A Good Day at Grammy's House

When Jackson comes to Grammy’s house, it’s a good day.  If you ask him what makes Grammy the happiest, he’ll tell you in a heartbeat that she’s the happiest when he’s at her house.  And he’s absolutely right.  Jackson Matthew Yocham brings sunshine to his grandparents, and here’s how . . .

The day starts when he gets out of bed and announces, “It feels like I need to go to Grammy and Pop’s house today!”  You know what that little declaration does to our hearts.

As this bundle of energy hits the front door, he heads for both of us with hugs.  Now, don’t get me wrong—his hugs aren’t with his arms; they’re more a leaning in to us with his head.  But we know that they’re hugs.  Most days, he comes in dragging his Handy Manny suitcase (really a backpack with wheels) filled with extra clothes and underwear, snacks, and a toy or two.  The only part of the contents that he needs is the clothes and underwear because he wants only two snacks at Grammy and Pop’s house—chocolate milk and round crackers—and both of them are right here.  He seldom needs toys of any kind because he’s far too busy helping us.  And no toys are required for that.

He immediately asks for chocolate milk after his daddy leaves, and you know he gets it.  Since he knows where it is, he goes directly for the pantry.  The organic chocolate milk box has rows of three little individual boxes in it.  If Jackson is trying to get his milk from a full row and is having trouble, I remind him of our motto:  If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  Yes, I know it’s an old mantra, but it’s new to him, and he likes for us to use it, and he likes to use it on his parents at home.  Round crackers—Ritz Crackers— come later.

After being rejuvenated with chocolate milk, he goes to Pop’s garage to help him with some project, like wiring, putting in circuit breakers, putting up lights, examining and learning about tools, hanging garage doors, and installing the garage door openers.  Or maybe he’ll help

 outside with moving sand or laying flagstone or watering the trees in the “orch-red,” as he calls the orchard.  He can tell you the names of almost every fruit tree there.  He and Pop may take a little break to rock in the wicker chairs on the portal.  Since I’m not invited to those sessions, I don’t really know what those boys talk about, but I’m sure it’s important.  It may be that they talk about the mama bird and her eggs, the growth of the grape vines, the inadvisability of messing up Pop’s sand on the terrace just down from the portal, or the name of the bird making “that” sound.  They talk about all sorts of things.

At least twice during the morning, he’ll run inside wanting to know if it’s time for lunch yet and if he can have tomato soup and croutons when the time comes.  That’s what he has every day that he’s here.  Never tires of it, and the little sweetheart eats almost a whole can of soup and croutons made from two slices of bread all by himself.

I think you need to know that five people in Jackson’s life have nicknames for him and that no one else can call him by these names.  To his dad, he’s Little Man; to his mom, Sweetie Boy; to Pop, Buddy; to me, Sweetheart and Darlin’; and to Chris, one of our good friends, he’s Short Round.  Quite a range of names, huh?  I’m not sure why I thought you needed to know all of this, but now you’re educated and know not to use those names yourself.

When lunchtime does roll around, right at noon, the three of us gather, and Jackson says the blessing:  “God is great; God is good.  Let us thank Him for our food.  By His hand we must be fed.  Give us, Lord, our daily bread.  Ah . . men!”  When he first began to be in charge of this part of the meal, he kept his eyes wide open to be sure that everyone else had his/her eyes closed.  Lots of pauses to remind folks.  Now he squinches his eyes closed, but if you dare to look, you’ll know that he’s still peeping out through little slits so that he knows what we’re all doing.  His intonation reminds me of that of a television evangelist. 

After lunch, it’s naptime.  You might think that he can twist Grammy around his little finger and avoid snooze time.  Not so.  We have a little ritual that we follow, and I think the pleasure of completing it makes taking a nap worthwhile.  First, we get the bed in the guest room ready:  one pillow with a sham on each side of the bed, his special pillow between them, the colorful blanket (an afghan crocheted by my mother) ready to cover him, the ceiling fan turned on (even in the winter).  Now we’re ready for the next step.  “I’ll turn the dryer on, Grammy!”  We put his towel in the dryer for about two minutes so that he can snuggle up to it.  Now he’s all set, and we each say, “’Night, ‘night, I love you!” about three times, and he’s off to dreamland.  He used to sleep about three hours, but nowadays, an hour and a half is a good length.

When he wakes up, he comes very quietly to wherever I am . . . sometimes in my office, sometimes here on the sofa answering email, writing on Facebook, or writing for my blog.  If I’m in my office, he plays office while I work.  That means that he punches holes in paper with my hole punch or sits there pinching the staple puller together, listening not too carefully to my admonishing him not to poke his fingers.  If I’m working on my laptop in the family room, sometimes he begs to write on his blog.  I pull up a new page in Word, and he types away.  Here’s an example of his talent:

  4666tggeygyywgwyegyegwygefgrreffefgewrgrr6g3r3rrg3g7383g3g3g36reteregth77ijhiildgyhhjrgthgrreer9ijrrrrr8ryrt4rtqvrferfrftgthghyhtr4rrerereeeherryrtyrurruy

Beautiful, isn’t it?  I love having him work with me, no matter what we’re doing.

Just a few minutes after he gets up from his nap, he asks me if he can have a “little treat.”  Actually, he asks several times during the morning, but the rule is that he can have it after his nap.  He seldom forgets.  Now, you may be thinking that a “little treat” is a handful of cookies or a bowl of ice cream.  No . . . his “little treat” is one Junior Mint, not one box of Junior Mints . . . just one little piece of nickel-sized candy.  He’s perfectly content with only one.  In fact, he knows where the boxes are stored and will go there and get his one “little treat.”  Wendy and Todd didn’t give him any sweets until just a year or so ago, and he’s now four.  The only kind that they let him have then were cookies that I made because they knew what was in them.  He’s not really attracted to sweets much . . . just his “little treat” and sweet biscuits on Sunday morning at his house . . . ones that I make.  He calls them cake. 

Another thing that Jackson almost always does when he comes to Grammy’s house is  work with me in the kitchen.  Oh, my goodness, can he ever bake biscuits!  On second thought, I guess I should say, oh, my goodness, can he ever make a mess!  He pulls his little stool up to the counter where I’m cooking and announces that he’s going to help me cook.  That means that I need to get two bowls, the sifter, a measuring cup, a couple of measuring spoons, and some

 flour ready.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that he can stand there for 30 minutes or more just sifting flour from one bowl to the other.  And is my kitchen covered in flour?  Oh, yes, and so is he!  After we finish cooking, he just moves his stool a few inches back and helps me wash dishes.  That process is very similar to biscuit making:  he has one sink, and I have the other; he has a measuring cup, a spoon, and lots of suds to pour between them.  And is there soapy water everywhere?  Oh, yes.  But does he have a grand time at Grammy’s house.  Double or triple that yes!

When Jackson’s daddy comes to get him, Grammy and Pop are a bit weary but ever so happy for the good day.  Jackson, named for both Frank and Jay, is so precious to us.  I don’t even let myself think about what our lives would be like if we hadn’t moved to Cerrillos in 2003.  So many things would have been different.  Perhaps the most important one would be our not being close enough for Jackson’s proclamation, “It feels like I need to go to Grammy and Pop’s house today” to be fulfilled almost every time he makes it.  You see, it is, indeed, a good day when Jackson comes to our house.

