Joe and I were married in December of 1977, while I was still Media Director and he was a school administrator. In short order, he took a lesser position as Media Director of another school in order to stave off criticism. Shameful of us to form a relationship while working together!
In any case, that very next spring, I had read something about an Illinois Boy Scout camp seeking summer employees--particularly a Program Director and a nurse. Joe had been very active in Boy Scout camps in Indiana as a young person. I mentioned the opportunity to him, and he ran with it. As a summer job, it would augment our income by, maybe, $2k. (Honestly, I don't remember.) Our thought was that he could be the Program Director, and I could be the nurse. I would have to take a Red Cross first aid course, but it could be done. We applied.
The Scout executive that was doing the hiring was excited about the possibility of having state certified teachers as part of his staff. He decided that I could be better used as a camp Ecology Director. Great. But there was a catch: we had to attend a camping experience for the scouts. National Camp School at Rocky River, Ohio. (I could have the place name wrong.) We had already missed the most convenient choice when we were told about it, so the only thing to do in order to jump through the Scout's hoops was to attend a camp during our responsibilities at school. That camp experience was another whole post. I'm pretty sure I've already written about it.
Bottom line: the school admin figured out that we weren't absent for any "legal" reason, so docked our pay for the days we were gone. Ouch!
That same year, on the last day of school in 1978--a Friday-- we would be going to Greencastle, IN, in preparation for the Indy 500 the following Sunday. It was going to be a hot day. My husband took our Irish Setter, Ann, with him to school so we wouldn't have to backtrack the two/three blocks home to pick her up before we left for Indiana at the end of the day. The last thing I said to him that day was, "It's going to be hot today. Don't leave Ann in the car." Long story short, he did and she died...and then he had to come pick me up and tell me.
I weep even when thinking about this from so many years ago. In the back of the car was the lifeless body of my beloved dog, wrapped in a garbage bag. My immediate response, after beating on my husband's chest in a moment of raw grief and embarrassing myself with my staff, was that we would take Ann to my family's farm near Streator, IL, to bury her in the pasture that I loved from my childhood. We arrived unannounced. My mother asked why. When I told her, through my tears, what had happened, she said if she had a gun she would shoot my husband. I never quite forgave him for that whole thing because I didn't understand how he could have done this to my baby dog, especially since I had already warned him. It was months before I could eat right or even ride in that car, knowing she had died in it.
We buried Ann, then went to the race, and home to our empty house. And then I discovered that I was pregnant. I guess this isn't exactly a school story, but it was...sort of.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Monday, February 24, 2020
School Stories III
I honestly have no recall about how I went from a teacher's aide to professional staff at the Crete-Monee school district. I think the Asst. Supt. liked me, for some reason, and offered me a position as Media Center Director at another district school (Balmoral). Since it was available at teacher pay and would count for retirement, I took it. I had no college paperwork for library science, but (at that time) none was required. What I DID have was certification to teach grades 6-12. The building I was assigned to was K-6. It required that I take more college courses to get certified. I did that through Governor's State University, local to the area. I think I had to take a music course and a math course. Yeah...lots of fun!
I had one aide to help me administer media services. She was a no-nonsense gal named Pat (who reminds me a lot of my current housekeeper) who followed me around, picking up after me. (In retrospect, I wonder what she must have thought of me. I was getting credit for MY ideas that SHE made happen.) She had a green thumb. She brought wonderful pots of begonias and impatiens and other goodies to grace the top of our bookshelves, which gave me the idea to make an island of lovely plants for the middle of the center.
I had a budget. I bought a kids' swimming pool, filled it with bark, put a couple of tree stumps of different sizes in it, then bought trees and plants (at a discount, all) to put on the stumps and in the pool. The administration loved it. (So did I!)
I also started a program at the school where the teachers didn't have to come to us to get AV equipment. They submitted a request, and we brought it to them, when needed. I know how simple that sounds, but in those days, the teachers thought they'd died and gone to Heaven. Sometimes, I would have to go to a classroom to replace a blown light bulb. The teachers thought I was an angel. (Know what? I didn't know any better than they did about how to change an AV light bulb, but I wasn't afraid to try. Then, too, I didn't have a class of kids waiting for me to make something work.)
1. We had a 13% bilingual population at that school (migrant workers from the local Balmoral Race Track). It was both a blessing and a curse. Our Bilingual Program was considered a model in the state because we included both Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking kids, as requested, in the program. Interestingly, the parents of the bilingual students objected to the teachers because they were Cuban and not Mexican. Then, too, our district Superintendent essentially lost his job because, when challenged in an open school board meeting about low test scores, he claimed that the Hispanic population was dragging test scores down. Obviously was not well-received.
2. One interesting story in that location had to do with a first grader who had borrowed a library book, then urinated on it in the bathroom. His Spec. Ed. teacher (who was a friend of mine) told me it was just his way of saying "Piss on reading".
3. I guess I made a positive name for myself in this position because the Asst. Supt. proposed to put me in charge of the Media Center remodel at Crete Elementary School. The whole school was being renovated. I was to be given $150,000 to update the Media Center (library) and given the time off from teaching to develop it. (Doesn't seem like much by today's standards, but was then...mid-70s.) I was to be "grandfathered in" to the position without library science paperwork.
4. It was in this position that I met my future husband--before the Crete School renovation. The rest is history.
I had one aide to help me administer media services. She was a no-nonsense gal named Pat (who reminds me a lot of my current housekeeper) who followed me around, picking up after me. (In retrospect, I wonder what she must have thought of me. I was getting credit for MY ideas that SHE made happen.) She had a green thumb. She brought wonderful pots of begonias and impatiens and other goodies to grace the top of our bookshelves, which gave me the idea to make an island of lovely plants for the middle of the center.
I had a budget. I bought a kids' swimming pool, filled it with bark, put a couple of tree stumps of different sizes in it, then bought trees and plants (at a discount, all) to put on the stumps and in the pool. The administration loved it. (So did I!)
I also started a program at the school where the teachers didn't have to come to us to get AV equipment. They submitted a request, and we brought it to them, when needed. I know how simple that sounds, but in those days, the teachers thought they'd died and gone to Heaven. Sometimes, I would have to go to a classroom to replace a blown light bulb. The teachers thought I was an angel. (Know what? I didn't know any better than they did about how to change an AV light bulb, but I wasn't afraid to try. Then, too, I didn't have a class of kids waiting for me to make something work.)
