i went out on the porch tonight and sat there and talked to aunt grace. the leaves this fall have been somewhat spectacular, something that no one expected. we had been told that the drought would rob the trees of any good color. experts wrong. the leaves have not only been every shade, but they have hung upon the trees way longer than expected.
it is hard to face the end of november with 70 degree weather, but i am starting to get used to it. i keep remembering coming home from tech for the first time, which was at thanksgiving '74. i remember smelling wood smoke and wearing sweaters and cords and it was cold. two of the four thanksgivings when i was in college we drove back in a helicious snow storm. they closed the school. the NEVER close the school for snow. now, we have no snow. global warming? i guess we'll never know, but i miss the fall weather, and i miss the cold winter. i need to go dormant, to hibernate. last winter it never happened. we never had more than 3 days of really cold weather in a row, and a couple of 70 degree days in january. no snow days. no nothing.
here's to the leaves and the geese leaving late at night and honking and the deer who come up for the deer corn. so far, no birds, even though i have put out breadcrumbs on the railing of the deck to lure them here. i need to put seed in the feeders and drag the corn out for the deer. i am doing all the prep for winter. let's hope it makes a difference!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
a weary teacher's life...
it would really be nice if the alternate universe really existed. say, for instance, that people who don't know jack shit about what a teacher does suddenly had to do what we do. or maybe, for a week, the teachers could take over the school board offices and the state board of education offices and maybe even have a stint in the hallowed halls of the state capital. what would happen if suddenly teachers could plot out the future of public education?
my recent experience with public education involved a massive waste of money on the part of taxpayers in hanover county. this waste of money was a direct result of people who have great intentions being clueless about the final goal. we recently administered a 9 weeks assessment test to all students in all grades in core curriculum areas (math, science, english and social studies.) the county wanted to get students used to taking an SOL type test. they wanted to see where students were doing poorly via statistics, and thus providing classroom teachers with hard data that they could take back to the classroom for "fine tuning" of student learning.
well, there is a problem with this line of thought, not the least of which is the whole concept of teaching to a test. it has now been determined by the powers that be that the only way to tell if a student is learning is if he/she passes the SOL. that would be fine, if the tests really did determine that, but they don't. what they determine is if a student was able to memorize the material for that day. the tests don't allow for much else, and it is almost impossible for teachers to even accurately aim them in the right directions because teachers are not making up the tests.
it is a curious thing about the education business. those in charge rarely were teachers, yet they make the determinations for the futures of young people from the state capitals. they rely on the opinions and numbers of "experts" and go with that, not considering the fact the so called experts aren't in a classroom. teachers are. so why aren't they consulting us?
we know what we do everyday, and what it takes to try and educate a child. we deal with all of the social/economic/psychological issues that children bring with to school each day. we deal with what prevents students from wanting to learn. we are the ones trying to teach the material. we are the ones teaching to the test because our jobs and public perception depend upon it. who cares about what is being learned? as long as those statistics are up there, the inhabitants of the various school board and legislative ivory towers can pat themselves on the back and say they have been successful.
the numbers prove only that we have crammed a lot of information into kids to memorize. we are now seeing the first generation of SOL tested kids reach high school, and what we are seeing is alarming.
for the most part, the kids don't have a whole lot of imagination. they don't know how to functionally think without someone pointing them in the right direction. learning for them has become rote and tired and static. the dynamics of learning, the thinking out of the box and application of lessons, well, there is no time to do that now. we have to cover the material and drill, drill, drill. no child is to be left behind, yet some of them need to be left behind.
the irony of this is that we have said that all children learn differently, perceive differently and learn at their own pace. yet we wipe out the possibility of all these things by teaching them to all take the same tests.
i lost faith in the system years ago when i discovered that the head of the state board of education, the man who pushed for the SOL test had never been a teacher. he was an entertainment lawyer. i attended a county convocation in which he was the guest speaker. it was in this convocation that he revealed his educational status, and his reasoning for being in the educational wing of the state. that reason: he loved his elementary teacher, and she made a great impression upon him. sorry to tell you this, but love and respect for teachers does not exactly qualify as a good enough reason for people such as he to be the ones dictating policy in the area of education. what if i suddenly decided that i would run the state bar association because i had watch Law & Order and loved the actors and the show? that doesn't mean i am qualified.
the list goes on and on. in the school board offices are former teachers, many having been out of the classroom for so long that they have no clue what goes on in there anymore. certainly we are better off having people in these positions who have at least been a teacher at some point. but that still does not excuse away the fact that they are woefully out of touch with those of us down in the trenches.
in their zeal to prove to the world that we are creating more and more educated children, they keep coming up with more and more ways to keep us from really teaching. now, instead of teaching to a test at the end of the school year, we are teaching to a test every 9 weeks. i guess i should be happy i am not in henrico, where they herd the lemmings over the test cliff every 3 weeks.