 

AR the Blogger Boy

Just as I make “new best friends” everywhere I go, I find “new favorite blogs” almost every time someone mentions that he or she has started one.  Just this week, I’ve added Pardon Power, Our World in 3-D, and The A-train Journal.  Pardon Power is authored by P.S. Ruckman, a former student, and concerns presidential pardons; Our World in 3-D is Rodney Taylor’s blog, and like mine, concerns a little bit of everything; The A-train Journal is being written by Andrew Reed Waltrip and is a photo journal.

This morning when I checked my email, I found a message from Beth Waltrip, one of our best friends in Pensacola and the wife of our “son,” Andy, one of Jay’s best friends and one of “my boys.”  The purpose of Beth’s email today was to let friends know that Andrew Reed, her and Andy’s little 71/2 year old boy, is posting to his very own blog, The A-train Journal.

As soon as I read Beth’s note, I went to Andrew Reed’s blog.  What a work of art!  Since his momma’s a photographer, he’s already traveling with camera in hand and taking really good pictures.  GrammySandy, the name he gave me years ago when he was just a little boy, immediately posted a comment telling him how proud she is of him . . . especially of his composition skills and of his great vocabulary.  All of us bloggers love comments, so I know he’ll like hearing from me.

I also told him that I’m happy to see him calling himself a redneck.  The dictionary definition of a redneck isn’t very complimentary; however, people from parts other than the South have used the term about us for so long and so unkindly that we Southerners are tired of it and have decided among ourselves that it’s not such a bad term.  We like rednecks.  They’re good country people.  And little AR is a country boy.  He and his family live out from Pensacola in the Perdido area.  I love to go to their home because it’s so peaceful, a bit like our place out here in The Land of Enchantment, in solitude and quietness, that is.  In appearance, quite different . . . think “green, lush” when you try to get an idea of their place. 

I hope you’ll check my blogroll sometime and give yourself the pleasure of reading Andrew Reed’s blog and looking at his photos.  Tell him that you read about him on GrammySandy’s blog.  He’ll get a real kick out of that!

(Just a little aside . . . AR isn’t an only child.  He has a very creative, energetic, equally-as-handsome-as-he younger brother, Wil Tyler.  Someday I’ll write about him!)

 

 

Facebook, the Great Connector

Almost thirty of my friends on Facebook are former students.  The majority of them I have not seen since they graduated.  They are all dear to me in one way or another, but for today’s post, I have chosen to write about only three of them.  They just happen to be the three with whom I’ve been in touch the most recently.  If I know myself, I’ll wind up writing about everyone before my blogging days are over.  You’ve heard the expression “Let the buyer beware”; there’s another one—“Let the reader beware”—and I’m invoking the latter today.  Why?  Because this is one terribly long post.  Consider yourself warned!

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True confession—I have a MySpace place, but I much prefer Facebook.  MySpace is too hard for me.  I don’t know why.  Maybe the reason is that I haven’t really tried to learn how to use it and haven’t given it a chance.  One thing I didn’t like had nothing to do with my learning ability:  I didn’t like the query as to my mood for the day.  Silly, huh? 

Ordinarily, I don’t think of myself as having moods, so I don’t want to choose a mood for the day.  I’m certainly not a moody person, but I don’t guess being in a mood necessarily means being moody.  Today, for sure . . . I’m in a mood.  And what mood would that be, Mrs. Young?  Nostalgic, that’s what.  And why do you address yourself as “Mrs. Young,” to be pronounced “MizYoung” or better yet, something like “Mizzhung.”  Because my nostalgia is caused by former students, and these young people are the ones who, for the most part, pronounced my name that way. For thirty-two years, I was MizYoung to a host of teenagers, mostly at Woodham High School in Pensacola, Florida. 

 Thanks to Facebook, I have been reunited with many of these youngsters, some of whom are between the ages of 40 and 50.  To me, they’re still young.  Three of them are rooted so firmly in my mind and heart today that I’m impelled to write about them.  If they read this, they don’t need to worry about my telling any deep, dark secrets.  I doubt if I knew any back when I saw each of them every school day during their senior year, and even if I knew secrets back in 1986, 1979, and 1977, I wouldn’t remember them now.  You know the elderly and their memories!  And so to my Thursday nostalgia . . .

 

I’ll begin with the young man most recently my student, Todd Cathey, who was in my Advanced Placement English class in 1985-86.  Todd found me on Facebook earlier this year, and we’ve been playing catch-up ever since, especially during the past couple of days.  If any of you who are reading this are now teachers or were teachers in the past, you’ll understand when I say that teachers grab firmly to any compliments that they receive.  When I engage in this action, savoring every positive word aimed in my direction, I feel really guilty for not going back to my teachers to let them know what an impact they had on my life.  This is what Todd wrote on the “25 Things” questionnaire on Facebook, and I immediately got the big head: 

High school was so intellectually unchallenging for me that I missed half of my senior year from sheer ennui. AP English was the saving grace - and I'm not saying that just because Sandy Young is one of my friends on Facebook!

How I do love a big head! 

Two other reasons for Todd’s being on my mind today are his being an author and his connection to my boy.  He pointed me to a Web site called gather.com, where I was able to see his Web-published pieces.  I thoroughly enjoyed a story/memoir titled “It Was Always Tommy.”  I’d love to teach that story!  And then Todd mentioned Jay and how he found out about my boy’s death from Todd Laws, the drummer in Velvet Melon at that time, in a chance meeting at the airport . . . how shocked he was—as were we all.  This is what he told me about Jay:   “He'll forever be that vibrant young man, singing and playing his heart out and reaching for the stars.”  Thank you, Todd Cathey.  You have made my heart sing today.  I hadn’t forgotten you through the years, but I hadn’t thought of you for a while at the time that you found me on Facebook; however, I can assure you that you won’t be far away from my thoughts now.

The nostalgia for the next student has been building for weeks.  One Saturday evening just before I went to bed, I had two Facebook friend requests from former students from the Class of 1979.  In case you need math help . . . that’s 30 years ago!  Robert Sims and Candy Bellamy Carter found me, and I was ecstatic.  I could hardly sleep that night.  I’ve been in touch with both of them a lot during these weeks: with Robert mainly because of their Class Reunion this summer; with Candy because of so many things.  Today, I want to talk about Candy.  Robert will come in another post, I’m sure. 

Candy Bellamy . . . what a beautiful, smart, friendly young lady in my Honors English class from August 1978 to May 1979.  I remember her as an excellent English student and one of the few students through the years (few in comparison to the hundreds, maybe thousands, of young people that I taught) who actually wanted to get to know her teacher.  Candy and I became friends.  I’m sure that I, along with others during that year, was a bit disappointed that Candy wouldn’t go to The University of South Alabama the next year because she would marry Arthur Carter even before graduation since he was going into the Air Force and wouldn’t be back in the Pensacola area.  Adults shouldn’t be criticized for being doubtful about young people getting married this young because the track record for them isn’t all that good.  We didn’t need to worry.  The marriage of Candy and Arthur was meant to be, and none of us should have been overly concerned.  They are still happily married and will be celebrating their 30^th anniversary by spending five weeks in Europe this summer.  And by the way, Candy told me that she still uses the pie plate that I gave her as a wedding plate.  A pie plate!  It must have been a good one.  I just hope it was pretty, too.

Early in their married life, they were stationed in Germany; Candy tried to keep up with me while she was there, but I was a pitiful correspondent.  Just think . . . I could have been keeping up with Candy through all of these thirty years instead of just re-connecting lately if I had just answered her letters.  Yes, I have apologized, and she has graciously forgiven me.  Candy is another student who has heaped accolades on me, especially for making grammar finally make sense to her.  What a great compliment to one who became an English teacher largely because of being able to teach our language to teenagers and possibly helping them to love the language as much as I do.  Candy credits my grammar instruction with making it possible for her to learn the German language.  An English teacher’s dream is to be able to claim such credit! 