1. We had a 13% bilingual population at that school (migrant workers from the local Balmoral Race Track). It was both a blessing and a curse. Our Bilingual Program was considered a model in the state because we included both Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking kids, as requested, in the program. Interestingly, the parents of the bilingual students objected to the teachers because they were Cuban and not Mexican. Then, too, our district Superintendent essentially lost his job because, when challenged in an open school board meeting about low test scores, he claimed that the Hispanic population was dragging test scores down. Obviously was not well-received.
2. One interesting story in that location had to do with a first grader who had borrowed a library book, then urinated on it in the bathroom. His Spec. Ed. teacher (who was a friend of mine) told me it was just his way of saying "Piss on reading".
3. I guess I made a positive name for myself in this position because the Asst. Supt. proposed to put me in charge of the Media Center remodel at Crete Elementary School. The whole school was being renovated. I was to be given $150,000 to update the Media Center (library) and given the time off from teaching to develop it. (Doesn't seem like much by today's standards, but was then...mid-70s.) I was to be "grandfathered in" to the position without library science paperwork.
4. It was in this position that I met my future husband--before the Crete School renovation. The rest is history.
School Stories, Part II
At the end of 1971, my then-husband had graduated from graduate school and accepted a counseling position with the Crete-Monee School District 201-U in the very, very south suburbs of Chicago. We took a 2-bedroom apartment in Matteson, IL, in that area, which was a whopping $180/month, and almost out of our budget. Years before, I had applied with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be a teacher on a reservation somewhere. Had heard nothing. Then, suddenly, I got a letter that told me to report to a location by a particular date...and the day I got the letter was the day I was supposed to be there! Having heard nothing for years, I had given up on that venture. I had moved on.
Although my husband had a school job, I didn't. In order to continue to provide income, I took a job with an international Great Lakes shipping company out of Chicago, which meant riding the IC commuter train, both coming and going, for an hour each way. The location was on East Wacker Drive, which --if you are familiar at all with Chicago--shouldn't even exist. East Wacker Drive, if you keep on driving, is Lake Michigan. My end of day destination was the end of the line.
Although I enjoyed being in downtown Chicago during lunch breaks, my experiences in the office in which I worked weren't so enjoyable. I was tasked with posting checks to ledgers in two different accounts. The gal running the department had been there for a million years so knew everything there was to know by way of experience. I, however, didn't. One day, I dared to ask how I should be able to tell which account to post the checks in. I didn't get an answer I could understand, so I asked again in a different way. She went off on me as if I were some kind of ignorant dolt. (Another gal in the office later told me that she understood my question and thought the other gal was being unreasonable.) It clued me in that I couldn't work well in that office. I found out that there was a teacher's aide position available in the home school district, so I applied and was hired. I said bye-bye to Chicago and the long commute.
Understand that working as a teacher's aide does NOT count for teacher's retirement. I was hired to aide in a 6th grade pod in an "open concept" school, even though I was a certified teacher. (1971) The school was a brand-new experiment in education. There were no walls. Each grade level had its own "pod". In a regular school, there might have been three 6th grade classes, each in its own room. In this school, however, all of the kids were thrown into a pod with several "master teachers" and several teachers' aides, of which I was to be one.
Fortunately, one of the master teachers was really good at what she did. I learned a lot from her. I think we BOTH learned that open concept schools don't really work, and I don't think there are many of them around now. Here are some of my memories of that experience:
1. I was charged with teaching the science lessons. At the time, the district had invested in BSCS science (Biological Science Curriculum Study). It was hands-on and required a LOT of equipment in order to make each experiment work. On paper, it was wonderful. In practice, on a classroom level, it was iffy. It assumes that kids care to learn, etc. One of the first days of my classes, I had everything set up before the kids showed up. I had pre-measured the water required into beakers and set them up on the tables. Before all of the students had even gathered, one kid picked up a beaker and drank the water. I came unglued! He had NO IDEA what was in that beaker. It could have been any clear liquid that could have killed him. I think that was the first time that I understood that things were going to be tough.
2. One day, a group that I had was particularly unruly. Someone threw a shoe at someone else and missed. It hit ME on the head. I wasn't hurt, but my dignity was. I was frustrated to tears, so I alerted another teacher on the team to watch the group so I could go cry. All of my years of teaching, thereafter, were measured by "never let them see you cry". And I didn't.
3. The director of the Learning Center in that school was a dude named Lyell. He was a big guy. One day, he told me that I would make pretty babies. I told him that the comment could be interpreted as sexual harassment. He told me that he could get away with that stuff because he was fat and no one ever took him seriously. Just think about that for a moment...
4. We had a student that year whose name was Shelby. Shelby had leukemia. She wasn't in class much due to treatment appointments and wore a wig because of chemo. The wig came off one day and totally traumatised her. Toward the end of the school year, Shelby died. When the news hit our students, a whole bunch of in-fighting started about who treated her better than others. These young human beings were trying to find ways to make themselves feel better while blaming others. It was a nasty lesson for me as a teacher.
Although my husband had a school job, I didn't. In order to continue to provide income, I took a job with an international Great Lakes shipping company out of Chicago, which meant riding the IC commuter train, both coming and going, for an hour each way. The location was on East Wacker Drive, which --if you are familiar at all with Chicago--shouldn't even exist. East Wacker Drive, if you keep on driving, is Lake Michigan. My end of day destination was the end of the line.
Although I enjoyed being in downtown Chicago during lunch breaks, my experiences in the office in which I worked weren't so enjoyable. I was tasked with posting checks to ledgers in two different accounts. The gal running the department had been there for a million years so knew everything there was to know by way of experience. I, however, didn't. One day, I dared to ask how I should be able to tell which account to post the checks in. I didn't get an answer I could understand, so I asked again in a different way. She went off on me as if I were some kind of ignorant dolt. (Another gal in the office later told me that she understood my question and thought the other gal was being unreasonable.) It clued me in that I couldn't work well in that office. I found out that there was a teacher's aide position available in the home school district, so I applied and was hired. I said bye-bye to Chicago and the long commute.
Understand that working as a teacher's aide does NOT count for teacher's retirement. I was hired to aide in a 6th grade pod in an "open concept" school, even though I was a certified teacher. (1971) The school was a brand-new experiment in education. There were no walls. Each grade level had its own "pod". In a regular school, there might have been three 6th grade classes, each in its own room. In this school, however, all of the kids were thrown into a pod with several "master teachers" and several teachers' aides, of which I was to be one.
