Goodbye, Miss Haversham

I hear quiet chords of anthem music. Claye has decided to tackle her room...a museum of ancient treasure that has sat serenely for many months in complete stillness, quietly collecting dust. She is methodically moving from corner to corner with the dust cloth, polishing and restoring every precious object, and to my great delight, even deciding to part with some of them, relinquishing them to the school-benefit garage sale.

"Do you think she will mind if I give this away?" she asks, all concerned,holding out a bouquet of artificial flowers.
"What? Aren't those from your sister's wedding?"
"No, my cousin's wedding."
"But that's almost thirteen years ago. Surely she won't mind."
"And if I get rid of the lava lamps...?"
"That would be great. I'll take them to your sister and she can put them in the sale. They will add interest to her booth."
"But she's the one who gave them to me...."
"She won't mind. Nobody expects you to keep things forever."

Still, it's hard to part with things you like, especially if you remember who gave them to you and when. That's Claye's dilemma. She still has many of her childhood toys, and I think fully half of the attic holds boxes of her stuff. She loves all things Victorian and collects glass bottles; books by Dickens, prints by Gainsborough; she loves warriors and weapons--daggers and sais.

"What about this elf mask?" she asked again, holding out a paper mache and leaf concoction.
"The one you made for sculpture I?"
"Yes, I was going to throw it away, but it would look neat."
"Does it actually fit over the head."
"Um huh"
"Wow. Let me try it on. Amazing. No, we can't possible sell it. It will be perfect for a homecoming day at school--or a play prop--Midsummer night's dream or something.Let me put it in the attic."

...Well, she had to get it from somewhere.

Brave Adventures for World Conquerors

It was the last day of school for my pre-school grandchild, and he invited me along for a picnic on the grounds of the small, private school he attends. In order to accommodate an interesting mix of activities, there were several scattered stations, and children moved from one to another whenever they heard a whistle. . . or as they desired. (Nobody was being too legalistic here). There was frisbee throwing, tetherball, three-legged races, and a softball throw--none of which interested the youngest children. (or their camera-toting grandparents, oddly enough.)

Zaya and Mim rushed over to the "learn a song" station first, where Zaya bravely practiced a song for the talent show finale while Mim clung to her mother, intimidated by the cheerful energy of the bright, young mom who ran the music DVD.

Presently, face-painting tables beckoned. Zaya left the jumping, singing, choreographopolis and raced over to watch as several children got sports logos painted on their faces. Rushing back to where we were loitering, he excitedly asked his mom if he couldn't have U-O painted on his. She didn't understand what he meant, until she saw the OU symbol on several little faces. So, when she explained that the symbol was only a football slogan, he opted for a painting of the planet Saturn instead. There was only one hitch: no face-painters, just parents and grandparents dealing with children who wanted great works of art painted on their cheeks with a four-color selection of basic elementary school tempera paint and a very limited supply of brushes. Too late, we noticed this. Mim had already decided on a butterfly. So, Grandma did the honors, decorating their faces as requested. The butterfly was rather plain and the planet Saturn seemed to be on fire, or at least windswept into the universe background, but it doesn't take much to thrill young children, so we were all blissful together.

From there we explored..."the outer games" as Zaya put it, still thinking in spaceship mentality. We looked first at a couple of horses that someone had forgotten to remove from their trailer before he drove to the picnic parking lot; next we found a little playground behind the school, quite removed from all the older, frisbee-involved students. Then, past all the slides, swings, and teeter-totters, we found every child's dream: a large mountain of red dirt piles. After I scouted it and pronounced it safe, my little explorers went crazy, running up and down, sliding every now and then into a soft crevice carpeted with lime-new grass. They gloried in adventure as they conquered mountain tops and set up their kingdoms; they built launch pads to expedite further explorations, then blasted into the sky, riding rockets bound for nameless planets. It was a thrilling game, and it held their interest until lunch, when we all sat on the grass and ate.