Candy is the first former student to share a certain happiness with me:  We are both grandmothers!  We have become such good friends because of Facebook, and once again I’m so thankful that I took the leap and joined.  By the way, envy is not a Christian virtue, but I’m certainly feeling a bit envious because of her trip in August!  Candy and I will not let ourselves get out of touch again. 

Isn’t it funny that memory can pick up on happenings from decades ago and transform them into nostalgia?  That’s exactly what has happened to me with a young man who must be at least close to 50 by now.  Pete Ruckman (AKA Peter Ruckman and P.S. Ruckman, but always Pete to me) graduated from Woodham High School in 1979, and I will never forget him . . . or his cohort, his “partner in crime,” Chris Tredway.  They were unstoppable and unpredictable.  Today’s post is just about Pete, though; maybe someday Chris will admit that he lives in the twenty-first century and join Facebook.  Then perhaps I’ll write just about him. 

Pete Ruckman . . . my goodness, what a character!  If you’re familiar with the USA Network, the expression “Characters welcome” won’t be unfamiliar.  Pete was truly a character, and he is truly welcome to my nostalgic mood today.  Unlike other students from long ago, Pete has almost always been within my reach.  I don’t know exactly how I knew where he was . . . maybe he dropped by school to keep me up to date.  I don’t know.  At some time, I found out that he was living in the Chicago area, teaching in Rockport, IL.  I always intended to get in touch with him when I’d go to Chicago for McDougal Littell sales meetings to see if he might come to see me, to let me take him and his family to dinner; however, deep down, I’m a bit shy, and I didn’t want to hear that he couldn’t come.  Pretty silly, now that I think about it.

Before I talk about having him in my College Prep class, let me hasten to say that Pete was an excellent student, a student who could do well with anything I was teaching but who could bring hilarity to the subject, making it fun for us.  I don’t necessarily mean fun for the whole class, but for the two of us.  Most of the time the fun was in writing because Pete was relatively quiet in class with just an occasional comment that would break us all up.  His sense of humor was wonderful but still in the developmental stages.  I noticed on his Facebook Profile that he belongs to a "sarcasm" group.  I'll bet that today both his humor and his sarcasm have fully flowered and are a work of art. I hope so, anyway.

I don’t always have very specific memories of students’ activities in my classroom, but Pete Ruckman was different.  I’m thinking of one day, probably on Thursday before research papers were due on Monday.  Pete spoke up and asked if the class could have an extension on the date.  I don’t know what happened to my head, or maybe my heart, but I gave them a few more days.  Before I knew what was happening, that young man was at the front of the room.  He grabbed my foot and kissed it . . . well, he didn’t literally kiss it.  He just pretended, but the class thought the action was real.  They cheered.  Another time, he saw me in the hall and fell down at my feet, probably begging for something.  What a character!  The last memory that I’ll mention is gleaned from my memory of a day shortly after the students received their yearbooks, the Mnemosyne.  My habit during those early years at Woodham , if a student happened to ask me to sign his or her yearbook, was merely to write something like “I enjoyed having you in class this year.  Have fun at college!  Come back to see me . . .”  Well, when I wrote this inane comment, or something similar in his book, Pete once again ran to the front of the room, this time to chastise me for not writing a more personal comment.  After all, we had enjoyed the year, and I should give him more than an enjoyed-the-year little nothing.  You guessed it . . . I wrote something with meaning.  This young man taught me a valuable lesson:  I needed to be able to think back over the year quickly and mention something personal in each student’s precious Mnemosyne . . . and that’s just what I did for the next 20 years.  For re-connecting actively with Pete Ruckman, thank you, Facebook.

I can’t believe that I forgot to tell you what these folks did after high school, what they’re doing now:

·      Todd lives in California and dubs himself  “musician by day, nurse by night.”  He’s a registered nurse who loves playing bass.  Check out this video, in which he’s playing in Seville Quarter with Joey Allred, Darin Boyd, and Mike Magno, original Velvet Melon members, along with Jay: http://www.youtube.com/solitaireg

·      Candy Carter went to law school, passed the bar, and became a lawyer.  After an automobile accident, she was left with disabilities that caused her to close her law practice.  She’s hopeful, though, to do some mediation work after updating certifications later this year.  She and Arthur have two sons and one granddaughter, Alli, the light of her life.

·      P.S. Ruckman is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rock Valley College in Rockford, IL.  He is married and has two little boys.  At the risk of sounding simplistic, I’d term Pete an expert in presidential pardons.  I’m sure I’m supposed to say that differently.  He has written a forthcoming book: Pardon Me, Mr. President: Adventures in Crime, Politics and Mercy.  Check out his blog at www.pardonpower.com.

Nostalgia is “a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past”  (The American College Dictionary). Today, nostalgia set in, and these three persons of the past, along with their situations, were very much a part of it.  I loved today, and I’m very much grateful to Facebook for re-connecting me with these young people, my link to a past made up of some of the best years of my life.

 

 

 

 

 

Blogging with the Stars

Earlier in the spring, I enrolled in a great online course called Blogging 101, offered through Editorial Freelancers Association.  Each Wednesday for the four weeks that the class lasted, we received a lesson.  As my friend Cecily used to say, “I waited with bait on my breath” for our teacher’s expertise, comments, advice to arrive via our class blog.  What a wealth of information and encouragement we received for four weeks!

 During those four weeks, we students also became friends via email, the class blog, and our personal blogs.  I added three  of my classmates’ blogs to my blogroll and check them periodically to see what they’ve written.

 Dee writes a blog all about Disney.  Honestly, she knows enough to write a veritable tome!  I don’t know how many times she’s visited both Land and World, but she’s headed back to Orlando in three months and three days.  On her blog, she writes about everything Disney, from clothes to characters to the monorail to . . . you name it, she writes about it.  What a fun blog!  (http://disneyholic-dee.blogspot.com/)

Laurel has become a true friend as a result of taking the course together.  She was the first person to encourage me to write a memoir.  She likes my voice!  There’s not a nicer compliment that another writer can give me than to say that I sound like a real person talking, and she doesn’t even know what I sound like.  Laurel is an editor by trade, and when I do write my memoir, I’ll hire her to edit for me.  She even offers classes over the phone to talk the will-be writer (her term . . . so much kinder than “wannabe writer,” which is the designation that I usually give myself) through her book.  Because of the suggestions for writers in her blog, I have unsubscribed to my subscription to a professional help-for-writers company and use her posts for my personal writing advice.  (http://yourbookyourself.blogspot.com/)

 Michelle’s blog is about language . . . about funny things that she’s heard and/or read, things she’s said herself that brought the house down, anything “quirky” (her word) about language.  So you know I love this blog.  She makes me wish that I’d kept a journal of all the funny things that my students said and wrote during my thirty-two years in the classroom.  I could write a book or two or three, I’m sure.  I read Michelle’s blog for my language fix!  (http://linguabrava.wordpress.com/)

 Each of these bloggers is a person to be admired for her writing ability, her dedication to the “cause” of good blogging, and her willingness to share thoughts with fellow bloggers through comments on blogs. Each one is a star in my estimation.  Each of them commented on my posts, encouraging me to write a memoir, and one day I'll so just that.  I am indebted to them, and I’ve told them so!  

