the people who taught me, and what it takes to truly be a great teacher.  Did I have mentors along the way?  Just a few, but I never really thought about it until now.

My first grade teacher, Sister Janet, was always so kind and loving.  I had a rough time in the early grades, but I knew I was loved and accepted.  My third grade teacher, Miss Ness, left you with that same feeling.  My fifth/sixth grade teacher Mrs. Winek was so hip and interesting.  You could tell that she really cared about us and about what she was teaching.  She was the first teacher to encourage my writing. 

In Junior High (middle school to you younguns) the only one who really stands out to me now is Mrs. Rusch.  Probably, again, because she encouraged my writing.  School paper, writing for the telegram, poetry contests, etc.

In High School there is also only one teacher who stands out to me now as a mentor, probably the one who had the most influence on how I approached teaching later in my life, Mrs. Sweeney.  She was the choir teacher while I was in high school, but also taught English in years prior, and in the years following.  I really wish I could have had the opportunity to have had her for English, although she was a fabulous choral director.

The difference between most of my other teachers and Mrs. Sweeney was the fact that she very obviously cared about her students, not just what they were learning, but cared about them as individuals.  She gave respect and got it back ten fold.  Choir classes were huge back then, and concert choir probably had 50/60 kids in the room at once.  No assistants, just Mrs. Sweeney and all of us.  For the most part there were no discipline issues.  I think I only saw her lose her cool once, and you knew she meant business.

She didn't have children of her own, and explained very early on that she considered her students her children, and we could feel free to come to her with anything, and many did.  Most, if not all of the kids called her Ma, or Ma Sweeney.  It was normal to see her attending to three things at once, pulling a  pencil from her hair with one hand, while waiving to a student who was  shouting  "Hi Ma" through the door as they passed by the room.

I remember one particular afternoon before choir or Spartan Singers, when I was upset about some teen-age dramarama, and was just sitting in the auditorium lobby in an empty desk, staring out the window, and she walked by.  She got about three feet past me, stopped, came back and gave me a hug.  "Whatever it is, just cry.  Let it out and you'll feel better."  She was right.

Sadly, Mrs. Sweeney passed away a week ago.  Tragically it was in a house fire, and they are still trying to figure out just what happened.  There have been newspaper articles, and features on the local news about her, and about all of the lives that she touched.  I am one of those lives.  She taught me that a teacher can also be a friend, and confidant, and still be respected.  No matter how many irons she had in the fire, she was never to busy for any one of us, ever. 

I was very lucky to have had her influence in her life and have thought of her often through the years.  God Bless you, Ma Sweeney, and if they let me in the pearly gates I hope that I'm lucky enough to sing with you again! ♥
 
http://www.superiortelegram.com/event/obituary/id/76033/

Three Years

It's not quite anniversary time, but I knew it was getting close.  On March 27 it will be three years since I started writing this blog!  I don't keep track normally, but in searching out the actual start date I noticed that the blog I'm writing now is number 345.  That is amazing to me, I can't believe that I've stuck with it this long, or that I have had that much to write about. 

This Friday night at happy hour I will have to raise a glass of  "pink" to celebrate. 

I feel like I should have something profound to say about the year that has gone by, something learned, something gained.......... eh?  ( I have actually sat here staring at that sentence for about five minutes.)  I'm farther ahead of the game in some ways, and have taken a step back in others.  There are things that I'm content with and things that I am not.  Things to change, things to let simmer, it's just life.  Which is so very precious, regardless of what's going on.

I guess if a theme runs through this last year of blogs it would be change, and reconnection.  I have had some wonderful opportunities to spend time with old friends, and look forward to more to come. 

In other news, Cierra has pneumonia again in both lungs. She is on meds (as of yesterday when it was confirmed) and home with her Mom. Please say a prayer that she is able to recover quickly, at home.  Ashlyn is gearing up for Prom in a few weeks ( twinge), Pablo is about to be eleven, and the little goovers are sleeping over next week. (heaven help me)  

St. Anthony Snow Hill

My last blog was about playing games as a child.  Monday night I had to stop at my Brother's house (the house I grew up in) to drop off some AVON for his wife.  At the end of the block I saw this.  Wow, does it bring back memories of childhood fun!

While inside my brother's house I talked to his son, "The Artist Formerly Known As Pablo", about the hill and how we used to play on it for hours as kids.  "So have you been down there?"  The answer was disappointing. "Nah, to busy."  Seriously???? 

When I was growing up in the mid seventies there was an empty lot across the street from our house.  Elsie and Orville (how's that for a couple of names) hadn't built there yet, and that is where the plows piled all the snow from the church on the end of the block, AND from the gas station across the alley.  It made the above mountain (and that isn't even the best view, when I turned the corner it was LONG) look like a mole hill.  It's not just a kids perspective either, we had much more snow then.  It started snowing in November, and didn't quit until sometime in April.  The Meys kids, and company, spent the few hours of daylight after school, and most weekend afternoons playing games and sliding on the hill.

When Elsie and Orville built their new house on that lot, the gas station (Panks) began plowing up their snow right behind their own lot.  This happened to butt right up against Emily's yard, who was my friend Shannon's Grandma, so we had a snow hill there to play in. (When Shannon and I were getting along.) St. Anthony's started piling their snow up at the corner of their parking lot, and that is where the snow hill in the picture is located. My Mom was the secretary at the church for thirty years, and when she thought it was getting to dangerous she would have them take it and pile it next to the old school, which is apartments now. (Read as: wrecker of all things fun)

My oddest memory of the St. Anthony snow hill was a cold snowy afternoon in early January.  Vicki and I decided to drag their old Christmas tree down to the hill and put it up on the hill.  Don't ask, I don't remember why we thought that was a good idea.  It didn't happen though, because after we arrived we got into an argument about something, (shocker) and then she got to drag the tree home, herself. :)  I still remember watching her walk away, dragging that tree. ( Ten dollars says she remembers nothing.......she depends on me for that......so we'll just say it was all her fault.)