the facts: first, the test was hugely flawed. the county took the statistics from flawed tests and who knows what they are going to use the data for. they went to the expense of running off a personal scantron test for each child, as well as providing them each with their own personal copy of a bound test. money certainly could have been saved if they had made a classroom set of tests to use, vs. the thousands they printed and will end up in a landfill somewhere. they had to buy a special scantron machine to run these all through to get the stats. but then they gave the tests back to the teachers so that we could tweak the test grades. oh, did i mention that it was dictated that all students would get a test grade for this test. i ended up throwing out 7 questions out of 50, and that meant a 14 point curve. many teachers had not covered materials, so they had to eliminate those questions as well. so what was gained by this huge waste of money, time (2 days to give the tests) and paper? nothing. when our department chair went up to the school board office to meet with the head of english, the only explanation was that this was a "work in progress" and that they knew there were problems. yes, there are. the problem is constantly measuring everyone on a statistical yardstick.
money would be better spent in the countys if they stopped with the ridculous drive towards numbers. that smacks simply of public relations and the need to "prove" via numbers that we are "doing our job." what no one knows is exactly what our jobs are, and they don't welcome our opinions or suggestions. they figuratively pat us on the heads as if we were just overactive children who need to be placated for a moment.
another solution would be to stop ignoring social issues as causes for poor classroom performance. no one knows what it is like to have one or two totally disruptive kids in a classroom ruin the learning atmosphere. there is little we can do anymore, as most administrators do not want to deal with this issue the way that it should be dealt with. that would be that these kinds of kids need to be in a specialized school, such as the Georgetown School in Hanover, where hopefully they can be successful in a small, contained learning environment. yet, year after year, these kids stay in the classroom with their myriad of problems, and ruin the learning for the other kids who might be motivated if they weren't so entirely distracted by the behavior of the bad apples. unfortunately, the "no child left behind" concept seems to ignore the fact that for the betterment of the whole as a group, some of them should be left behind. the tail should not wag the dog in a public classroom.
another solution would be to get rid of block classes. for once, it would be nice if those in charge actually looked at the numbers on SOL tests for kids in everyday classes. what they would find is that they are higher and the kids apparently learn the material better. why? because the average teenager has about an hour of attention and then he is gone. i have never understood the reason that we dropped the everyday classes across the board. the system wasn't broken, so why "fix" it? apparently, block classes are good for science labs. however, there aren't all that many labs compared to the english classes, world language classes and others who will tell you that everyday classes would be a blessing. an hour is just enough to do one good lesson. plus, students will have a little homework each night and they will not have to worry about what day it is and what books to haul back and forth. better focus and the ability to pay attention does lead to better abilities to retain information.
teachers cannot be on school boards. they are called up in a more or less profunctory way to meetings and task forces examining things for those in charge. translation: we serve on committees, research, write tests, eduate and present our findings and suggestions to the talking heads...and then it is never acted upon. they just do whatever they think is right, while having the ability to say that teachers contributed. sorry, that isn't what really happens. we contribute, but we are edited, severely in most cases.
the results are staggering. most of my colleagues who are reaching retirement age are going to retire. they might have stayed on if they had been given the opportunity to teach. but we don't have much time for that now, considering all the paperwork and useless inservices and meetings and emails that we have to attend to. we spend so much time trying to prove what we are doing that we don't have much time to do it. how ironic is that? the students are in constant need of some sort of stimulus, which is really confusing to a generation of teachers who read instead of listening to an ipod or watching a tv. we don't IM, nor do we play video games 24/7. we took walks and talked on the telephone and read for pleasure and were able to sit still and concentrate. our kids don't do that. too much technology, too big a buffet table of things to do. yet we are charged with the task of making sure this generation learns. what does that mean anymore?
my recent experience with public education involved a massive waste of money on the part of taxpayers in hanover county. this waste of money was a direct result of people who have great intentions being clueless about the final goal. we recently administered a 9 weeks assessment test to all students in all grades in core curriculum areas (math, science, english and social studies.) the county wanted to get students used to taking an SOL type test. they wanted to see where students were doing poorly via statistics, and thus providing classroom teachers with hard data that they could take back to the classroom for "fine tuning" of student learning.
well, there is a problem with this line of thought, not the least of which is the whole concept of teaching to a test. it has now been determined by the powers that be that the only way to tell if a student is learning is if he/she passes the SOL. that would be fine, if the tests really did determine that, but they don't. what they determine is if a student was able to memorize the material for that day. the tests don't allow for much else, and it is almost impossible for teachers to even accurately aim them in the right directions because teachers are not making up the tests.
it is a curious thing about the education business. those in charge rarely were teachers, yet they make the determinations for the futures of young people from the state capitals. they rely on the opinions and numbers of "experts" and go with that, not considering the fact the so called experts aren't in a classroom. teachers are. so why aren't they consulting us?
we know what we do everyday, and what it takes to try and educate a child. we deal with all of the social/economic/psychological issues that children bring with to school each day. we deal with what prevents students from wanting to learn. we are the ones trying to teach the material. we are the ones teaching to the test because our jobs and public perception depend upon it. who cares about what is being learned? as long as those statistics are up there, the inhabitants of the various school board and legislative ivory towers can pat themselves on the back and say they have been successful.
the numbers prove only that we have crammed a lot of information into kids to memorize. we are now seeing the first generation of SOL tested kids reach high school, and what we are seeing is alarming.