While we were eating, we visited with the family of one of Zaya's classmates, a lovely little girl I'll call Esther, who ran and hugged him when she recognized him this morning. Her mother is from Russia and has been a good friend to my daughter this year, sharing time at "Moms in Touch", which is a prayer support group for the teachers and students at the school. Esther's dad is from Ghana, and teaches computer classes at the local university.

So we had three continents represented at our picnic...North America, Asia, Africa...and the strong, steady, south wind nearly blew us all out into the half-ripe wheat pasture together.

How interesting that so many worlds meet on the Oklahoma plain, where explorers once carved out kingdoms in the red dirt. Overhead is still the same blue universe and the same God looks down at his children.

Only 88 More Days Until School Starts

Which means, of course, that school is out for the summer.

I won't tell you what the last two weeks have been like, because you might interpret it as complaining, and, although it has been a whirlwind, I have been spending time with people I love, doing things for other people I love...so it was all worth it.

I did wake up this morning an hour later than usual though, and with such a headache that I determined to do only two things today...keep the laundry going all day and clean the kitchen.
Well, the kitchen is done. The laundry is still going. The day is only half done, and I'm feeling like seeing some grandkids.

I'll catch you up later.

Odds and Ends Flying By

We had a great reception for our two graduates from college this last Saturday. Their younger cousin joined them and we all reveled in company and lemonade punch and cake.

The time wore on and it was getting late into the evening and I thought: Where are we going to find food for all these people; if we send them home they will faint on the way. Ta da. Never fear. My amazing son-in-law was up to the challenge. I sent him down to the house while the rest of us were cleaning up the church and asked him to inspect the cabinets and fridge and find anything at all for supper for about 17 people including women and children. So he fixed a pot of rice, beans, hot sauce stuff, and a pan of linguini with spaghetti sauce, and cooked some green beans from the freezer. We polished it off with punch and some more of the pumpkin cake...which was the best of the lot. (I actually didn't make that one; one of my marvelous seventh-grade students had volunteered to help with the baking on Friday. I furnished the recipe and the ingredients; she showed me how to work the mixer in the church kitchen--just like her grandma's--and made the most marvelous cake. I made and refrigerated the icing and my oldest daughter warmed it and spread it on the next day while I rushed down to the house and got ready for the reception. ) You see, I simply can't survive without everybody's help. Fortunately, people do help me out.

Mom and Dad and my brother and his wife stayed over and went to church with us the next morning. It had been a long time since I got to be with my mom on mother's day, so I was glad they decided the cows could get along without them for just one evening.

In other news, my new graduates bought me a new bedspread/ensemble for mother's day, a really pretty one with king-sized pillows, and my oldest daughter and her husband got me my own tiny shuffleupagus--or something like that. It's loaded with lively classical music and some weird Spanish/Italian/Australian Percussion with guitar music. The beauty of it is this: I now have armor for my music battles in the gym. Today, I listened and let it inspire me to new heights--fifteen minutes on the camel machine. (It may be called a cross-country runner, but to me...it feels like riding a camel)

Sorry that this post is rambling and not a lovely crafted story. It's May. There are finals tomorrow and Wednesday, awards to figure for Thursday, decorations to do, graduations to serve, and papers to grade. This post is just sandwiched in between them; it's a wonder it isn't sprinkled with red ink and smiley faces.

Secret Garden

As teachers, we get invited to a lot of banquets--alumni banquets, school supporter banquets, and student-council extravaganzas. It's always difficult to know what to wear to these last ones. Who can afford the kind of prom dresses that disguise how old you have become and how stodgy? So a couple other teachers and I have found our own solution. We play masquerade.
The STUCO banquet this year was themed "Secret Garden", so we dressed as the characters in that book. Our principal was the gardener, his wife, our Spanish teacher, was the dignified housekeeper, and I was a visiting friend. My husband was easily enticed into coming because he just happened to have bought a tuxedo last July. I didn't tell him he would be going with a strangely dressed woman until the last minute. He was embarassed, but suffered with good humor. Ah well. Next year we are going to see if more teachers will join us in theme dressing. (I just hope they don't decide to have a luau. A grass skirt would be out of the question...and so would flowered flip flops...maybe I could be a tourist.) Hmmm.

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.