Thirteen Reasons to take a Hike!

1. First of all, look at the adventure. What could be more enticing than a distant mountain top shrouded in fog?











2. Next, It's a good way to teach an object lesson
to a group of active teenagers--
sophomores, to be precise?
















3. Looking at still, clear, shady water and tiny,
tangerine, spring flowers clears the mind of winter slush.


















4. Learning how to follow instructions and a map;
it's a vital skill!















5. In this forest, I once surprised a baby fawn;
then the mother deer surprised me. I couldn't out
run her, so I froze; they both went flying off
through the trees.
















6. Rocky roads make me appreciate the smooth
paths that will come at the end of the hike.














7. Following a trail to somewhere; It leads on and on
and there isn't any question here
whether I'm are on the right path.
It's a safe, sure feeling.















8. For hiking, cloudy days are even better
than sunny ones, and the cool, moist
kiss of spring is a welcome drizzle on my face.

9. Up in this high Mountain meadow, I sometimes see an old buffalo, driven to solitude by the younger, stronger herd leader. He doesn't bother me. I don't bother him. I think, today, he is gone, spooked and hiding from the shrill shouts of the jubilant sophomores who ran ahead of me

10. The only thing loud in these silent woods is the occasional ta-woo ta-woo of a little, brown bird.













ll. Lakes along the path, make for fish and
turtle splashes; wild geese decorate the water
with widening v's.















12. Old dams, build by the CCC in the days of
economic depression, still stand, a testament
to those who worked for their bailouts.














13. As the road nears home, the walking seems
easier. My feet sense rest and sigh.


I've taken this hike for around 18 years now. Oddly enough, I still have to be careful not to get off the track. New growth is confusing in some places. This time, a couple of us got lost once, but we headed for high ground and were able to spot the rest of the group. We also made use of a whistle and a compass. Well, you never know, do you? The sign at the trail head says it's "8 miles" long, but the guidebook says "6 miles". I'm going to be safe and say seven. The Wichita Mountains Buffalo Trail; it's a pleasant morning hike in spring, fall, or winter. Summer? Well, if you have a lot of sunscreen and plenty of water.

A Little Slow

A couple of days ago, as I shopped for bread, milk, and orange juice, I ran into an elderly friend who commented on the elementary track meet held at our school the day before.

“I saw your little grandson,” she remarked. “He was running in a race.”
She smiled sweetly, “Cute little guy, kinda slow and a little behind everybody, but it seemed like he was having a lot of fun.”

I smiled sweetly back. She meant well.
But what I wanted to do was scream.
Why the silly track meets anyway? He’s in pre-school, for Heaven’s sake!

Must it all begin so early, this idolizing of competitive athletic prowess?
Does it even matter that he knows capitals, and can locate their countries on a map, that he can tell you about the four moons of Jupiter, even name them? He’s reading fourth-grade books for fun and is fascinated by how the body systems work. Everyone else is learning their numbers and beginning to sound out hat and mat. He sits through boring days at pre-school, coloring pictures that go with the letter K, while he imagines his own world on dwarf, twin planets that orbit the star Alexandra in a galaxy called Ellipse

“He’s a little slow,” she said.
I guess it’s a good thing he doesn’t realize it yet.

Busy Busy Busy

I know. You think I should be blogging more. That way you don't imagine that I'm in bed with swine flu. Well, rest assured, I haven't forgotten this blog, and I've tucked away pictures and filled my shrinking memory cells with stuff that I must remember to write here...

It's the last three weeks of school. We've had night play practices...and day practices too. Tonight is the last performance. Yesterday I finished grading the seniors' personal manifestos--about three hundred pages of careful reading and evaluating. Monday my sophomores and I took a seven mile hike in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. I have pictures; I have music in my head...but all I can think about is taking a nap. I'll return before long. Until then, here are a few pictures.

Raising Musicians...

...requires listening to a lot of pounding and screeching.

I used to have a friend whose whole family excelled at art. She drew beautifully; her brother sculpted amazing little statues of his favorite Mad magazine characters; and the one-year-old sister decorated all the walls beside her crib with crayons. "The walls!" you might shriek in disbelief. "yes, the walls." Her mother never scolded her for it either, just furnished a bowl of crayons and smiled at her. "You can't raise artists if you don't let them draw," she said, smiling at my amazed eyes.

Years later, I remembered her advice when I began raising my own children. No, I didn't let them draw on the walls, but I tried not to be so nerve-wracked by their messiness and their pounding and screeching on musical instruments that I would stifle what creative energy they had. As long as the activity was constructive and safe, I encouraged it. Maybe it paid off: Now that my children are grown, I enjoy reading their blogs and novel attempts; I have a houseful of art projects; and I listen to hours of beautiful music.

Here comes the next generation:

Weather and Windmills

Two great things to take pictures of...
Sarah Lee and I went to the college to collect Claye for the weekend. On the way home, it was threatening rain, and the sky was lovely. I kept stopping, so Claye and I could take these pictures.
Spring skies are simply too beautiful to resist.
After we downloaded them, I spent an hour tweaking, taking out telephone lines and cropping etc. , but the subject matter is just that beautiful by itself. God is an amazing artist!

Guess Who's Grandchildren Came for Easter?

Pushing too Far

I just came back from the gym, and I'm still a little angry with what I witnessed there while I worked out. ..