for the most part, the kids don't have a whole lot of imagination. they don't know how to functionally think without someone pointing them in the right direction. learning for them has become rote and tired and static. the dynamics of learning, the thinking out of the box and application of lessons, well, there is no time to do that now. we have to cover the material and drill, drill, drill. no child is to be left behind, yet some of them need to be left behind.
the irony of this is that we have said that all children learn differently, perceive differently and learn at their own pace. yet we wipe out the possibility of all these things by teaching them to all take the same tests.
i lost faith in the system years ago when i discovered that the head of the state board of education, the man who pushed for the SOL test had never been a teacher. he was an entertainment lawyer. i attended a county convocation in which he was the guest speaker. it was in this convocation that he revealed his educational status, and his reasoning for being in the educational wing of the state. that reason: he loved his elementary teacher, and she made a great impression upon him. sorry to tell you this, but love and respect for teachers does not exactly qualify as a good enough reason for people such as he to be the ones dictating policy in the area of education. what if i suddenly decided that i would run the state bar association because i had watch Law & Order and loved the actors and the show? that doesn't mean i am qualified.
the list goes on and on. in the school board offices are former teachers, many having been out of the classroom for so long that they have no clue what goes on in there anymore. certainly we are better off having people in these positions who have at least been a teacher at some point. but that still does not excuse away the fact that they are woefully out of touch with those of us down in the trenches.
in their zeal to prove to the world that we are creating more and more educated children, they keep coming up with more and more ways to keep us from really teaching. now, instead of teaching to a test at the end of the school year, we are teaching to a test every 9 weeks. i guess i should be happy i am not in henrico, where they herd the lemmings over the test cliff every 3 weeks.
the facts: first, the test was hugely flawed. the county took the statistics from flawed tests and who knows what they are going to use the data for. they went to the expense of running off a personal scantron test for each child, as well as providing them each with their own personal copy of a bound test. money certainly could have been saved if they had made a classroom set of tests to use, vs. the thousands they printed and will end up in a landfill somewhere. they had to buy a special scantron machine to run these all through to get the stats. but then they gave the tests back to the teachers so that we could tweak the test grades. oh, did i mention that it was dictated that all students would get a test grade for this test. i ended up throwing out 7 questions out of 50, and that meant a 14 point curve. many teachers had not covered materials, so they had to eliminate those questions as well. so what was gained by this huge waste of money, time (2 days to give the tests) and paper? nothing. when our department chair went up to the school board office to meet with the head of english, the only explanation was that this was a "work in progress" and that they knew there were problems. yes, there are. the problem is constantly measuring everyone on a statistical yardstick.
money would be better spent in the countys if they stopped with the ridculous drive towards numbers. that smacks simply of public relations and the need to "prove" via numbers that we are "doing our job." what no one knows is exactly what our jobs are, and they don't welcome our opinions or suggestions. they figuratively pat us on the heads as if we were just overactive children who need to be placated for a moment.
another solution would be to stop ignoring social issues as causes for poor classroom performance. no one knows what it is like to have one or two totally disruptive kids in a classroom ruin the learning atmosphere. there is little we can do anymore, as most administrators do not want to deal with this issue the way that it should be dealt with. that would be that these kinds of kids need to be in a specialized school, such as the Georgetown School in Hanover, where hopefully they can be successful in a small, contained learning environment. yet, year after year, these kids stay in the classroom with their myriad of problems, and ruin the learning for the other kids who might be motivated if they weren't so entirely distracted by the behavior of the bad apples. unfortunately, the "no child left behind" concept seems to ignore the fact that for the betterment of the whole as a group, some of them should be left behind. the tail should not wag the dog in a public classroom.
another solution would be to get rid of block classes. for once, it would be nice if those in charge actually looked at the numbers on SOL tests for kids in everyday classes. what they would find is that they are higher and the kids apparently learn the material better. why? because the average teenager has about an hour of attention and then he is gone. i have never understood the reason that we dropped the everyday classes across the board. the system wasn't broken, so why "fix" it? apparently, block classes are good for science labs. however, there aren't all that many labs compared to the english classes, world language classes and others who will tell you that everyday classes would be a blessing. an hour is just enough to do one good lesson. plus, students will have a little homework each night and they will not have to worry about what day it is and what books to haul back and forth. better focus and the ability to pay attention does lead to better abilities to retain information.
teachers cannot be on school boards. they are called up in a more or less profunctory way to meetings and task forces examining things for those in charge. translation: we serve on committees, research, write tests, eduate and present our findings and suggestions to the talking heads...and then it is never acted upon. they just do whatever they think is right, while having the ability to say that teachers contributed. sorry, that isn't what really happens. we contribute, but we are edited, severely in most cases.
the results are staggering. most of my colleagues who are reaching retirement age are going to retire. they might have stayed on if they had been given the opportunity to teach. but we don't have much time for that now, considering all the paperwork and useless inservices and meetings and emails that we have to attend to. we spend so much time trying to prove what we are doing that we don't have much time to do it. how ironic is that? the students are in constant need of some sort of stimulus, which is really confusing to a generation of teachers who read instead of listening to an ipod or watching a tv. we don't IM, nor do we play video games 24/7. we took walks and talked on the telephone and read for pleasure and were able to sit still and concentrate. our kids don't do that. too much technology, too big a buffet table of things to do. yet we are charged with the task of making sure this generation learns. what does that mean anymore?