 

 

Sexagenarian Sandy

Now don’t get all hot and bothered.  I’m not getting ready to write about a very personal aspect of  my life.  Wild horses couldn’t drag that info from this old lady.  A sexagenarian is simply a person between the ages of 60 and 69, and 69 is exactly what I became on Wednesday, May 6, 2009.  Next year, I won't be one, so I feel compelled--by what I don't know--to write about these past years.

 My official entry to the sexagenarian decade came in 2000.  I remember having thoughts about that far away year when I was a child.  Surely no one would even be alive then!  The twenty-first century?  Impossible!  But the century changed, and so did my life, mostly for the better and crammed with lots of fun:

 

·   September 11, 2001 changed everyone’s life, not just mine.  I was at a McDougal Littell sales meeting in Chicago when disaster struck our country.  Thank goodness, I didn’t know anyone personally in the towers or on the other planes, but I knew people who knew people.  Every American and many others all over the world grieved for America.  Since all of the airlines closed down, we attendees in Chicago got on chartered buses and headed home in all different directions.  Maybe someday I'll write about that experience, complete with pictures.

·   In June 2003, Frank and I, somewhat like the Beverly Hillbillies, packed up everything and moved west . . . to Cerrillos, New Mexico.  Could a sixty-three-year-old Florida girl from a relatively large city find happiness in a village of 200, where she knew no one?  Would she ever have friends?  Oh, yes, think "yes" to both of those questions.  We love our new digs, and we have friends galore.  At Frank’s 75^th birthday party on September 14, 2008, about 125 of our closest friends and family joined us for the celebration.  Happiness abounds at Two Rocks and a Hubcap!  The name for our home is fodder for another post.

·   Also in June 2003, my McDougal Littell friends in Florida gave me the big retirement send-off, thinking they’d never see me again unless I made a pilgrimage back to Florida or they made the long trek to New Mexico.  Retirement didn’t last long for me . . . 79 days, to be exact.  I just couldn’t bear the thought of these little schools out here not having someone visit them to sell them the new textbooks.  So I became a per diem consultant sometime in September or October of 2003, traveling the highways and byways of New Mexico for the next five plus years and enjoying every minute (well, almost every minute) of my time with teachers.  For one year—the 2004-05 school year—I was the sales rep for our state.  I loved that year!  I’m much better at sales repping than I am at being a per diem.

·   The fall of 2004 saw the organization of our Bible Study group in Cerrillos.  Every Sunday morning, Frank leads our study, and I make sweet biscuits for our fellowship time.  One of our members, Glenn, devours so many that we have re-named them Glenn Biscuits in his honor.  We gather each Sunday from 8:30-9:00 at Wendy and Todd’s house in Cerrillos for study, spend another hour in fellowshipping, and then Frank and I head to Santa Fe to Rodeo Road Baptist Church for worship.  Appropriately, Wendy has named our group The Renegade Bible Study because we are something of a rebel group.  We’re a bunch of Christians who love the Lord and love to study His Word, but we’re not associated with any denomination, though I’ll have to admit, Frank and I are such died-in-the-wool Baptists that our beliefs creep in.  If they go too far, though, our friends are quick to rebel.  You see?  We’re renegades.

·   The fall of 2004 also saw the biggest blessing of our lives since 1986.  Wendy was pregnant again.  Corey was born in the fall of 1987 (on Halloween!), and Jackson would come in the spring of 2005.  He arrived on May 21, just three days before Wendy’s 42^nd birthday.  We never thought we’d have more than one grandchild, and that was fine with us because we love Corey so much; however, with the addition of Jackson (named for Frank and Jay), we found that we had a whole “nother” heart full of love to shower on a grandchild.  We are doubly blessed!

·   June of 2006 brought one of the most exciting months of our lives:  Corey graduated from Santa Fe High, and the next day we left for a three-week tour of Europe visiting our European family in Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Holland, and England.  No room for details here.  Just know that we visited all of our “daughters,” one “son,” and “sisters and brothers” that we have accumulated during the past twenty plus years and that it was our Dream Vacation.  I wrote a book of pictures and memories when I got home and sent each one a copy.  What fun I had in getting this thank-you gift ready for them.  I think they liked my gift. 

·   The travel bug really bit us that year, and in 2007 we were still feeling the bite and headed across the Atlantic for  another three-week trip, this time to Ukraine to visit Irina and her family.  Another great trip with all of our time in Kiev, at the home of the Andrushenkos (my favorite part!), and on the beaches of Yalta.  We have been truly blessed by friendships with so many Europeans.  I can’t imagine our lives without them.  As many of you know, Irina is truly like a daughter to us, and we love her parents and sister for being so willing to share her.

·   I’ve already mentioned Frank’s Big Birthday Bash in 2008, but I didn’t tell you that about twenty of those in attendance were his brothers, sister, nieces, nephew, one sister-in-law, and cousins from all over the U.S. (Washington, California, Montana, Connecticut, Florida, Maine), plus friends from Mississippi, Georgia, and Croatia.  We hosted the first Young Family Reunion since 1940.  It was right here at our house in Cerrillos.  What a grand time we had!  Someday I’ll write a post about it.  Just a couple of things right now, though:  Everyone sent old family pictures, and Wendy made a lovely slideshow for us; Bob rode his motorcycle from Florida to NM; several of our neighbors opened up their homes to our family so that they could stay out here instead of in a hotel in Santa Fe.  Our friends Ivana and Andrea from Croatia stayed a bit longer than others because they had come such a great distance.  Andrea went home after a week, but Ivana stayed for two weeks, and there wasn’t a minute of dead air the whole time she was here.  I even took her on the road with me because I had to go back to work.  She was great company and a tremendous assistant!

 

And now I’m to 2009, right now.  The biggest event of 2009 for me is that I’m getting ready to hang up the van keys for good.  When I first mentioned that I’d retire at the end of the school year, many friends and family members said, “Yeah, right.  You’ve said that before, but we know you’ll never retire.”  I assured them that this time I would.  I don’t think they knew how smothered it made me feel when they doubted me.  What if they were right and I really wouldn’t leave the company?  What if I’d be leaving home at oh-dark-thirty, heading for Roswell before my eyes were really focused just so that I could be there to talk to a teacher during her planning period at 8:30 for the rest of my life?  I wanted out.  I wanted to stay at home, not to be a couch potato, but to work with Grace in her editing business, to get myself on a writing schedule, to be here for Frank, to play with Jackson whenever I jolly well pleased.  When they doubted me, I just wanted to scream!  Without going into the negative thoughts that I've sometimes had about the company that I’ve worked for for the past couple of years, I’ll just say that I’m ready to “be shed of” it.  I’ve loved the people that I work with, just not the company in general.  If our company had remained just plain old McDougal Littell, instead of the merged company that it now is, I'd probably have worked till I dropped, but I didn't need to do that.  Just as I didn't want to teach so long that someone discovered me dead in the classroom one morning, hunkered over a set of papers that I had been grading, I didn't want to be found on the side of Hwy 285, doing my best to make that early  appointment, eyes still glued to the road and hands cemented to the steering wheel of my old red van.  

So . . . I’m beginning my last year as a sexagenarian with a smile on my face and lots of goals in mind.  I just love a new beginning! 

 

 

The Twenty-first Century, Here I Come!

A few weeks ago, Jackson, our almost-four-year-old grandson, came to spend the night with us because his mom and dad were really under the weather with the New Mexico crud and allergies. He was so excited about staying all night with Grammy and Pop, and needless to say, we were elated to have him.