Fortunately, one of the master teachers was really good at what she did. I learned a lot from her. I think we BOTH learned that open concept schools don't really work, and I don't think there are many of them around now. Here are some of my memories of that experience:
1. I was charged with teaching the science lessons. At the time, the district had invested in BSCS science (Biological Science Curriculum Study). It was hands-on and required a LOT of equipment in order to make each experiment work. On paper, it was wonderful. In practice, on a classroom level, it was iffy. It assumes that kids care to learn, etc. One of the first days of my classes, I had everything set up before the kids showed up. I had pre-measured the water required into beakers and set them up on the tables. Before all of the students had even gathered, one kid picked up a beaker and drank the water. I came unglued! He had NO IDEA what was in that beaker. It could have been any clear liquid that could have killed him. I think that was the first time that I understood that things were going to be tough.
2. One day, a group that I had was particularly unruly. Someone threw a shoe at someone else and missed. It hit ME on the head. I wasn't hurt, but my dignity was. I was frustrated to tears, so I alerted another teacher on the team to watch the group so I could go cry. All of my years of teaching, thereafter, were measured by "never let them see you cry". And I didn't.
3. The director of the Learning Center in that school was a dude named Lyell. He was a big guy. One day, he told me that I would make pretty babies. I told him that the comment could be interpreted as sexual harassment. He told me that he could get away with that stuff because he was fat and no one ever took him seriously. Just think about that for a moment...
4. We had a student that year whose name was Shelby. Shelby had leukemia. She wasn't in class much due to treatment appointments and wore a wig because of chemo. The wig came off one day and totally traumatised her. Toward the end of the school year, Shelby died. When the news hit our students, a whole bunch of in-fighting started about who treated her better than others. These young human beings were trying to find ways to make themselves feel better while blaming others. It was a nasty lesson for me as a teacher.
Saturday, February 22, 2020
School Stories, Part I
I was on Reddit.com this morning and chanced to see a question thrown out to "teachers in Reddit" to relate the most interesting things that had been confiscated from students. Of course, my brain immediately wondered what I would have posted if I had an account on that site. And then some. I am writing some of my school stories here, with apologies for skipping around some. Bear with me, but enjoy. Some are funny. Some aren't. They are what they are, in no particular order.
1. My very first teaching position out of college was as one-half of the English Department at Heyworth High School, Heyworth, IL. It was a small rural district; the school building was OLD; and a state highway ran right past the school on my classroom's side of the building. There was no air conditioning, so in order not to swelter during the hot months, we had to open the windows (no screens), which ran from about waist height to the 15' ceiling. Having the windows open was quite noisy as the semi's drove past on a regular basis. It also made us vulnerable to all sorts of other critters that could come in and out at will.
I was a greenhorn teacher, totally insecure about how to teach literature to farm kids who couldn't have cared less. As happens sometimes, I had one class of Juniors that year that was mostly boys. This particular crew was proud of the fact that they had been instrumental in getting a previous teacher fired by hanging by their hands outside of the windows.
On Day One, I was calling role and came upon a student named R. G. Anderson. His response to my calling his name was: "That's me. R.G. doesn't stand for anything. That's the way it is on my birth certificate." Only he wasn't particularly happy to be telling me that. He spit it out, almost as a defense that comes from having had to say it sooo many times in his school career. That, plus that class's reputation for being unruly, put me on notice that it was going to be an interesting year.
In that same class was a chunky, somewhat-nerdy kid that the others always picked on. Can't remember his name, but I always had to be on the lookout for bullying--and that was in the days long before bullying was even considered a thing.
So, within the first week of my maiden teacher voyage--hot day in September, with the windows open--a bird flew into the classroom. Of course, it provided a total disruption in the lesson I was attempting to teach. It flew around and flew around, surely terrified. And then it crapped, as birds are wont to do--right on the shoulder of the nerdy kid. He reacted as you might expect, by holding the affected area of his shirt away from his skin and complaining loudly. His classmates also reacted as expected by laughing their heads off and making fun of him. Needless to say, thus ended any attempt at teaching that day!!
Also, in that same class, was a kid named Richard. He was a smartass nonpareil. One day, I asked the class to turn to a certain page in the text. He loudly responded, "Might as well. Can't dance." That's an old country answer to things that make no sense, but with him, it was an attempt to derail my lesson. I saw red. I said, "Sure we can! We can dance! You start! I'll wait! I was being sarcastic, of course...and he turned red, declining my invitation. He didn't pull that again.
2. There were a couple of other issues at HHS. There was a Supreme Court challenge about school dress codes in my second year there. (We're talking 1970 here.) The ruling said that students had a right to wear what they wanted to wear as long as it wasn't disruptive to the learning environment...and that included teachers. The Principal called a convo to inform students of what would and wouldn't be allowed. One kid asked if the male students could grow facial hair. The principal said, jokingly, "If you think you have the chicken manure to grow it, go ahead." So the kid grew a mustache and was sent home to shave. Being the passive-aggressive little activist that I was, I--also jokingly--told my students that it would be funny if we all showed up at school with penciled-in mustaches. It didn't happen, of course, but a couple of days later, I was called to the Principal's office to be told, in angry words, "Get off my back!!!" It was my very first reprimand as a teacher. I was a bit more cautious after that.
3. At the same time in the same school, I taught a class of Seniors. At the time, Senior English was usually just for college-bound kids, but I had a student who had a post-grad goal that required him to take English, even though not for college entrance. He was not a strong student, but he was a good kid and worked hard. I did everything I could to help him succeed. His name was Larry. Before the end of his Senior year, he told me that his aunt had died and had some books that he wanted to give me from her attic. What he delivered were eight tiny little green-covered books, published in the late 1800s--The Complete Works of Shakespeare. This was in 1971. Those books still have a place of honor in my house. But that's not the end of the story...
Sometime about the year 2000, I was talking on HF (high frequency; hence long distance) radio to a number of people who were tickled to hear a woman's voice on the air. I was talking to a fellow and mentioned that, even though I live in Indiana, I am an Illinois transplant. So was he. In the course of our conversation, I said I had taught school in some small districts in IL. And this is how that conversation went:
ME: I used to teach in Illinois, out in the boonies.
HIM: But I bet you've never heard of Heyworth, Illinois.
ME: I bet I do! That was my first teaching job! I was half of the English Department!