Sunday, January 28, 2007
blips
i haven't written on this in awhile, for what reason, i don't know. in any case, i have just a few things to make observations about, little blips, if i can do this short...
big controversy last week over delegate frank hargrove's response to the idea that the state of virginia general assembly make a formal apology to all blacks concerning slavery. his response was that they should "get over it." then he went on to say that making whites atone for slavery was like asking jews to apologize for killing christ. ouch. my first response was to shake my head, but as much as i hate to admit it, i am getting really weary of the ongoing civil war debate. it seems that relations between blacks and whites has gotten worse instead of better, and i think there is much more polarization now than there was before. now it is sort of an insidious undercurrent, and i think to a certain extent all of us are sucked in. i am. i am not for reparations to blacks for slavery, and i am getting a bit weary of having to defend what is essentially history. it happened. so did the holocaust, so did the internment of japanese during WWII and so did we wipe out the native americans. not everything can be solved by giving people money or apologizing formally. would that change anything between white people and blacks? i don't think so.
blip II: what is wrong with george bush and the rest of his posse? why send in 21,500 more troops to "get the job done" when the american public clearly sent a message via voting in november that we don't want this war? why should be devote any more money, time or lives to a cause that may not end in what we want? and speaking for what we want, what exactly is that since there are no weapons of mass destruction? my thoughts: i don't think every culture needs to be democratic. sometimes it is better just to leave people and their countries alone. democracy too has its pitfalls, not the least of which is the disintegration of american cultures and basic human morals.
blip III: the lack of sustained cold weather is just killing me. i am truly discovering how cyclical i am. i need cold, gloomy weather. i need to hibernate, be dormant. that way i can appreciate spring when it comes. right now, there has been no winter, just extended forays into spring or fall. for those who don't think global warming is a problem, spend xmas in richmond wearing shorts in 70 degree weather.
blip IV: i am tired of people in general. they annoy the hell out of me, especially the younger ones, who are always bitching and complaining and seemingly ungrateful about everything that comes so easily to them. i avoid the 20 somethings as much as possible at school, especially the special ed ones. all i hear from them are constant whines about how much paperwork they have to do, etc. that pill goes down a bit hard with me, as they don't have to grade papers and most are presiding over classes of less than 10 if it is a resource class, or they are glorious backup in the classroom for the regular teacher. the amount of work they do outside the classroom is minimal, and they seem to have more money to burn than god. so what is their complaint? life is good and they don't even know it.
blip V: who cares about american idol, survivor part 96, dancing with the stars, big fat loser, and the rest of the reality shows? well, apparently i must be the only one who doesn't based upon the ratings. this makes me both sad and scared. majority rules in this country, and apparently the shallow end of the gene pool is being catered to.
blip VI: abortion. my observation on that is as follows. the only ones who have benefited from abortions for the most part are the middle to upper class who can afford it. those who are poor and likely shouldn't be breeding are still doing so, keeping their kids, and not parenting. somedays, after seeing some of the pisspoor parenting is see with my students, i wonder if the chinese don't have it right and put a cap on the number of kids people can have. small wonder that society is rotting from the inside out. we just keep having kids who are brought up on a steady diet of television (remember the content above?), video games (more ways to expand your brain and learn not to read), rap music ( another joke. why can't those young people use their positions of power and rap about something positive for kids to emulate?) and junk food. never mind that most of them act like they have been raised by wolves, which it sometimes feels as if they have been. the lack of common courtesy and respect for others around you has become pretty apparent if you ever shop at walmart. just trying to negotiate down an aisle and get people to let you pass is a wonder in and of itself.
blip VII: money is still the root of all evil. period. and i have no idea how to raise a child to think about something other than money when he is living in a world that puts money and the acquisition of it as a priority. how you get it doesn't matter. just get it. no matter if you lie cheat or steal. do it.
blip VIII: cheaply paid teachers, highly paid athletes and the american obsession with sports. it seems that every time derek jeter comes to bat he is paid around $32,000. that means that one and a half at bats equals what i make in a year. which one of us is the most valuable to society? hmmm. what about athletes as role models? check the paper daily for the constant parade of sorry characters who have money, prestige and face time, yet fritter what they have away doing nothing positive. and they whine because they have the spotlight on them. or they whine because they don't want to be role models. tough tittikaka. you want fame, you have to take what comes with it, which should be responsibility. but who expects that? most of these athletes have been told all their lives how great they are and how invincible they are. so why should they feel like they have to act with any modicum of decorum? they can practically buy their way out of any crisis they get into, and they get a lot of slack because they are famous. how many chances would i get if i were to commit the same crimes? it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that one out.
big controversy last week over delegate frank hargrove's response to the idea that the state of virginia general assembly make a formal apology to all blacks concerning slavery. his response was that they should "get over it." then he went on to say that making whites atone for slavery was like asking jews to apologize for killing christ. ouch. my first response was to shake my head, but as much as i hate to admit it, i am getting really weary of the ongoing civil war debate. it seems that relations between blacks and whites has gotten worse instead of better, and i think there is much more polarization now than there was before. now it is sort of an insidious undercurrent, and i think to a certain extent all of us are sucked in. i am. i am not for reparations to blacks for slavery, and i am getting a bit weary of having to defend what is essentially history. it happened. so did the holocaust, so did the internment of japanese during WWII and so did we wipe out the native americans. not everything can be solved by giving people money or apologizing formally. would that change anything between white people and blacks? i don't think so.