My childhood was magical, and even the rough spots have taught me valuable life lessons.  There are definitely things about my teens that I would change, but nothing before the age of eleven.  Playing outside in the snow with Jacob the dog this past Saturday I spent a lot of time remembering.  I even tried to build a snowman, but he kept eating the head. :)  Working with kids for so long I had the opportunity to play on a daily basis, and that is definitely something my life is lacking at the moment.  Hmmmm..... we'll have to do something about that.

The Floor Is Lava

The other day I saw a facebook post that brought back a lot of memories! (Thanks Suzanne!)

,

Wow.  I hadn't thought of that childhood game in years!  In fact I probably had the idea that my brother Jerry and I were the ones who invented it.  Do you know what I'm talking about?  Jumping around the living room from couch to couch to chairs and back without touching the floor, because it is, in fact, hot lava!  No, my Mother wasn't home, or if she was she was in the kitchen cooking something, or in there on the phone with Aunt Pat.  One did not do these things if there was a chance of detection, best to wait until Dad was in charge actually......

Thinking about the lava game started me thinking about all the crazy games we played, and made up, as kids.  We did the usual soccer, baseball, football, and tag, (several varieties) with some jump rope thrown in for good measure.  There was a game we played that required steps, but I can not recall anymore than that.  Anyone?  Arg, that's going to bug me.  One of my favorite games was  played with a ball. You would toss it against a wall or house...*but NOT Vicki's*  We would NEVER toss anything against Barb's siding. :) You started with the number one and went through the number seven.  Each number required you to do something different and you stayed on that number until you completed the task.  Number one, for example was just toss the ball against the wall and catch it.  However in round two you had to clap, round three you had to stomp, round four you clapped twice, etc etc etc until it was time to go home or something more exciting happened in the hood.

If Barb happens to be reading this, she might want to just gloss over this paragraph.......  Another great indoor rainy day game was played in the long hallway at Vicki's house.  We just called it "That Ball Game".  Enough said.  It was awesome though, and NO that isn't how the hole got in the wall.  That was all Vicki, I wasn't even anywhere near the premises.  

As I'm racking my brain the game on the steps might have been called Poison.  I am recalling having to touch the bottom and run to the top as fast as you could to win, it's the middle part  that's fuzzy.

The best game by far was Ghost in the Graveyard!  We always played at my house, because "A." The Meys children had to be home when the street lights came on. and "B." We had Grandma's big yard next door to play in too.  We would have been a bit older to be out after dark, and it was definitely only in the summertime or early fall.  Lots of random neighborhood kids ( and from the hoods surrounding) would come and play.

Ah, childhood.  When your biggest problem was a game gone wrong, or you stepped in the hot lava.  :)  I wouldn't go back in time to do things over, but maybe just for a day.  Just to experience that truly carefree feeling one more time.  I would pick an early fall Friday, when I was nine or ten.  I would even go to school, just to smell the smells, see the bus driver and the teachers, my friends from back then, and to play all of those crazy games!

Do kids even do these things anymore??

Fight, Flight, or Freeze?

Sometimes it amazes me that I can have a perfectly sane question in my mind, and it leads me right down the path to Zombie Apocalypse. *shrug*

The question that I'm pondering is:  What would be my reaction to running into a Zombie?

What I already know about myself leads me to two very different conclusions.

FIGHT

In the past I have proven (and not to smartly I might add) that if someone is threatening bodily harm to someone or something I love, I will fight with everything I've got to protect them.  I cant  help it, the fight response just kicks in and away we go.  Apparently even my five foot nothing can be pretty scary when that response kicks in, and that's all I have to say about that.

Which leads us to:

FLIGHT 

I don't run away.  Ever.  Except from mice that are dead in the trap.  Why do I always find them? Although I have never actually seen one, it's always the trap out of place that I notice. (Yes, every single time I go into the kitchen I glance at the traps.) Usually I sing a little song about no breakfast until the dead mice disappear, but I do it as I'm leaving the kitchen, quickly. Which leads us to the other thing that happened......

FREEZE  

*Sigh*  This past summer I learned that when confronted with a snake I about lose my mind.  Literally.  I can't move, or speak, or even breathe.  This is my story.

It was a hot Sunday afternoon in June.  I was sitting on the top step of the front porch with the pup and The Brown Eyed Man was fixing the bottom step.  When he finished he lazily leaned back on his hands and relaxed in the grass while we talked about dinner options. ( I am tensing up even thinking about what happened next.)  All of the sudden a snake pops out from under the porch, and is heading right for him.  The pup doesn't notice, he doesn't notice, and I freeze.  Dead in the water.  I know I have to say something, or do something, but I can't move. The bright green and yellow two foot gardener snake is heading right for him!  I start to hyperventilate and croak out the word "snake".  "What?"  I gathered everything I had and choked it out again. "SNAKE!" He glances down at it nonchalantly while the dang thing crawls right over his hand, *shudder* and off under the four wheeler.  The pup never does notice, although we had another incident with him and a dead snake about a month later. 

It took me a long time to settle down and speak/breathe normally after that.  Yes, I could not talk, and that's saying something.....

So I look at these very different responses to very real situations and of course I have to wonder.... What would I do if a zombie was at the door?  Would I fight, would I run, or would I freeze?  I would like to say fight to the death, because that's just the kind of gal I am, and up until the snake incident that would have been my answer.  Here's hoping I never have to find out!