HIM: What year?
ME: 1969-1971.
HIM: I was in school there then!
ME: Really? What is your name? My name was Goossens then.
HIM: I am Larry Edwards.
ME: OMG, Larry. I remember you! I still have the books that you gave me!
For a couple of years thereafter, I saw Larry at the Bedford (IN) Hamfest in October. He looked the same, except that he was very much as gray as I was. When I had Larry in class so very many years ago, I was a scant 4-5 years older than he. Wow!
4. One other good thing happened at HHS all those many years ago. The Principal had to observe my teaching in order to give me an evaluation. The class he sat in on, unannounced, went swimmingly. At the end, he asked if I would mind if he had another non-tenure teacher (history, I believe) sit in to observe me. I was really tickled to know that he liked what he saw about my teaching.
5. A couple more things--same time, same station:
A) I had a sweet young female student who was acting strangely one day. Over-dramatic and uncharacteristically calling attention to herself. She confessed that she wasn't feeling well, so I sent her to the office for help. The next day, back in class, she confided in me,
"Mrs. Goossens, I did a bad thing."
"Oh, Dixie...what did you do?"
"I took drugs."
"Really? What did you take??"
"I took No-Doz."
Times sure were different then...
B) Since the school building was old with wooden stairwells, after the Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago in 1961, fire drills got serious--especially in schools with wooden stairwells. Our drills at HHS usually amounted to the usual, but at least once a year, the admin would block off the stairwell which would require students and staff to exit the building via the outside fire escape. The rule was that the young ladies had to be evacuated first--not because they were the favored gender, but in order to prevent the young gentlemen from standing beneath the stairs to look up their skirts!!
Thus began my initiation into the world of teaching.
1. My very first teaching position out of college was as one-half of the English Department at Heyworth High School, Heyworth, IL. It was a small rural district; the school building was OLD; and a state highway ran right past the school on my classroom's side of the building. There was no air conditioning, so in order not to swelter during the hot months, we had to open the windows (no screens), which ran from about waist height to the 15' ceiling. Having the windows open was quite noisy as the semi's drove past on a regular basis. It also made us vulnerable to all sorts of other critters that could come in and out at will.
I was a greenhorn teacher, totally insecure about how to teach literature to farm kids who couldn't have cared less. As happens sometimes, I had one class of Juniors that year that was mostly boys. This particular crew was proud of the fact that they had been instrumental in getting a previous teacher fired by hanging by their hands outside of the windows.
On Day One, I was calling role and came upon a student named R. G. Anderson. His response to my calling his name was: "That's me. R.G. doesn't stand for anything. That's the way it is on my birth certificate." Only he wasn't particularly happy to be telling me that. He spit it out, almost as a defense that comes from having had to say it sooo many times in his school career. That, plus that class's reputation for being unruly, put me on notice that it was going to be an interesting year.
In that same class was a chunky, somewhat-nerdy kid that the others always picked on. Can't remember his name, but I always had to be on the lookout for bullying--and that was in the days long before bullying was even considered a thing.
So, within the first week of my maiden teacher voyage--hot day in September, with the windows open--a bird flew into the classroom. Of course, it provided a total disruption in the lesson I was attempting to teach. It flew around and flew around, surely terrified. And then it crapped, as birds are wont to do--right on the shoulder of the nerdy kid. He reacted as you might expect, by holding the affected area of his shirt away from his skin and complaining loudly. His classmates also reacted as expected by laughing their heads off and making fun of him. Needless to say, thus ended any attempt at teaching that day!!
Also, in that same class, was a kid named Richard. He was a smartass nonpareil. One day, I asked the class to turn to a certain page in the text. He loudly responded, "Might as well. Can't dance." That's an old country answer to things that make no sense, but with him, it was an attempt to derail my lesson. I saw red. I said, "Sure we can! We can dance! You start! I'll wait! I was being sarcastic, of course...and he turned red, declining my invitation. He didn't pull that again.
2. There were a couple of other issues at HHS. There was a Supreme Court challenge about school dress codes in my second year there. (We're talking 1970 here.) The ruling said that students had a right to wear what they wanted to wear as long as it wasn't disruptive to the learning environment...and that included teachers. The Principal called a convo to inform students of what would and wouldn't be allowed. One kid asked if the male students could grow facial hair. The principal said, jokingly, "If you think you have the chicken manure to grow it, go ahead." So the kid grew a mustache and was sent home to shave. Being the passive-aggressive little activist that I was, I--also jokingly--told my students that it would be funny if we all showed up at school with penciled-in mustaches. It didn't happen, of course, but a couple of days later, I was called to the Principal's office to be told, in angry words, "Get off my back!!!" It was my very first reprimand as a teacher. I was a bit more cautious after that.
3. At the same time in the same school, I taught a class of Seniors. At the time, Senior English was usually just for college-bound kids, but I had a student who had a post-grad goal that required him to take English, even though not for college entrance. He was not a strong student, but he was a good kid and worked hard. I did everything I could to help him succeed. His name was Larry. Before the end of his Senior year, he told me that his aunt had died and had some books that he wanted to give me from her attic. What he delivered were eight tiny little green-covered books, published in the late 1800s--The Complete Works of Shakespeare. This was in 1971. Those books still have a place of honor in my house. But that's not the end of the story...
Sometime about the year 2000, I was talking on HF (high frequency; hence long distance) radio to a number of people who were tickled to hear a woman's voice on the air. I was talking to a fellow and mentioned that, even though I live in Indiana, I am an Illinois transplant. So was he. In the course of our conversation, I said I had taught school in some small districts in IL. And this is how that conversation went:
ME: I used to teach in Illinois, out in the boonies.
HIM: But I bet you've never heard of Heyworth, Illinois.
ME: I bet I do! That was my first teaching job! I was half of the English Department!
HIM: What year?
ME: 1969-1971.
HIM: I was in school there then!
ME: Really? What is your name? My name was Goossens then.
HIM: I am Larry Edwards.
ME: OMG, Larry. I remember you! I still have the books that you gave me!
For a couple of years thereafter, I saw Larry at the Bedford (IN) Hamfest in October. He looked the same, except that he was very much as gray as I was. When I had Larry in class so very many years ago, I was a scant 4-5 years older than he. Wow!
4. One other good thing happened at HHS all those many years ago. The Principal had to observe my teaching in order to give me an evaluation. The class he sat in on, unannounced, went swimmingly. At the end, he asked if I would mind if he had another non-tenure teacher (history, I believe) sit in to observe me. I was really tickled to know that he liked what he saw about my teaching.