During the early evening, he was fine as he ate dinner, chatted with us, punched holes in paper; I think we even watched one of his videos. As bedtime grew near, however, he started talking about going home to sleep. We tried talking to him about how sick his folks were, but nothing comforted him: he wanted to go home. I thought maybe putting his pajamas on him and reading a story would help, but it didn’t. The tears came, and my heart broke. He wanted to talk to his mommy.

I made the call; Wendy tried to convince him that he was a big boy and would be just fine. Their being ill didn’t impress him one bit. Frank was sympathetic with the little fellow, but I was empathetic. I could put myself in his place because flashes of my childhood kept coming back to me. When I was a child, I absolutely would not spend the night away from home. I got so homesick for my mother that she would have to come to get me, sometimes at 2:00 in the morning, even if I was just next door. Homesickness is the sickest sick in the world, and my heart went out to little Jackson!

We all knew that he would stay with us, but getting him to sleep was quite a problem. We read his favorite book twice; I lay down with him for about fifteen minutes; he assured me that he’d be okay. Just as I pulled the covers up when I finally went to our bedroom, he began to cry again. Sigh! It would be one of “them nights.”

When I went back to Jackson’s room to try to convince him that he could go to sleep, that everything would be fine, that pretty soon he’d wake up to a brand new day (his term for the next morning), he looked up at me with those big teary blue eyes and very solemnly said, “Grammy, if I could just listen to your iPod, I think I could go to sleep.”

Imagine his surprise when I told him, “Jackson, Grammy doesn’t have an iPod.”

“You DON’T?” He was amazed. Everyone has an iPod in his little world, maybe even more than one.

Did Jackson ever go to sleep without music, without an iPod? Oh, yes . . . after I lay down again with him for about 30 minutes, this time not getting up until I knew that he was asleep.

And just why have I written about this important event in my life? I just want everyone to know that I have truly entered the twenty-first century because of a little boy with a broken heart, a little boy who is my heart. Never again will he wish for an iPod at our house. I now have a lovely little turquoise iPod Nano. It really is neat, and I think I’ll even use it for my own entertainment, not just for Jackson’s.

Just Talk Through Your Fingers!

I became an English teacher for two reasons, one of which is the main reason that most people choose to enter the profession, one of which is something that many would just as soon not have anything to do with: I love to read, and I wanted to lead young people to be lifelong readers; I also loved grammar, the study of language and how it works and wanted my students to share my love. You may notice that I mentioned nothing about loving to write and being eager to teach my students to be good writers. The truth is that I never enrolled in any writing classes past the mandatory Freshman Composition. My college, from 1958 to 1964, didn’t offer any courses in writing except one semester of creative writing. I had no desire to write short stories or poetry, so I shied away from that elective.

For about twenty-two of my thirty-two years in the classroom, I struggled with teaching writing and with getting students interested in writing. Oh, I could teach them the five-paragraph essay in the inverted pyramid form, but I couldn’t get them to be enthusiastic about writing, not even about persuasive papers in which they could promote their biases.

After I participated in a writing workshop one summer, led by three teachers from Ft. Walton Beach, FL, I discovered what my problem was: I didn’t like to write, so I couldn’t instill a love of writing in my students. During those two weeks in 1986, when my “new best friends” presented us with activity after activity intended to help students become better writers and to enjoy writing, I became a better writer who could hardly wait to get her fingers on the keyboard.

Two truths that I brought from the workshop into my classroom were that I needed to write with my students to show them that I loved to write and that I had to find my voice before I could teach my charges to find theirs. I had always thought the third-person approach to writing stilted and wanted to get away from it, but I almost had the idea that writing in any other point of view was practically illegal. I know that’s crazy; however, in composition classes, I had always been taught that using first person was a no-no.

Early August in 1986 found me breaking in my students with one of my new activities: I know, I think, I wonder. On the very first day, after I had given my annual this-is-how-things-are-done-in-Mrs. Young’s-classroom speech, I had them write this very informal assignment addressing what I had just told them. I loved reading these journal-type pieces in which they let me know what they knew about my expectations, what they thought about them, and what they still wondered about Old Lady Young’s class.

Through that first year of my new approach to writing, I wrote along with my students. Sometimes they liked what I wrote; sometimes they didn’t. I had found my voice: I sounded like myself, and that’s just what I wanted. Now my job was to help my students find theirs.

They balked at leaving their comfortable third-person voices, voices in which they didn’t have to expose themselves because they were just spitting out what someone else thought, whether they were writing literary essays or research papers. I was asking them to have original ideas and to talk to each other and to me about them. I had to un-teach what my friends had been drilling into their little heads for years. Each year, including the first, I would walk slowly to the door of my classroom, close it, and say, “We need to talk.” Then I’d begin my teaching of voice, telling them that I expected them to use I in many of their papers during their senior year. They wrote the occasional essay in which I required them to write in third person just so that they wouldn’t be lost in college. But for the most part, they used first person. One year, a girl who had rebelled against first person all year wanted to write her autobiography in third person. Oh, brother!

Though at times I wanted to throw my hands up in frustration, teaching students to talk to the paper through their fingers, either with pen in hand or on a computer, was one of the most rewarding things I ever did in the classroom. If teaching voice were the only thing I had to do there today, I’d go back in a heartbeat.

(If teaching English happens to be something you’re interested in, you might want to check out my post on October 16, 2008, another adventure in first person.)

Music and a Mom

Frank and I had been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks. Every night, as we watched our favorite shows—CSI, NCIS, The Mentalist, Eleventh Hour, and other such gory, yet interesting and entertaining, programs—we’d see the promo and determine that we’d watch. So the closer it got to 7:00 last night, the more excited we became, and at 6:55 we changed the channel from CMT, where we were watching O, Brother, Where Art Thou?, to CBS so that we could settle in for an evening of the Country Music Awards.

If a person has to be a redneck to like country music, then just call me a redneck. Reba McEntire was the host. She’s such a cute little country girl who’s made it big. I haven’t really followed her career closely because I’m not a person who follows the careers of entertainers; however, I remember how my heart hurt for her when, in the spring of 1991, seven of her band members and her manager were killed in a plane crash. I wondered how she would ever recover from such a tragedy and whether or not she’d get on with her career. I don’t know that she recovered, but she managed to get through, and she certainly has gotten on with her career. At the time of the crash, our son was still alive and playing with his band, Velvet Melon. I remember that he suggested that he and the guys in the band apply for the jobs of Reba’s “Crazy Eight,” as she referred to her band. Jay was only half kidding: he was a very confident, charismatic young man who never saw his dreams as impossible.

Anyway, we loved watching such stars as George Strait, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flats, Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley, and lots of others perform. The female stars were especially stunning in their sparkly dresses—some long, some short, some exceptionally revealing, but all beautiful. Brad Paisley opted not to be in Las Vegas in person because his wife, Kimberly, was practically to the giving-birth stage with their second child. What a great husband!

Both Frank and I teared up as we watched star after star accept awards and give credit for their success to friends, family, and God. The whole evening was very emotional but lots of fun. Probably one of the main reasons that it was emotional for me was that I could picture Jay winning awards someday had he lived, not in country music but in rock music. (For more about Jay, see posts from July 2, 2007, and February 10, 2008.) He would have been a star. As I watched Carrie Underwood’s mother hug her every time she won an award, my heart soared for her mom because I could see Frank and me sitting next to Jay at some celebration, hugging him every time his name was called. I know I’m a dreamer, but moms are supposed to dream, especially about the success of their boys.