blip II: what is wrong with george bush and the rest of his posse? why send in 21,500 more troops to "get the job done" when the american public clearly sent a message via voting in november that we don't want this war? why should be devote any more money, time or lives to a cause that may not end in what we want? and speaking for what we want, what exactly is that since there are no weapons of mass destruction? my thoughts: i don't think every culture needs to be democratic. sometimes it is better just to leave people and their countries alone. democracy too has its pitfalls, not the least of which is the disintegration of american cultures and basic human morals.
blip III: the lack of sustained cold weather is just killing me. i am truly discovering how cyclical i am. i need cold, gloomy weather. i need to hibernate, be dormant. that way i can appreciate spring when it comes. right now, there has been no winter, just extended forays into spring or fall. for those who don't think global warming is a problem, spend xmas in richmond wearing shorts in 70 degree weather.
blip IV: i am tired of people in general. they annoy the hell out of me, especially the younger ones, who are always bitching and complaining and seemingly ungrateful about everything that comes so easily to them. i avoid the 20 somethings as much as possible at school, especially the special ed ones. all i hear from them are constant whines about how much paperwork they have to do, etc. that pill goes down a bit hard with me, as they don't have to grade papers and most are presiding over classes of less than 10 if it is a resource class, or they are glorious backup in the classroom for the regular teacher. the amount of work they do outside the classroom is minimal, and they seem to have more money to burn than god. so what is their complaint? life is good and they don't even know it.
blip V: who cares about american idol, survivor part 96, dancing with the stars, big fat loser, and the rest of the reality shows? well, apparently i must be the only one who doesn't based upon the ratings. this makes me both sad and scared. majority rules in this country, and apparently the shallow end of the gene pool is being catered to.
blip VI: abortion. my observation on that is as follows. the only ones who have benefited from abortions for the most part are the middle to upper class who can afford it. those who are poor and likely shouldn't be breeding are still doing so, keeping their kids, and not parenting. somedays, after seeing some of the pisspoor parenting is see with my students, i wonder if the chinese don't have it right and put a cap on the number of kids people can have. small wonder that society is rotting from the inside out. we just keep having kids who are brought up on a steady diet of television (remember the content above?), video games (more ways to expand your brain and learn not to read), rap music ( another joke. why can't those young people use their positions of power and rap about something positive for kids to emulate?) and junk food. never mind that most of them act like they have been raised by wolves, which it sometimes feels as if they have been. the lack of common courtesy and respect for others around you has become pretty apparent if you ever shop at walmart. just trying to negotiate down an aisle and get people to let you pass is a wonder in and of itself.
blip VII: money is still the root of all evil. period. and i have no idea how to raise a child to think about something other than money when he is living in a world that puts money and the acquisition of it as a priority. how you get it doesn't matter. just get it. no matter if you lie cheat or steal. do it.
blip VIII: cheaply paid teachers, highly paid athletes and the american obsession with sports. it seems that every time derek jeter comes to bat he is paid around $32,000. that means that one and a half at bats equals what i make in a year. which one of us is the most valuable to society? hmmm. what about athletes as role models? check the paper daily for the constant parade of sorry characters who have money, prestige and face time, yet fritter what they have away doing nothing positive. and they whine because they have the spotlight on them. or they whine because they don't want to be role models. tough tittikaka. you want fame, you have to take what comes with it, which should be responsibility. but who expects that? most of these athletes have been told all their lives how great they are and how invincible they are. so why should they feel like they have to act with any modicum of decorum? they can practically buy their way out of any crisis they get into, and they get a lot of slack because they are famous. how many chances would i get if i were to commit the same crimes? it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that one out.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
thanksgiving 2006
we went to duck, NC for thanksgiving at pam's beach house. there was a n'oreaster the day before and the walkway down to the beach was wiped out and wrecked. it wasn't the only one. the beach was littered with future driftwood. one look up and down the beach confirmed that everyone as far as i could see was going to be doing repair work. not only that, but the dunes were pounded pretty hard and i would say a good 5 yards of it just disappeared.i didn't get on the beach at all, but that was ok. we had good food and the boys all stayed glued to the tv all day on thanksgiving. on friday we came home and i went up to pam's friday night. we left there and went to roanoke and spent the night at tom and cindy mohr's house ("mohr mannor"). this morning we got up too late and got started too late and ended up in lots of traffic trying to get into blackburg for the tech-uva game. the new bypass i have decided is a joke when it comes to traffic. better to go down another exit and take the old way in on old business 460. we parked at the german club, where pam's son matt is a member. walked to the stadium and i was on sensory overload from then on. first, i haven't been to a tech football game since before austin was born. secondly, i haven't been in blacksburg in about 6 or 7 years. much has changed. i don't think i w
ould have been able to get around there now. it seems that every patch of grass or free space on campus has a building on it now. things have been changed around a whole lot! pam and i parked in the parking lot in front of slusher tower where we used to live and we went out in the back and had our pictures taken on the rock where we sat more than 30 years ago. all that was missing was linda!we drove around blacksburg and out to the AGR house and around town. i just didn't recognize anything! certainly blacksburg is more cosmopolitan than when we were there! we headed out out town after 5:30 and about TWO HOURS LATER we were getting gas and coffee at the sheetz on orange avenue in roanoke. it took almost 2 hours in snail paced traffic to get there. at least an hour alone or more was spent trying to get out of blacksburg. some bypass...we didn't bypass anything, period! definitely learned a lesson there...skip the bypass, go the old way.