5. A couple more things--same time, same station:
A) I had a sweet young female student who was acting strangely one day. Over-dramatic and uncharacteristically calling attention to herself. She confessed that she wasn't feeling well, so I sent her to the office for help. The next day, back in class, she confided in me,
"Mrs. Goossens, I did a bad thing."
"Oh, Dixie...what did you do?"
"I took drugs."
"Really? What did you take??"
"I took No-Doz."
Times sure were different then...
B) Since the school building was old with wooden stairwells, after the Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago in 1961, fire drills got serious--especially in schools with wooden stairwells. Our drills at HHS usually amounted to the usual, but at least once a year, the admin would block off the stairwell which would require students and staff to exit the building via the outside fire escape. The rule was that the young ladies had to be evacuated first--not because they were the favored gender, but in order to prevent the young gentlemen from standing beneath the stairs to look up their skirts!!
Thus began my initiation into the world of teaching.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
My Culinary Life
Although I was born and mostly raised in the Midwest, many years of my young life (think age 10 and younger) were spent on or near the Pacific Ocean: Coronado, CA; Honolulu, HI; Sasebo, Japan. These were the years that my father was on active duty in the USNR during peace time, when the family could be with him at his duty stations.
There I was, with all of the edible fruits of the sea available to me, but I was a kid. I didn't like fish because we rarely had it in the Midwest. I refused to eat crab or lobster or shrimp or oysters or anything else that was unfamiliar to me. Tuna was okay. Because we were, basically, a Midwestern farm family, I knew chicken, turkey, beef, and pork--and all of the organ meats that come from the whole poultry/beef/pork food group. I knew vegetables of everything growable in the Midwest because, when not on active duty, my dad always had a garden, wherever we lived. What I didn't know was fish/shellfish, or anything exotically veggie-like, and I didn't care to try them, thankyouverymuch, because I was suspicious of them. Oh, how I wish I had those years to live over again!
For many, many years, I have tried to think of foods that my mother wouldn't eat. Farm girl that she was, she ate everything! I don't know of a single food she turned down! Raw oysters? Pickled pigs' feet? Kidney? Tongue? Heart? Liver? Limburger cheese? Buttermilk? Caviar? Shrimp/lobster/crab/scallops/octopus/squid? I was exposed to it all because, although I wasn't forced to eat it, my mother considered all of them a culinary treat. Even my dad--hungry man that he always was--drew the line at cucumbers and bananas. (He claimed that banana seeds always got caught in his teeth.)
Having lived in Japan for almost a year, I claimed knowledge of Japanese food, until I realized that I didn't. My exposure to Japanese food was sukiyaki and omocha, and some huge white carrot-looking vegetables in the open markets that were, I guess, horseradish. Oh...and sake, although I was too young to drink it. The experience is sooo much more! And then there is Thai food, Indian food, Russian food, and all of the other cultures of the world to taste. Have I tasted them? Sadly, no. I still hunger for meat loaf and mashed potatoes, turkey and dressing. Corned beef and cabbage twice a year. Crab only on special occasions because it is so expensive here. Sweet corn in season. Home grown tomatoes for BLTs, in season, if one can find them. The apple doesn't far from the tree of upbringing. I cook for one. My default foods are the ones I am familiar with and can afford. Sad, isn't it?
What prompted this? A former student on Facebook posted his success at making an original ramen dish from scratch, and I realized that I had no clue what some of his ingredients were, nor did I understand the depth of his genius in making it happen. I learned more about him than I did my own weak culinary life. You go, George!
There I was, with all of the edible fruits of the sea available to me, but I was a kid. I didn't like fish because we rarely had it in the Midwest. I refused to eat crab or lobster or shrimp or oysters or anything else that was unfamiliar to me. Tuna was okay. Because we were, basically, a Midwestern farm family, I knew chicken, turkey, beef, and pork--and all of the organ meats that come from the whole poultry/beef/pork food group. I knew vegetables of everything growable in the Midwest because, when not on active duty, my dad always had a garden, wherever we lived. What I didn't know was fish/shellfish, or anything exotically veggie-like, and I didn't care to try them, thankyouverymuch, because I was suspicious of them. Oh, how I wish I had those years to live over again!
For many, many years, I have tried to think of foods that my mother wouldn't eat. Farm girl that she was, she ate everything! I don't know of a single food she turned down! Raw oysters? Pickled pigs' feet? Kidney? Tongue? Heart? Liver? Limburger cheese? Buttermilk? Caviar? Shrimp/lobster/crab/scallops/octopus/squid? I was exposed to it all because, although I wasn't forced to eat it, my mother considered all of them a culinary treat. Even my dad--hungry man that he always was--drew the line at cucumbers and bananas. (He claimed that banana seeds always got caught in his teeth.)
Having lived in Japan for almost a year, I claimed knowledge of Japanese food, until I realized that I didn't. My exposure to Japanese food was sukiyaki and omocha, and some huge white carrot-looking vegetables in the open markets that were, I guess, horseradish. Oh...and sake, although I was too young to drink it. The experience is sooo much more! And then there is Thai food, Indian food, Russian food, and all of the other cultures of the world to taste. Have I tasted them? Sadly, no. I still hunger for meat loaf and mashed potatoes, turkey and dressing. Corned beef and cabbage twice a year. Crab only on special occasions because it is so expensive here. Sweet corn in season. Home grown tomatoes for BLTs, in season, if one can find them. The apple doesn't far from the tree of upbringing. I cook for one. My default foods are the ones I am familiar with and can afford. Sad, isn't it?
What prompted this? A former student on Facebook posted his success at making an original ramen dish from scratch, and I realized that I had no clue what some of his ingredients were, nor did I understand the depth of his genius in making it happen. I learned more about him than I did my own weak culinary life. You go, George!
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Dormitory Living
As my granddaughter approaches life as a college freshman, my brain vacillates between my own experiences as a college freshman, and drawing up lists of everything I think she'll need when away from home next year, IF everything pulls together for her. I admit that I really, really want to be the person who tells her of something she will need that no one else has thought of, but I also have to admit that my college career started in 1965, and "things" have changed a bit since then.
*In 1965, there were no personal computers, cell phones, WiFi, or Internet.
*No word processing.
*Credit cards were scarce (nonexistent in my family) and debit cards hadn't been invented yet.