A young, thin mother sat on the exercise bike, pedaling very slowly and leisurely while her daughter--an equally slender child who appeared to be eight or nine years old--walked on the treadmill beside her. The big-screen TV was alive with cavorting, cone-faced cartoons--flat like paper dolls. Although the sound was on, it was impossible to distinguish any words because the radio was also blaring--a obnoxious, stuttering song about how it "must have been the alcohol", then various advertisements, and a noble-sounding tune with lyrics which reflected on the fact that we climb many mountains and it doesn't really matter what's on the other side because all meaning is in the struggle...the climb.

Meanwhile the little girl was ordered by her mother to set the treadmill high enough so she could run without holding the rails. After about fifteen minutes of running, the child asked if she could stop. She said her ankle was hurting. Her mother told her she couldn't stop, but had to keep going. She asked again, and the mom again told her "no". (It seems she had to run a mile first.) The ensuing conversation went like this:

Girl: "but my ankle really hurts"
Mom: "then slow it down to 3.5 and walk"
(She slows the treadmill to a fast walk)
Mom: "Weenie. Just be a wimp."
Girl: "but it hurts"
Mom: "then how come you didn't quit during soccer? It can't have been hurting."
Girl: "It didn't start hurting until after soccer."
Mom: "Was it hurting during gymnastics?"
Girl: "Yes"
Mom: "Did you wear your brace? It would never have hurt if you had been wearing your brace like you are supposed to, so it's your fault if it hurts."
Girl: (Silence)
Mom: "Well don't quit until you've walked the rest of your mile."

After a few more minutes of this: sullen child slogging along and mom gently peddling the bike and watching flat cartoons, the girl switched off the machine and got an immediate response:

"No, you can't stop; you have to cool down. That's the most important part of the workout. You can't just quit; now turn that machine to 2.5 and cool down for three minutes."

She complied, head down, tears just under the surface.

Finally, the ordeal was over. The little girl picked up her things and walked out the door without saying a word. The mother stopped her bicycling--without doing any cool down--and followed silently, only pausing to stop the battling noises of television and radio.

I sat shaking my head. What is America doing to its children? Here's a child who went to school all day, played soccer, went to gymnastics, and is commanded to run a mile before she can rest. Was the ankle hurt badly? Probably not, but what does it matter? Why does she need more than one sport a day? What inherent need drives a mother to push her child like this? Is she hoping to raise a great athlete...one who will say, "It was my mother who kept me going"?

Most likely things won't turn out that way.

Two Extremes

Last night, as he struggled with typing another unit of lesson plans, my son, the student teacher, who had suffered a particularly trying day at the mercy of that lethal triangle: high school students, administration, and parents, bemoaned, "I don't know why anybody in his right mind would actually choose to teach high school as a profession!" This was quite a switch from his formerly-held views on the subject, and, hopefully, just a reflex reaction to a bad experience.

This morning, on the way to school, my student riders bemoaned the fact that they had so many years of school left. When I teased them, saying I had taught here for seventeen years and never got to graduate, they responded with: "Yeah, but it's really easy for you. You just write something on the board, give us an assignment, and sit over there and eat!"

No fair! I never eat in class. True, sometimes I drink a cup of coffee, and some days I give them a writing assignment, but what about all the lectures, and stories, and discussions, and grading, and tailor-made tests, and reading books to put on the accelerated reader program? What about directing plays, and academic team practices and tournaments; running concession stands and suppers for class sponsorships; holding parent conferences; typing letters and press releases; inputing grades; earning continuing education credits and doing self-studies for school accreditations.....

Ah well...they are young and innocent, and I like them that way so I think I'll just give them an assignment and sit over here and eat a cracker...after I scribble something on the board.

Junior/Senior Fun Day

Here's a bunch of pictures from our annual junior/senior skip day. If you don't know these kids and my school, feel free to skip this one. I guess, really, you're free to skip any you wish...since it's only a blog and not an assignment. Sigh.

Three of the girls were too adventurous in their hiking choices and ended up stuck high on a cliffside. Fortunately, they had cell phones with them and texted us a "help". Their classmates were eager to help; they solved the problem by making a human chain both above and below the girls and handing them down. It doesn't look very scary in the picture, but that's because you can't see how high it really was.In this picture, one of the girls is already down.

Look Who's Walking?

Six months from the terrible accident that befell our school, the teacher and driver of the Suburban involved is now walking. This is a wonderful thing. We didn't know if Patty would ever be able to walk again, or even have legs. It's great to see her smiling face in the halls, for the last couple of months in a wheelchair, and now--for short little trips--on her own legs and feet. God is good to us.











Update: A year later

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Sons of Men and Angels Say:

Hallelujah!

Growing, Growing, And Gone...but hopefully not too far away

The neat thing about teaching in a small school for years and years is that you get to see whole families of students grow up. These eighth graders, who managed to squeeze into the first-grade desk are both the youngest children of families who sent all their children to our school. I taught them all. Two have graduated; two more graduate this year, one is a sophomore, and then these two. It's an honor to be part of the lives of these families and to watch the children grow up.

The desk, however, has its own history. I bought it at a school sale when my oldest daughter was two. She and her sister and brother sat in it--each in turn--then a little cousin from the city, then four little cousins from Texas, and finally, my grandson and grand-daughter. When they got a bigger desk for their playroom, I put this one in my classroom. It needs paint, of course, but I think, for sturdiness, you couldn't find a better desk.It has feet solidly planted on the ground...like the families of these students. They are fortunate kids.