there was just so much to take in that i just pretty well shut down while there. i was struck by the amazing amounts of tech colors displayed everywhere. everyone had on something tech colored. i also was amazed that i saw no drunk people. as a matter of fact, i don't think i saw but one person drinking at all, and we were on the student side of the stadium! football is now serious business up there, and i guess when you pay $40 for a ticket, you don't want to miss it. people stand up every time the defense is on the field, and they all do this bow down thing to the defense, which deserves it. the defense has kept tech on the map, as the offense this year has been pretty mediocre.
after the game we found old friend karen togersen's tail gate spot and visited with her and her family for awhile. i hadn't seen here since before austin was born! she lived on the hall across from pam and linda in slusher and now, after being director of admissions at tech for a number of years, has remarried and is living in charlottesville working for UVA...:)
Sunday, November 12, 2006
restless in mechanicsville
i can't figure out why it is that i can't seem to sit still...probably too much caffeine, but i am most definitely restless in mechanicsville.
it is a weird thing when the one thing you want to do, which is relax, seems to be the one thing you won't let yourself do. why is that? i sit and daydream about it a lot of the the time, but given the opportunity, i usually blow it. i sit in front of the tv and watch c.s.i. or a law & order and then flog myself for having succumbed to doing nothing useful.
yesterday i did do some useful shopping. i bought xmas gifts for daddy and austin and bought myself clothes. i was feeling a bit flush and spent the money, although i am sure sometime soon i will be sorry for having done it. hopefully, not. today i would like to go through my room and austin's and gather up things for goodwill. i am in the cleaning mode and right now i have a bit of energy, having been pretty much decked for awhile with the fibro. however, yesterday i felt a bit better and austin is at his father's house, so i was by myself and i like that.
it is raining harder than a cow pissing on a flat rock today. the yard is puddled and there is a huge stream of water sluicing down the driveway. i am surprised at how squishy the yard is. i went to church today and was a greeter and did the collection as well. i hadn't been in awhile, so it was good to go, although my stomach thought differently. probably that 20 ounce of coffee i slugged down. i took my hair out of the corn rows yesterday and today i am playing with it a bit with combs. yesterday i used headbands. tomorrow, who knows. i may keep it down for awhile.
i haven't done pottery in months and i just started back reading fiction. i am still reading the newspapers and i seem to be able to focus a bit on those kind of things. i am having some irritating physical problems, including periodic choking incidents and difficulty breathing. sometimes i feel like i have a 5lb sack of sugar on my chest and i have to concentrate on breathing. the muscular problem has always been irritating. i am dropping things, having trouble grabbing things and tripping and stumbling. i am also having problems coming up with names for things, like the hair combs. i sat here for a minute concentrating trying to remember what they were called, although i could clearly envision them. sigh.
we needed a printer, so i finally found one and bought it yesterday. this was the culmination of months of research on the internet and combing the sunday store ads. what a confusing mess! i don't think anyone can figure it out. there are so many different variations on a theme that they can keep you perpetually confused about what to buy. generally, i think it comes down to people buying what is in the store and what is on sale. i could only find one of the five on my list in a store, and fortunately for me it was on sale. it has yet to be installed. i will save that one for austin.
it is a weird thing when the one thing you want to do, which is relax, seems to be the one thing you won't let yourself do. why is that? i sit and daydream about it a lot of the the time, but given the opportunity, i usually blow it. i sit in front of the tv and watch c.s.i. or a law & order and then flog myself for having succumbed to doing nothing useful.
yesterday i did do some useful shopping. i bought xmas gifts for daddy and austin and bought myself clothes. i was feeling a bit flush and spent the money, although i am sure sometime soon i will be sorry for having done it. hopefully, not. today i would like to go through my room and austin's and gather up things for goodwill. i am in the cleaning mode and right now i have a bit of energy, having been pretty much decked for awhile with the fibro. however, yesterday i felt a bit better and austin is at his father's house, so i was by myself and i like that.
it is raining harder than a cow pissing on a flat rock today. the yard is puddled and there is a huge stream of water sluicing down the driveway. i am surprised at how squishy the yard is. i went to church today and was a greeter and did the collection as well. i hadn't been in awhile, so it was good to go, although my stomach thought differently. probably that 20 ounce of coffee i slugged down. i took my hair out of the corn rows yesterday and today i am playing with it a bit with combs. yesterday i used headbands. tomorrow, who knows. i may keep it down for awhile.