*Dormitories were segregated by sex, and women were locked in by 10:30 on weeknights, and only a little bit later on the weekends. (It always irritated me that the men could come and go as they pleased all night.) Honest to God, Resident Assistants stood by the doors with stopwatches if you were late. How late you were determined your punishment. On the very first week of school, my roommate was late by a minute or two and was "grounded". It was insane, but that's how it was in the 60s.
*The dorm lounges were open to coed visitation and TV-watching, but PDA (public displays of affection) was forbidden, and the lounges were heavily supervised. The unwritten rule was that there always had to be "three feet on the floor" in any coed visitation. Visitation in the dorm rooms was limited to, maybe, one special day per semester.
*There were no facilities on any dorm floor for cooking. Microwave ovens didn't exist, and there were no such things as dorm-sized refrigerators.
*There was ONE communal bathroom on each floor, with multiple toilet/shower stalls, and (of course) sinks and mirrors all along one wall. There were also small lockers without locks. Most of us kept our toiletries in our rooms to prevent them from being stolen, which meant that we had little buckets in which to take our toiletries and towels to shower or freshen up. (My "roomie" and I called them Happy Buckets.) If maintenance men had to be on the floor to repair something, they often came up the stairs instead of the elevator and had to shout "MAN ON THE FLOOR!" as a warning--sometimes too late before a young lady, straight out of the shower and wrapped only in a towel, could escape into her room. I think the men got cheap thrills from sending them shrieking to their rooms!
*Clean linen exchange occurred every Saturday morning. There was no such thing as fitted sheets. We were issued two flat sheets and one pillowcase, but when it came time to exchange for clean ones, we could only turn in ONE sheet and one pillowcase. (I had to ask my mom about that one. She informed me--probably from Navy knowledge--that the sheets were to be rotated each week. Bottom one washed while top one was put on the bottom and a clean one given for the top.
*The women's dorms--at least the one I was in--had Saturday inspection. The RA's came around with a checklist to make sure your room was clean. That meant, among other things, that there couldn't be any trash in the wastebasket. Wow...
When I accepted my university's admission approval, I was asked about housing. My best friend down the street from me in Oak Park, IL, was also going to Illinois State, so we requested each other as roommates...and it happened. Her name was Kristie Werner. She and I had been tight all through high school. I can't tell you how much easier it was to move into my new environment already knowing my roomie!
On the weekend of the move-in, my parents drove me up to the dorm. There were all kind of dollies being used to cart stuff up to the rooms (and lots of boys volunteering their help in order to get a good look at the fresh fish). We had to wait a bit to find an unused dolly. When we finally got all of my belongings and treasures to the 12th floor where my room was, Kristie had already come and gone with her parents but had left me a cute note. Something like, "Hello, Roomie. We are sooo happy to have you here."
Kristie and I had already agreed who would bring what by way of amenities. One of us brought a fan. The other brought a record player. Of course, we each had clock radios, etc....so...in short order, my family and I made a list of things I needed that we hadn't brought with us. An extension cord and multiple electrical outlets were high on the list. The Happy Bucket that I needed. An umbrella. Some other things. (That was 55 years ago. Hard for me to remember it all!!) We shopped, ate at a local popular smorgasbord...and then my parents departed back to the burbs of Chicago. It was a strange feeling to know that I was suddenly in charge of myself.
My new family became my "sisters" on the 12th floor of Hamilton Hall at Illinois State University. We had candlelight services to celebrate each person's milestones in their love lives. Lavaliered. Pinned. Engaged. Wow...
I remember getting so tickled when Vicky Snyder, a neighbor in the next room over, (who also came from the town in which I was born), sat on the heater ledge looking down at South Campus, and said, dreamily, "So this is college."
I lived for two years with my homie roomie. Junior year, I moved to another dorm--a more liberal dorm--just in time for the snow storm of the century to hit the Chicago area in 1967, when I was trying to go home for semester break. I didn't do well with that roommate, so got another roommate the semester after that. My senior year, I convinced my parents to let me move into an apartment with five other girls, all of whom would be doing student teaching sometime during the year. We weren't allowed cars on campus without special dispensation, so it was a looong walk to classes!
As I write this, I realize how very much times have changed since I was in college and how very out of touch I am. What makes me think that I can begin to suggest things that my granddaughter will need in college when I have no clue what colleges even supply anymore? I desperately want to be her hero, but I guess I will have to be simply satisfied that she is mine. Maybe I can just help out along the way and hope she will know that I love her so very much.
*In 1965, there were no personal computers, cell phones, WiFi, or Internet.
*No word processing.
*Credit cards were scarce (nonexistent in my family) and debit cards hadn't been invented yet.
*Dormitories were segregated by sex, and women were locked in by 10:30 on weeknights, and only a little bit later on the weekends. (It always irritated me that the men could come and go as they pleased all night.) Honest to God, Resident Assistants stood by the doors with stopwatches if you were late. How late you were determined your punishment. On the very first week of school, my roommate was late by a minute or two and was "grounded". It was insane, but that's how it was in the 60s.
*The dorm lounges were open to coed visitation and TV-watching, but PDA (public displays of affection) was forbidden, and the lounges were heavily supervised. The unwritten rule was that there always had to be "three feet on the floor" in any coed visitation. Visitation in the dorm rooms was limited to, maybe, one special day per semester.
*There were no facilities on any dorm floor for cooking. Microwave ovens didn't exist, and there were no such things as dorm-sized refrigerators.
*There was ONE communal bathroom on each floor, with multiple toilet/shower stalls, and (of course) sinks and mirrors all along one wall. There were also small lockers without locks. Most of us kept our toiletries in our rooms to prevent them from being stolen, which meant that we had little buckets in which to take our toiletries and towels to shower or freshen up. (My "roomie" and I called them Happy Buckets.) If maintenance men had to be on the floor to repair something, they often came up the stairs instead of the elevator and had to shout "MAN ON THE FLOOR!" as a warning--sometimes too late before a young lady, straight out of the shower and wrapped only in a towel, could escape into her room. I think the men got cheap thrills from sending them shrieking to their rooms!
*Clean linen exchange occurred every Saturday morning. There was no such thing as fitted sheets. We were issued two flat sheets and one pillowcase, but when it came time to exchange for clean ones, we could only turn in ONE sheet and one pillowcase. (I had to ask my mom about that one. She informed me--probably from Navy knowledge--that the sheets were to be rotated each week. Bottom one washed while top one was put on the bottom and a clean one given for the top.