Breakfast in the Boonies

If you were to drive South on Gold Mine Road just outside Cerrillos, NM, you’d swear that Frank and Sandy live in the big middle of nowhere almost all by themselves. You’d see a house now and then, nestled down among the junipers and pinon or up on the ridge of a hill; however, you’d never guess that there are hundreds of people far off the road, so far that they’re considered “off the grid,” meaning that they have solar power for their electricity. We do live in the big middle of nowhere, but we definitely have neighbors.

When our Russian daughter’s mother visited us, she was very much concerned by our lack of neighbors because, as she said, “What happens when you need to borrow a cup of sugar?” Not important to us—we shop at Sam’s Club and have a pantry stocked well enough to feed the proverbial army. Borrowing from neighbors isn’t really a priority to us; however, being in touch with them is. And just how do we connect? In lots of ways, most of which I’ll write about later. One of the best ways that we’ve found is through The Alternative Builders’ Breakfast Club, known today as simply Breakfast Club.

Back in 1992, five of the ladies out here in our hills decided to form a group that would meet monthly to discuss innovative projects, specifically the things that they were doing on their property to make their lives easier, to conserve energy, to live off the land as much as they could. These ideas included such things as hay-bale construction, fences made of aluminum cans, solar power, lots and lots of other ideas, most of which I don’t even know. In addition to their discussions, they, naturally, included breakfast goodies. What’s a meeting without food, huh? I imagine that they invited other neighbors to join them on the first Saturday of each month, going to different people’s houses and having everyone take a “covered dish” to the designated house. Three of the original ladies still live in the ‘hood, but only one is still active—Annie Whitney, our very efficient and very much loved organizer and group leader. Annie deserves a post all her own, and she’ll get one soon.

Today, instead of 5 neighbors gathering on the first Saturday, we now have anywhere from 50 to 100 folks eagerly heading to someone’s house for a morning of catching up on the news and stuffing themselves with some of the best cooking in these parts. Though we still talk about innovative projects (in the twenty-first century, you’re likely to hear lots of exchanging of ideas about Internet connections and other such ultra-modern topics), you might hear just as much about grandchildren, travels abroad, and recipes. We have a wonderful time, and since Frank and I love a party, especially if it’s at our house, we have hosted Breakfast Club twice: the first time in July 2005; the second, last Saturday. I tried to count the number present, but it was impossible because our friends kept moving from the
 kitchen to the Two Rocks and a Hubcap Music Hall (explanation to follow in another post), also known as the company room. I believe, though, that there were about 60 in attendance.

Even though Frank and I are the hosts at our house, we manage to flit around enough to visit with lots of our friends. Most of the people in attendance on Saturday are special friends whom we’ve known most of the time that we’ve lived in New Mexico; however, many new folks were here, too. We collect “new best friends,” and I added all of them to our email list for invitations to our concerts, Frank’s birthday party, and our Christmas Open House. As I said earlier, we do love a party, and we had a glorious time on Saturday.

Here are a couple of photos from Breakfast Club: Tom Fulker, Annie’s husband; and our daughter and son –in-law, Wendy Young and Todd Yocham. You have an open invitation to come to our get-together on the first Saturday of any month!

Online Courses and Blogging 101

Most of you know how much I love to go to school, whether it be attending and learning or teaching and learning. In the past year, I've discovered online courses, and I thoroughly enjoy them. First, I took "Essentials of Copyediting," in which I discovered that editing (my soon-to-be new profession) is not much like grading papers. Then I enrolled in "Fundamentals of Technical Writing." Wow! What an eye-opener that was! I learned lots and felt really stupid from time to time. Now I'm taking "Grammar Refresher," the third online course through the ed2go program at UNM. This one, so far, is not very interesting. The teacher of the copyediting course warned me that it would be a "baby" course, but did I listen? No. So here I am learning what subjects and predicates are. Not very stimulating yet, but maybe it'll get better.

Sometime last fall, I looked at a list of courses offered by EFA (Editorial Freelancer's Association), of which I am a member. I found my dream-come-true course: Blogging 101. You know that I love blogging, but I know that I'm not very much dedicated and go for months without writing anything. That's about to change because I have to commit to writing a certain number of posts each week for the next four weeks. I'm hoping that I'll get addicted to writing on/in (which is it?) my blog, just what I planned for myself when I began blogging in 2007. Guess I just need someone to crack the whip! We have a great teacher, and I love her already! Teachers are almost always my favorite people, but she just seems special, so personal.

I'm so excited because one of my classmates wrote to me, after I posted an introduction, that I should write a memoir, which is exactly what I've been planning to write for years. Just recently, I've become more excited about memoir writing because of editing Joyce Adrian's memoir and because of reading RoseAnne Coleman's memoir, The Stories I Keep. (Joyce is our cousin in Maine, and RoseAnne is a longtime friend from Pensacola.)

Anyway . . . I'll close with my "Introduction to Sandy Young" that I posted for our class:

Hi,classmates! Do you remember how exciting the first day of school was when you were a child, even a teenager? If you were ever a teacher, you remember that same feeling. The euphoria usually fizzled by second period, but you had that heart-thumping feeling for a while anyway. That first-day-of-school excitement is just what I'm experiencing right now. And to think that my classmates are all of you . . . you who come to this class with loads of experience in writing, editing, working in the corporate world, living with technology all around you. I'll be able to absorb some of your knowledge, and I'm honored to be able to learn from you and with you as Rebecca (already I know that she's a great teacher!) leads us through Blogging 101. Sorry . . . I just had to tell you this before introducing myself. My background is quite different from yours.

WHO I AM
I graduated from college with both a B.A. and an M.A. in English, all set to go out into the wide world to teach high school English. And that's just what I did for 32 years, most of those years in Pensacola, FL. Yes, I was in the classroom with 35 - 40 teenagers, mainly seniors, every hour of the school day. And I loved it. However, when I was in my mid-fifties, I decided to see if I could do something else before being put out to pasture. I became a sales rep for a publishing company for seven years, retiring in 2003, never to lug another book or talk my way past a secretary again. My husband and I moved to Cerrillos, NM, to be near our daughter and her family. I stayed retired for 79 days before going back to work for the same publisher, doing essentially the same job--driving about 1000 miles a week, lugging books from my van to the schools, getting to know secretaries in hopes that they'd let me see teachers even if I had arrived when they were in class, presenting my books to teachers trying to convince them that they should adopt and purchase them, feeling tired but very much satisfied at the end of the day because I am still in the education business and helping students by selling excellent textbooks for them to use. I just don't have to discipline teenagers or grade their papers. Now I'm ready to really retire and get serious about working with my friend Grace in her editing business. Just a minute . . . I thought I didn't want to grade papers. Guess it's that full circle thing! Seriously, though, editing isn't very much like grading papers. It's much more intense. Never thought I'd say that anything was more intense than grading papers, but what did I know?

WHY I'M TAKING BLOGGING 101
I'm a relatively new member of EFA, having joined sometime last fall. Grace, my editing partner, encouraged me to join so that I, too, could see the job listings that she was receiving. We've applied for some of them but haven't had much success with landing anything. I discovered, however, the classes offered by EFA and was immediately interested in some of them, especially Blogging 101. I'm very much interested in blogging, but I realize that I don't know much about it. I also saw that blogs can be a way to round up customers for our editing business. Ever since I heard of blogs, probably in 2005 or so, I've wanted to be a blogger. And I already am one, just not a very good one. So . . . I'm here with an open mind and heart, eager to be a good blogger!