i haven't done pottery in months and i just started back reading fiction. i am still reading the newspapers and i seem to be able to focus a bit on those kind of things. i am having some irritating physical problems, including periodic choking incidents and difficulty breathing. sometimes i feel like i have a 5lb sack of sugar on my chest and i have to concentrate on breathing. the muscular problem has always been irritating. i am dropping things, having trouble grabbing things and tripping and stumbling. i am also having problems coming up with names for things, like the hair combs. i sat here for a minute concentrating trying to remember what they were called, although i could clearly envision them. sigh.
we needed a printer, so i finally found one and bought it yesterday. this was the culmination of months of research on the internet and combing the sunday store ads. what a confusing mess! i don't think anyone can figure it out. there are so many different variations on a theme that they can keep you perpetually confused about what to buy. generally, i think it comes down to people buying what is in the store and what is on sale. i could only find one of the five on my list in a store, and fortunately for me it was on sale. it has yet to be installed. i will save that one for austin.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
ducking out in duck, nc....
it is saturday night in duck, nc. pam has gone up to bed. taylor, tead and his friend jonathan are watching yet another football game on the tube. the wind is blowing, but it isn't cold, and we have just returned for the second outing of the day looking for supplies. all is well. what the hell am i doing in duck, nc?
pam has purchased her dream. she now is a part owner in a beach house here in duck, a nice one. she has five weeks out of the year to come here and hang out. she will be by herself this week, the first week. i have come down for the weekend, as austin is with bebo and i needed a break. the last time i was in nags head was when we went on vacation in 1991 with pam and taylor in whalehead junction. i thought i was just pregnant with austin (i was) and i spent the whole week trying to decide whether or not i should buy an early pregnancy test in the food lion in corolla...
a lot has changed, but then again, so have i. when i was here with bebo before, we were sort of bored...or he was. i think i was ok sitting around reading on the deck and going on the beach. bebo would have preferred going somewhere else, and after this week we never went back to the beach again. in any case, here i am 14 years later with no bebo and no kid...and i am enjoying myself. it is amazing how this place has changed. it is greatly built up, but it isn't, at least in duck, like myrtle beach or va. beach. i think when you head to nags head or kill devil hills (south) it gets built up, but i haven't been there, only this end of the world.
the drive here last night was also interesting, as the road is 4 lane now the whole way. however, i could not enjoy it as the rain was coming down and driving at night is a nightmare for me. i got here, but i was white knuckling it the whole way.
pam and i went shopping for food and supplies and then took a walk on the beach. the water wasn't cold and we did it barefoot. then we went back out and walked around the little subdivison she is part of, port trinitie. we walked over to the sound side which has a pool and a long pier to a gazebo on the water. the sun was setting on the soundside water and it reminded me of the episcopalian camp at the end of talbot hall road in norfolk where warnie lives. i was there last when uncle harry died. austin, toddy and i walked down there and it was very peaceful. this was too. i think i could just as easily live on the sound side as the ocean, although both are nice.
taylor and the boys are going back on monday and i am leaving tomorrow. i took the day off yesterday to get the windshield changed on my car. mom and dad gave me their 1990 acura legend, and i did the dmv routine yesterday as well. visited with the aunties and the parental units. we went to atlas diner for lunch (fried flounder day and a good deal) and then i had sandwiches with them for dinner while i waited for pam and taylor to get to our area. warnie is getting a little slow. she fell down the night before and messed up her arm, bruising herself a lot and scraping the skin in a couple of places. she is declining and i wonder how long it will be before she can't live by herself anymore. she is happy, however, still has a sense of humor and does what she wants for the most part. she isn't driving as much or cooking much and falls asleep a lot. but she still jokes and is very easy to be around. aunt grace worries all of the time and talks all the time, but she is just being herself. it is a little hard to watch them age like this, but they are 86 and 84 and what do you expect from people at this age? we are lucky to have had them this long, and i have been blessed to get to 50 and still have the elderlys around.
pam has purchased her dream. she now is a part owner in a beach house here in duck, a nice one. she has five weeks out of the year to come here and hang out. she will be by herself this week, the first week. i have come down for the weekend, as austin is with bebo and i needed a break. the last time i was in nags head was when we went on vacation in 1991 with pam and taylor in whalehead junction. i thought i was just pregnant with austin (i was) and i spent the whole week trying to decide whether or not i should buy an early pregnancy test in the food lion in corolla...
a lot has changed, but then again, so have i. when i was here with bebo before, we were sort of bored...or he was. i think i was ok sitting around reading on the deck and going on the beach. bebo would have preferred going somewhere else, and after this week we never went back to the beach again. in any case, here i am 14 years later with no bebo and no kid...and i am enjoying myself. it is amazing how this place has changed. it is greatly built up, but it isn't, at least in duck, like myrtle beach or va. beach. i think when you head to nags head or kill devil hills (south) it gets built up, but i haven't been there, only this end of the world.
the drive here last night was also interesting, as the road is 4 lane now the whole way. however, i could not enjoy it as the rain was coming down and driving at night is a nightmare for me. i got here, but i was white knuckling it the whole way.