*The women's dorms--at least the one I was in--had Saturday inspection. The RA's came around with a checklist to make sure your room was clean. That meant, among other things, that there couldn't be any trash in the wastebasket. Wow...
When I accepted my university's admission approval, I was asked about housing. My best friend down the street from me in Oak Park, IL, was also going to Illinois State, so we requested each other as roommates...and it happened. Her name was Kristie Werner. She and I had been tight all through high school. I can't tell you how much easier it was to move into my new environment already knowing my roomie!
On the weekend of the move-in, my parents drove me up to the dorm. There were all kind of dollies being used to cart stuff up to the rooms (and lots of boys volunteering their help in order to get a good look at the fresh fish). We had to wait a bit to find an unused dolly. When we finally got all of my belongings and treasures to the 12th floor where my room was, Kristie had already come and gone with her parents but had left me a cute note. Something like, "Hello, Roomie. We are sooo happy to have you here."
Kristie and I had already agreed who would bring what by way of amenities. One of us brought a fan. The other brought a record player. Of course, we each had clock radios, etc....so...in short order, my family and I made a list of things I needed that we hadn't brought with us. An extension cord and multiple electrical outlets were high on the list. The Happy Bucket that I needed. An umbrella. Some other things. (That was 55 years ago. Hard for me to remember it all!!) We shopped, ate at a local popular smorgasbord...and then my parents departed back to the burbs of Chicago. It was a strange feeling to know that I was suddenly in charge of myself.
My new family became my "sisters" on the 12th floor of Hamilton Hall at Illinois State University. We had candlelight services to celebrate each person's milestones in their love lives. Lavaliered. Pinned. Engaged. Wow...
I remember getting so tickled when Vicky Snyder, a neighbor in the next room over, (who also came from the town in which I was born), sat on the heater ledge looking down at South Campus, and said, dreamily, "So this is college."
I lived for two years with my homie roomie. Junior year, I moved to another dorm--a more liberal dorm--just in time for the snow storm of the century to hit the Chicago area in 1967, when I was trying to go home for semester break. I didn't do well with that roommate, so got another roommate the semester after that. My senior year, I convinced my parents to let me move into an apartment with five other girls, all of whom would be doing student teaching sometime during the year. We weren't allowed cars on campus without special dispensation, so it was a looong walk to classes!
As I write this, I realize how very much times have changed since I was in college and how very out of touch I am. What makes me think that I can begin to suggest things that my granddaughter will need in college when I have no clue what colleges even supply anymore? I desperately want to be her hero, but I guess I will have to be simply satisfied that she is mine. Maybe I can just help out along the way and hope she will know that I love her so very much.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Keeping Secrets
What seems like a hundred years ago, I was a school administrator's wife. He was a principal in the district where we lived. I was a non-contract employee in the same district because the district (illegally) wouldn't employ spouses of administrators. (But that's another topic of discussion.)
My then-spouse attended many administrative meetings and was required to attend every School Board meeting (once a month). He knew stuff that wasn't open for the general public to know. Most of the time, he shared it with me when he came home. Thus, I had "insider information" that I knew I dared not share. I think I might have had colleagues that thought I could tell them things they were curious about, but I simply didn't, even when it would have been to my advantage to do so. That was long ago and seemingly far away.
In more recent years, I have been privileged to know things that others don't, yet. As an example, there are times when a death/obituary hits social media before the departed's family has a chance to announce it. Neither right nor fair, says I. Still, there is a human urge to be the first to divulge a "scoop". I've been stung a couple of times when I released information that I thought was already public. Now, I ask first if I have permission to talk about personal things that aren't part of my story to tell. Sometimes, it kills me to have to sit on things that I know long enough for the particulars to find the motivation to tell.
It isn't that others are keeping their secrets. They just need to tell them in their own time and circumstances, and just because I already know the facts doesn't mean that I have the right to tell what I know before that happens.
Thankfully, I have learned to take the High Road, over time. It didn't come easily. I still have to think before I say stuff. If I am to be trusted by the ones that I love, I need to be true to my word to keep their secrets, and mine, until the coast is clear. Life goes on!
My then-spouse attended many administrative meetings and was required to attend every School Board meeting (once a month). He knew stuff that wasn't open for the general public to know. Most of the time, he shared it with me when he came home. Thus, I had "insider information" that I knew I dared not share. I think I might have had colleagues that thought I could tell them things they were curious about, but I simply didn't, even when it would have been to my advantage to do so. That was long ago and seemingly far away.
In more recent years, I have been privileged to know things that others don't, yet. As an example, there are times when a death/obituary hits social media before the departed's family has a chance to announce it. Neither right nor fair, says I. Still, there is a human urge to be the first to divulge a "scoop". I've been stung a couple of times when I released information that I thought was already public. Now, I ask first if I have permission to talk about personal things that aren't part of my story to tell. Sometimes, it kills me to have to sit on things that I know long enough for the particulars to find the motivation to tell.
It isn't that others are keeping their secrets. They just need to tell them in their own time and circumstances, and just because I already know the facts doesn't mean that I have the right to tell what I know before that happens.
Thankfully, I have learned to take the High Road, over time. It didn't come easily. I still have to think before I say stuff. If I am to be trusted by the ones that I love, I need to be true to my word to keep their secrets, and mine, until the coast is clear. Life goes on!
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Slip-Slidin' Away
Once upon a time, in a land close by but many years ago, when my parents-in-law were still living, my then-husband, our daughter, and I went for a weekend visit to their home outside of Greencastle, IN. My in-laws were lifetime Hoosiers in semi-rural Indiana. Frugal people. Good people. Hard-working people with a local reputation of integrity and honesty. "Grandpa Artie", as my father-in-law came to be known, was small in stature and trim, even in his old age. He amazed me with his spunk, sense of humor, and work ethic, and I loved that old man. On this one particular visit, he was trying to tell us something but couldn't think of a particular word he had known all his life, and it frustrated him. He threw up his hands and said, loudly, "MY MIND'S GONE!" Well, no...his mind wasn't gone. He didn't have dementia. He was just experiencing the effects of aging. He was aware of it, and it killed him that he didn't feel as mentally sharp as he once was.