WHAT MY BLOG IS LIKE
Yes, I have a blog, and I love writing on it. My problem is that I'm not very well disciplined and tend to write only on important days. A friend walked me through the steps of setting up my blog on Blogger sometime in the fall of 2006. I finally got up the nerve to open it up and write a little silly piece in the summer of 2007, just to see if I could do it. As you can see, I'm not very brave when it comes to technology. Then, on the morning of July 2, 2007, I awakened in a blue funk, feeling myself go down in that grief pit that I didn't want to enter. That day was the 15th anniversary of our son's death, and I usually spent Jay's "death day" just missing him. Instead of doing that, though, I got myself together, headed for the computer, and wrote to my heart's content about my boy, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, but feeling ever so much better when I finished. I then sent emails to lots of his friends,asking them to read what I had written. Many of them did, and then they wrote to me, telling me how much they still missed him and what a fantastic character he was. Blogging and emails made my day! I've even had a magazine to pick up a piece that I wrote about Jay and publish it in their December 2008 issue. So . . . because of my blog, I'm a published author. To an old retired English teacher, being published is icing on the cake of retirement.

I apologize for the length of Introducing Sandy Young. I always have a difficult time getting started with writing and an even harder time stopping.

Sandy
www.foreveryoung279.blogspot.com


I'll try to make my posts during the class shorter. I know you don't have all day to laze around in my blog.

Forty-Seven Years and Counting

Forty-seven years ago today in Pensacola, the weather was bright and sunny, warm enough for Mother to go to the church to be sure that the air-conditioner was turned on for the festivities at 3:00 P.M. I was filing my fingernails and giggling with my soon-to-be sister-in-law, just killing time until noon, when I would start getting ready for the most exciting day yet in my short twenty-one years. Mother found a few minutes of privacy with me just to check to be sure that I knew the "facts of life." Fine time to check. I assured her that I did, not letting her know that what I really knew was just a bit more than that the stork delivered babies. Just kidding. I was a little more knowledgeable than that, but no more details on this subject!

Nineteen sixty-one was a long time ago, but I remember lots of details, such as the following:

--The owner of the bridal shop where we bought my dress ($50 and gorgeous) came to the church to help me get dressed.
--I dressed in the balcony of Brownsville Baptist Church.
--The pictures taken with my mother and dad are priceless and precious. The look in Daddy's eyes said, "I love you more than words can tell, little girl." How I wish I could re-live those moments alone with my parents!
--Frank and I smiled and smiled as I walked down the aisle. He looked so handsome in the only tux that fit. The groomsmen all had something wrong with their tuxedos because the person who placed the order for them at the shop in Pensacola just didn't believe the measurements that Frank sent in for them.
--Brother Dodson, our minister, called me Sandra, but that was okay if that's what it took to make our marriage official.
--Frank wouldn't tell me ahead of time whether or not he would kiss me at the end of the ceremony. He did. I was happy!
--The reception was lovely, very old-fashioned by today's standards, with a receiving line, cake, and punch. Very traditional and beautiful, held in our church dining hall.
--The groomsmen painted my parents' new white Oldsmobile with black shoe polish, forcing them to get a paint job later.
--They also painted my 1959 Ford with white shoe polish, which came off in a car wash.
--We drove to Chipley, FL, less than a hundred miles from Pensacola. We found one restaurant open that Sunday night, had a nice nervous dinner, and backed into a pine tree outside the restaurant when we finished. Very embarrassing for Frank.
--My dad had recommended the Chipley Motel, where he stayed while traveling in his job, so that's where we stayed that first night of married life. I forgot my toothbrush, and nothing was open where we could buy one. I used Frank's. That's a bit too intimate, isn't it? No more information about that first night except to say that the years have been good to us. You can figure that one out!

Today, December 17, 2008, is somewhat different from that same day of the year in 1961. We aren't turning the air-conditioner on this bright sunshiny day; instead, we're loving the snow, some of which has accumulated, some of which has melted. More on the way tonight. No more sitting around filing my nails and giggling with Sally. Instead, Frank and I are both in the kitchen getting ready for our big Christmas Open House here in Cerrillos, NM, a place where you'd never have convinced me forty-seven years ago that I'd live someday. On that day so many years ago, I'd hardly been west of the Mississippi River and certainly didn't have any idea that I'd live anywhere except the Deep South. But here we are in our retirement home, just about five minutes from Wendy and her family and as happy as can be. Of course, we still love each other; however, even more important . . . we still like each other. Pretty neat, huh?

Enough reminiscing for now. Back to the kitchen. Gumbo and cookies call!

The Reading Anthology

Sometime in August, I went to Dubuque, IA, to conduct an inservice session on Conversation Circles. During the inservice, I mentioned a project that I used to do with my seniors at Woodham High School in Pensacola. I've mentioned this project, The Reading Anthology, in several presentations/inservices, but no one has ever asked me for instructions. Three middle school teachers in Dubuque wanted to know how to do the project. The following is a pretty much lame attempt to inform them. This may not be very interesting reading if you're not an English teacher, so don't feel obligated . . .




How I wish that I had kept the disk that had all of the instructions on it! I’ll try to reconstruct what I did a dozen years ago. Here’s a little background first:

One evening in 1990 (or thereabouts), I decided to look through old issues of The English Journal, my favorite “teacher” book, but one that I had neglected for several months because of the mounds of papers that needed grading. The EJ had always been my source for new ideas, ideas that I usually tweaked to make my own. Because of my “borrowing” from this periodical so much, I would later refer to myself as a copycat teacher. Very true!

As I sat cross-legged on the floor of my office, I happened upon one particular EJ that changed my teaching life forever. I had always thought that students should have a definite say in what they read. A teacher never gave me that opportunity, and I wanted my students to be able to choose. But I was at a loss as to how they could do that and still have the kids read quality literature. I hope that somewhere in boxes out in our storage building I still have that particular issue, but I doubt it. Anyway, as I thumbed through the issue (probably somewhere between 1988 and 1990), one article almost literally jumped out at me. It was by Anne McCrary Sullivan, a teacher in Texas, and was titled “The Reading Anthology,” or something similar to that.

I fell in love with the assignment immediately because Anne had opted to give her students literature types to read, but she let the students choose the specific titles. Why couldn’t I have thought of that? I’m no dummy. Maybe I didn’t think of it because the Lord meant for me to meet Anne in person. My detective skills kicked in, and I found her. It wasn’t easy, but I did it, and I think it was in 1992 that she and I finally got together at NCTE. There’s quite a story in our meeting, but what you want to know is how to do the assignment.

Now to the instructions. I’m going to give them to you in bulleted format, just suggesting some things that you might want to do. Before beginning, however, let me remind you that I taught high school seniors, and I required of them much more than you’ll want to require of middle school students. The assignment can be done with any grade level and any ability level, as long as the number of selections and the depth of writing are adjusted.