pam and i went shopping for food and supplies and then took a walk on the beach. the water wasn't cold and we did it barefoot. then we went back out and walked around the little subdivison she is part of, port trinitie. we walked over to the sound side which has a pool and a long pier to a gazebo on the water. the sun was setting on the soundside water and it reminded me of the episcopalian camp at the end of talbot hall road in norfolk where warnie lives. i was there last when uncle harry died. austin, toddy and i walked down there and it was very peaceful. this was too. i think i could just as easily live on the sound side as the ocean, although both are nice.
taylor and the boys are going back on monday and i am leaving tomorrow. i took the day off yesterday to get the windshield changed on my car. mom and dad gave me their 1990 acura legend, and i did the dmv routine yesterday as well. visited with the aunties and the parental units. we went to atlas diner for lunch (fried flounder day and a good deal) and then i had sandwiches with them for dinner while i waited for pam and taylor to get to our area. warnie is getting a little slow. she fell down the night before and messed up her arm, bruising herself a lot and scraping the skin in a couple of places. she is declining and i wonder how long it will be before she can't live by herself anymore. she is happy, however, still has a sense of humor and does what she wants for the most part. she isn't driving as much or cooking much and falls asleep a lot. but she still jokes and is very easy to be around. aunt grace worries all of the time and talks all the time, but she is just being herself. it is a little hard to watch them age like this, but they are 86 and 84 and what do you expect from people at this age? we are lucky to have had them this long, and i have been blessed to get to 50 and still have the elderlys around.
Friday, September 8, 2006
Doris Young 1928-2006
i am still trying to process doris' death, which was last wednesday. she fell and hit her head on the brick sidewalk in front of her house. our dog, chili, charged the door trying to get to the yardman and doris tried to stop her. she suffered a massive head injury, and her kids pulled the plug within 4 hours of the injury.a lot of women bitch about their mother-in-laws and don't get along with them. this was not the case with doris. she wasn't the easiest person to know, or the easiest person to talk to sometimes. she was a very proud person, and she certainly was the rock in her family. however, she worked behind the scenes, and was never an interferer. you always knew what she thought, and she wasn't afraid to express her opinion. i was always pretty much intimidated by her, especially when i first was married. but as the years rolled by, we sort of came to an understanding, and she always treated me really well and i loved her. she was very upset when bebo and i split up, and i kept up with her and stayed in the family up until this past year, when it became pretty obvious that i needed to make a break. i hadn't seen her in several months, and i think i will always have regrets about that. yet i think she knew what i was doing, and she probably agreed and understood it. i felt that with all the problems bebo was having, and the ripple effect that it was having on both austin and i, it wasn't the best to be around. i didn't want her to feel like she was ever in the middle. she was bebo's mother, and her first loyalty has to be to her son, regardless of what he does. i know she didn't agree with all that he did, but she always supported her children, regardless of what they did.
doris took me to all of my surgeries. she came and stayed with me during the day for the first 2 weeks after austin was born. she took austin to doctor's appointments when i couldn't do it and all you had to do was call and she was here. i enjoyed her company and we shared gardening things in common and i used to bring her vegetables from the produce stand out here in mechanicsville. most of the decent shoes i have were hers, and she always put thought into gifts that she gave me. it was doris who paid for me to get my master's training in reiki and she did practice it and encouraged it. doris was the one who did all of my laundry and brought it to me when i was in the hospital last year for 2 weeks. she would come a visit for a little while, but she wasn't the type to come and hang around for a long while, and she only called on the phone when she had something to ask you or tell you.
bebo has moved into her house to live with mae for awhile. the irony of all this is that jaquie finally made a financial settlement with bebo over the house. he was getting ready to put a contract down on a house when doris died. i haven't asked, but i am sure that doris probably know that this had happened, and i am sure it was a great relief to her. bebo has always wanted to buy his mother's house, and that may be possible now. her death solved the terrible problem of where bebo would live, and how. there is also a lot of guilt, i am sure, about how she died. terre had kicked chili out of her house and doris was taking care of chili, although she didn't really want to do it. chili's directly contributing to doris' death is just awful.
doris said for years that she was not leaving a will and the three kids would have to fight it out. she was true to her word, and it will be interesting to see what happens.
i am still sort of numbed out and can't believe that she died. i don't think it has hit austin at all, and i wonder about that. i guess we all have to grieve in our own ways. bebo goes in and out of it, and austin says that kitty is still really emotional all the time about it. i don't think things will ever be the same for those kids...they all, in their own ways, depended a great deal upon her to guide them in the directions that they needed to go in. there has certainly be so much "death" in the family over the last few years...kitty's marriage to mike breaking up and being ugly; bebo and i divorcing; bebo and the drama with jacquie and the house; danny's cancer and death; terre, kitty and bebo all moving from their homes to be closer to their mother in their old neighborhood. so much change...but i don't think things happen just randomly...they happen for a reason. certainly it was a blessing that doris died so quickly. she had been very adamant about not wanting to be a burden or to be kept alive by artificial means. she had COPD and emphysema, and bebo said on the night she died that it was a good thing, that at least now she wouldn't have to drown to death in her own fluids, which is where she was headed.
so i have to believe that there is a bigger reason going, that we all will ultimately learn something and be stronger, better persons for having known her and survived her death.
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