My sister's first husband had an engineer's temperament, complete with attention to minute details and respect from his career community for his brilliance. He wasn't that great a spouse or father, but when it came to getting things done, he did it, both with and without help from family and colleagues. After a while, he began to be treated for depression, but when he began to "lose" words on a regular basis, he started seeing a "memory doctor". His diagnosis was dementia. Over time, it was determined to be Fronto-Temporal Degeneration--FTD. In short, his brain was literally shrinking. He was sharp enough to think he could beat the disease, but he was terrified. Why? Because his "mind was gone" and he could tell it. He was officially diagnosed in 2011, and died in 2016, as a result of complications. Looking back, there were signs before the diagnosis. We just weren't looking at medical reasons for seemingly unreasonable behavior. (What does that tell you about what was "normal" for him?)
So, here I am in my old age--the same decade as Grandpa Artie's declaration that his mind was gone, and bro-in-law's diagnosis--beginning to see the effects of memory losses. There is no history of dementia in my blood line. My parents and my grandparents--at least the ones that I knew--were as sharp when they passed as they had been while alive. Was there a history of stubbornness? Yes. Alcoholism? Yes. Autism Spectrum? Yes, probably. (We just didn't know about it in those days.)
*It frustrates me when I can't think of a word or have to look up a spelling that I have known for ages.
The words come, eventually, but not when I need them!
*When I am driving, I am aware that I'm simply not as sharp as I used to be. To compensate, I don't take chances. I don't drive after dark or in bad weather. Every once in a great while, as my mind is wandering when I drive, I come back to reality and wonder if I've missed my turn. Oh, no...there it is.
*Sometimes, my daughter will ask me a question about our past, and I can't remember. I remember impressions but not details. Impressions are often wrong, so I look like an idiot. It often takes days of thinking for me to remember stuff.
*I write lists now to help me remember what my focus or purchase for a day should be. And then I forget to look at the lists!
The scary part in all of this--as was true of Grandpa Artie and Bro-in law Roger--is that I can see it happening. I make fun of it, as if the future is passing me by...as if I'm just a dinosaur trying to live in a modern world...as if I can't compete in today's society because I'm trapped by the society in which I was raised. Actually, that is somewhat true, but my self-deprecating humor is fraught with fear. I laugh, you laugh--we all laugh until it isn't funny anymore. No one wants to listen to my fears. If they do listen, they want to know what I'm going to do about them. I don't have the financial resources to give myself over to a "home". I have worked my butt off in life to leave SOMETHING to my daughter and grandchildren. I have no intention of giving my resources to some institution just to keep me alive and out of the way.
I'm not dead in the water, yet.
I'm still viable and can participate in life, with help.
But I'm scared. I am 100% sure that other elderly unmarried people who live alone worry about the same things I worry about. So, where are they? Where do I go to seek validation for my feelings?
I have come to understand that Old People just don't matter anymore. Doesn't matter how I look when I go out because no one notices. My feelings are discounted. ("Ok, Boomer.") I am expected to adapt to the modern world with no real adaptation to mine--even out of respect. (I am excluding my own family from this because I think they try to understand.)
So while my life as I've known it slip-slides away, I pray daily that it might be useful to someone. I wasn't put on the planet just to soak up resources. There has to be a reason for my being. Time to start looking for it!
My sister's first husband had an engineer's temperament, complete with attention to minute details and respect from his career community for his brilliance. He wasn't that great a spouse or father, but when it came to getting things done, he did it, both with and without help from family and colleagues. After a while, he began to be treated for depression, but when he began to "lose" words on a regular basis, he started seeing a "memory doctor". His diagnosis was dementia. Over time, it was determined to be Fronto-Temporal Degeneration--FTD. In short, his brain was literally shrinking. He was sharp enough to think he could beat the disease, but he was terrified. Why? Because his "mind was gone" and he could tell it. He was officially diagnosed in 2011, and died in 2016, as a result of complications. Looking back, there were signs before the diagnosis. We just weren't looking at medical reasons for seemingly unreasonable behavior. (What does that tell you about what was "normal" for him?)
So, here I am in my old age--the same decade as Grandpa Artie's declaration that his mind was gone, and bro-in-law's diagnosis--beginning to see the effects of memory losses. There is no history of dementia in my blood line. My parents and my grandparents--at least the ones that I knew--were as sharp when they passed as they had been while alive. Was there a history of stubbornness? Yes. Alcoholism? Yes. Autism Spectrum? Yes, probably. (We just didn't know about it in those days.)
*It frustrates me when I can't think of a word or have to look up a spelling that I have known for ages.
The words come, eventually, but not when I need them!
*When I am driving, I am aware that I'm simply not as sharp as I used to be. To compensate, I don't take chances. I don't drive after dark or in bad weather. Every once in a great while, as my mind is wandering when I drive, I come back to reality and wonder if I've missed my turn. Oh, no...there it is.
*Sometimes, my daughter will ask me a question about our past, and I can't remember. I remember impressions but not details. Impressions are often wrong, so I look like an idiot. It often takes days of thinking for me to remember stuff.
*I write lists now to help me remember what my focus or purchase for a day should be. And then I forget to look at the lists!
The scary part in all of this--as was true of Grandpa Artie and Bro-in law Roger--is that I can see it happening. I make fun of it, as if the future is passing me by...as if I'm just a dinosaur trying to live in a modern world...as if I can't compete in today's society because I'm trapped by the society in which I was raised. Actually, that is somewhat true, but my self-deprecating humor is fraught with fear. I laugh, you laugh--we all laugh until it isn't funny anymore. No one wants to listen to my fears. If they do listen, they want to know what I'm going to do about them. I don't have the financial resources to give myself over to a "home". I have worked my butt off in life to leave SOMETHING to my daughter and grandchildren. I have no intention of giving my resources to some institution just to keep me alive and out of the way.
I'm not dead in the water, yet.
I'm still viable and can participate in life, with help.
But I'm scared. I am 100% sure that other elderly unmarried people who live alone worry about the same things I worry about. So, where are they? Where do I go to seek validation for my feelings?
I have come to understand that Old People just don't matter anymore. Doesn't matter how I look when I go out because no one notices. My feelings are discounted. ("Ok, Boomer.") I am expected to adapt to the modern world with no real adaptation to mine--even out of respect. (I am excluding my own family from this because I think they try to understand.)
So while my life as I've known it slip-slides away, I pray daily that it might be useful to someone. I wasn't put on the planet just to soak up resources. There has to be a reason for my being. Time to start looking for it!
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