• Before assigning The Reading Anthology (through the years, my assignment came to be known as The Dreaded Anthology, mainly because seniors like to gripe), write the assignment in an enthusiastic manner so that students see that they’re in control and that the assignment can be fun and meaningful. They’ve never been able to choose their own literature before. This may be a problem for some of them, but you’ll encourage them and make them see that they can do this. If the three of you are working on this together and can get together to agree on what to assign in the way of types of lit, I think you’ll enjoy the project more. I was a “voice crying in the wilderness,” and many times I wished for a companion teacher just to bounce ideas off; however, I’m pretty much a loner in most teaching, so I did fine. Good instructions are a must! You may have to adjust the assignment as you progress the first time, but the students will like that because most of the time, your adjustments will make the assignment easier for them. Seniors are probably more devious than middle school students, so you may not have this particular problem: three of my boys decided to sabotage my beautiful assignment by twisting my words to mean something other than what they meant to me. I have to admit that they were successful to some degree; however, I found ways to lower their grades because of their mis-interpretations. They didn’t really win, but I re-worded instructions the next year.
• The following are the categories and number of selections that they had to read: Southern novel (1), British novel (1), Southern short stories (3), British short stories (3), poems (10) [the second year, I changed this to (5) for my survival], young adult novel (1), children’s story (1), cartoons (5), magazine article (1) . . . I think there were other categories, but I’m drawing a blank right now. Remember that my students were seniors; be sure to adjust the types of literature and the numbers of selections that they have to read. Don’t make an assignment that will suffocate them. Give them plenty of time to read and write.
• And now to the writing: My students had specific instructions for the essays that they’d write about each type of literature. The essays that they wrote were definitely personal, very much informal, but with definite guidelines. I’m sure you have your own instructions for writing about fiction and nonfiction. Just be sure that the instructions are not onerous. You want the students to enjoy writing about the selections that they’ve chosen. Don’t make the assignments too long because YOU must read and evaluate them.

Here are a couple of other things that I had my students do:

• Every Thursday after I made the assignment, they had to turn in a memo to me. I just had them use a regular memo form. The first paragraph was a summary of the kinds of reading that they had done during the week. The second was a comment on what they liked and/or didn’t like in their reading. And the third was a projection as to what they’d do during the next week. Frequently, a student would come to me bemoaning the fact that he or she didn’t like his or her selections for the anthology. My reply? ABANDON! Do not read something that you wouldn’t want to include in a book that you’re putting together! Occasionally, a student would bound into the room announcing, “I’ve abandoned that short story, Mrs. Young!” And we’d all cheer!
• I also had the students do double-entry journals for novels and short stories. You’ve probably done this before, maybe using a different title for the assignment. The students had to quote sections of the selections and comment on them . . . sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, often questioning the passages. This was always one of my favorite assignments in the classroom. I can’t remember how many I required, maybe seven or so from a novel and three to five from a short story. Frequently their comments were a page or so long.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I evaluated an assignment of such magnitude. Believe me, I made it fairly easy for myself by creating a good rubric beforehand. The students had a copy of this. The main ingredient that I looked for in the assignment was their real reaction to the literature. I also evaluated them on how well they followed my instructions and whether or not they read and wrote about the full number of required readings. You’ll have to determine all of this for yourselves, though. Make this YOUR assignment!

I never marked anything on their finished product because it’s an assignment that they’ll be proud of and will want to keep. I made copies of the rubric and wrote on that for each student, mentioning page numbers in their “books.” Grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc., were important but not the deciding factor on the excellence of their anthologies.

I gave extra credit to students who made a copy of their anthologies for me to keep to show students the next year. Don’t let them give you their original because you’ll want them to keep them. Their parents will want them to keep them, too. Will it be a problem for middle school students to use computers for their final copies? I doubt it.

Have I told you enough? Have I overwhelmed you? I do hope that each of you will make The Reading Anthology an assignment that both you and your students can enjoy. Please be sure to let me know whether or not you choose to do this and how everything turns out. I’m eager to hear!

Every Day Is Saturday

As of Friday, October 10, every day is Saturday to me. Yep . . . I received my “walking papers” from dear old Holt McDougal on that day. I should say that I received my “sitting papers.” Sandy won’t be traveling until January, if then.

The pitiful economy has caught up with the publishing companies, at least with the publishing company for which I work. Ask me if I’m sad. The answer: a resounding NO! The only thing that makes me sad is that I won’t be earning any money while I sit at home. Since I still haven’t been paid for the first week in August, all I can say is “So what’s new?” My constant theme song is “Maybe a check will come today!”

Enough sarcastic comments! I enjoy my job and hope to get back to work in January. In the meantime, I have plans. Nothing’s definite yet, but the following are some projects that I’m considering, some that I’m looking forward to and some that I’d rather skip:

• The number one project that I don’t want to do is some much-needed housecleaning. I have “glory holes” galore (these are cluttered areas like drawers and closets, according to my mother-in-law, Elsa Young) that are much in need of attention. Baseboards are crying for cleaning, and the mice have chewed their way into countless bags of dry foods in the pantry, so I could spend days in that closet just finding more things to throw away. We’ve gotten rid of the mice, but evidence of their busy-ness is still around. I had to make cornbread from scratch today because they’d been nibbling on my Marie Calendar’s mix. Now, that’s a shame!

• Years ago, when I first started my career in the publishing business, Frank took over almost all the cooking. I’d call him every evening, mouth watering, just waiting for his description of what he’d had for dinner. He’s a fantastic cook! But I fear that a project that will fall on my shoulders virtually every day is thinking up the meals and preparing them. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate this project; I just don’t look forward to tackling it every day. I think my sweetheart will pull his weight from time to time, especially when he wants something really scrumptious and/or exotic. I’m a “meat and potatoes” cook. Frank will help with cooking more than I’ll help with building the garage, I assure you.

• Getting away from the negativity, I’ll address the positives . . . the projects that I look forward to. Almost at the moment that Scott, the rep for whom I work, gave me the news about my job, I said to myself, “Well, this gives me time to write! And who knows, maybe the Lord is telling the old lady that it’s time to hang up the van keys permanently.”

• So what kinds of writing to I want to do? Well, here I am writing on my blog for the first time since July, when I wrote about Jay. On January 1, 2008, I wrote that I might do some scribbling every day in 2008. Obviously, I’ve missed the mark, but I can get back to writing every once in a while since I don’t have to be on the road, in schools, making presentations, conducting inservices. I look forward to “talking” on my computer.

• One of my good friends, Grace Hollen, is encouraging me to look into editing as a new profession. I’m investigating the possibilities; however, I’m not sure that grading papers for thirty-two years will qualify me for anything. People usually want proof of experience before hiring anyone for editing. I’m afraid my resume isn’t very impressive. But I may try this!

• I just found a Writing Workshop through Writer’s Digest that sounds very interesting to me, and I may sign up for it: Scrapbook Journaling. I doubt that I’d get anything published with this workshop, but publication isn’t really my goal. I just like to write!

• Here’s one that doesn’t pertain to writing or cleaning house: getting together with my Cerrillos girlfriends whenever I want to. Sigh! It’ll be so nice to be able to say “Yes” every time one of them wants to get together for lunch. Even nicer will be my ability to invite them to my house whenever I want to. Frank and I have such great friends out here in our hills. My never knowing for sure that I’ll be at home when something’s going on has been a heartbreak for me. Now my heart can mend.

• Several months ago, my cousin, Nancy Posey, gave me all sorts of suggestions for starting a book club. I just may investigate to see if friends in our neighborhood might be interested in forming one. Another check that I may do is to see if anyone is interested in writing his or her autobiography. The autobiography project is one that I’d like to do at Rodeo Road Baptist Church, too.

• A big project that’s coming up is one that we do every year but one which is difficult to get going and to complete because of my being out of town so much: our Christmas Open House. I can start baking as soon as I want to this year!

• The last “project” that I’ll mention right now is one that always thrills my heart: having Jackson at our house for a day every once in a while. I have no desire to be the every day babysitter for our precious little grandson; however, I love to be able to step in to help Todd when he gets really pushed in completing a job. Jackson makes us smile!

Anyone reading this post will know not to feel sorry for me for my having been “fired.” During the almost fifty years that I have been either teaching, “repping,” or working per diem, Saturdays have been the days when I could do just what I wanted to do. I know I’ll enjoy all these Saturdays that I have now!