H is for Hobbies

Years ago, Frank and I taught single adults in Sunday school. Every fall, we had a retreat at Camp Beckwith, a get-together that we all looked forward to. We always prayed for cold weather, but that seldom happens in the Deep South; so we'd build a fire and turn on the air conditioner to make our own cold weather. Silly, huh? Anyway, one year we ladies decided that we wanted to learn to cross-stitch during our free time at the retreat. The only stitcher whom we knew was Linda Thomas, one of our Sunday school members, but one who had never been on the retreat with us. I was appointed to approach her to see if she'd go to the retreat not only for spiritual enlightenment but also to be our teacher. She accepted and came equipped with patterns, fabric, floss . . . everything that we'd need to become cross-stitchers in one weekend. Of course, she came prepared! She was an English teacher and knew that her students would need everything necessary to go home with beautiful products. She was one of the best English teachers I have ever known, and she was THE BEST stitch teacher ever. So much patience with her non-nimble-fingered students. Since Christmas was near, she brought ornament patterns for us to use, and she even taught us how to use gold shower curtain rings, cotton, and glue to complete the ornaments. That Christmas, I made two ornaments for each teacher in my English Department, probably 36 in all. My friends had no idea that I was so talented . . . thanks to one of my best friends, Linda.

In the years after that retreat, I have stitched all sorts of gifts for friends and family, including a map of Mississippi, a Mississippi piece that read "It's hard to be humble when you're from Mississippi," a sampler for my brother-in-law and his new wife, many more Christmas ornaments, bookmarks, and the only three pieces that I have for myself (pictured below) -- the Chimney on Scenic Highway in Pensacola, a map of Pensacola, and a Welcome piece that I actually stitched as a wedding present for a friend but never got around to framing it in time for her wedding. So . . . now it's framed and welcomes guests to our house.

I haven't stitched much in almost 25 years, but I plan to begin again very soon. I remember that stitching in the evenings when I was a teacher was very much relaxing to me. When I finished a piece, I felt a satisfaction comparable to finishing the grading of autobiographies or anthologies or to baking a beautiful cake to take to someone. I loved cross-stitching, and I'm making a promise to myself to take up needle and fabric . . . soon.

The hobby that I’ve always had is reading. I have always loved to read, though I can't remember a time when my parents read to me. My mother read books for herself, but I sometimes wondered if my daddy could read because Mother always read the newspaper to him at the breakfast table every morning. I knew for sure that he could read when he became a Christian late in life. He decided that he'd read the Bible from cover to cover; however, when he came to the story of Noah and his sinful son, Ham, in Genesis 9, he decided that the Old Bible, as he called it, was nasty, that he'd read only the New Bible. Funny, huh? Anyway, I didn't have much encouragement to read in our house; I was just expected to do well in school, and that included knowing how to read. I have no recollection of learning to read; I just knew how. When I was only eight or nine years old, I'd walk the three blocks to Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans and ride the streetcar by myself to the library, going home with a load of books. Many years later, when I was a teacher, I required my students to write their Reading Autobiography, one of the best assignments I ever made, and I wrote mine. Since this was a long time before computers and saving everything, I don't have mine. So sad. Technology surely has improved my life.

And so today I'm still a lover of books and reading. I read mostly hard copies of books (not hard cover books, you understand. They're way too expensive, and they hurt when I fall asleep reading in bed), but I have a gazillion books on my iPad and sometimes read those. In fact, I finished The Death of Santinion my iPad just a couple of days ago. I belonged to the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club for a couple of years and read many books suggested on that website. I got out of the book club when I retired last year, but I think I'll join again and bite the bullet for $10 a month to get to participate in the leader's chats with "real live authors." You can google Modern Mrs. Darcy for the free participation if you want some good reading suggestions.

I read mostly when we go to bed, and Frank does the same. Most of the time, we read the same books, but sometimes I find ones that he has absolutely no interest in, and I feel the same way about his. Both of us love mystery thrillers. Our favorite authors are Lee Child, Harlan Coben, David Baldacci, and Vince Flynn. Flynn died a couple of years ago, and Kyle Mills is now writing his Mitch Rapp books. I don't like the books as much now with a new author. I miss Vince!

So . . . I'm listing here the books that I read in 2017, several of them from the Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club suggestions. Maybe you've read some of them, too. I must tell you this: I taught the classics for 32 years, and I seldom read any now. I can tell you lots about those books, but now I'm an escape reader, and there are many books on my list that I'd have to read the "ad" for them to be able to tell you what they're about! So sorry for the confession.

BOOKS READ IN 2017

Baldacci, David                        No Man’s Land

Baldacci, David                        The Last Mile

Baldacci, David                        Split Second

Child, Lincoln                           The Third Gate

Clark, Mary Higgins                 As Time Goes By

Coben, Harlan                           Home

Coben, Harlan                           Darkest Fear

Ellison, J.T.                               No One Knows

Fadiman, Anne                         Ex Libris

Fennelly, Beth Ann                   Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs

Flagg, Fannie                            I Still Dream About You

Flynn, Kathleen                        The Jane Austen Project

Ford, Jamie                               Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Francis, Melissa                        Lessons from the Prairie

Frankel, Laurie                         This Is How It Always Is

Grisham, John                           Playing for Pizza

Hanff, Helene                            84, Charing Cross Road

Jiles, Paulette                            News of the World

Kelly, Megyn                            Settle for More

Kline, Christina Baker             A Piece of the World

Lawhon, Ariel                          The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

MacArthur, John                      The MacArthur Daily Bible 

Mackintosh, Clare                    I See You

Moyes, Jojo                             The Girl You Left Behind

Riggs, Ransom                        Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Rosenberg, Joel                       The Last Jihad

Setterfield, Diane                    The Thirteenth Tale

Shama, Avraham                     Finding Home—An Immigrant’s Journey: a Memoir

Sparks, Nicholas                     See Me

Stegner, Wallace                     Crossing to Safety

Watson, Renee                        Piecing Me Together

Now I’m starting my Books Read in 2018 list by keeping all of the finished books on one shelf. Maybe I’ll need two this year.

G is for Grandchildren

Like many women, early in my married life, I envisioned having several children and later on, several grandchildren. We were blessed with only two children, but they were the delight of our lives, so with only two children, the “several” grandchildren shrank considerably. Maybe we’d have four or five at least.

But that didn’t happen because our son, Jay, died when he was 24 and didn’t have any children. This may sound terrible, but after he died, I used to wish that a young woman would come to our door and announce that her sweet little baby was also Jay’s. That didn’t happen. So . . . our daughter, Wendy, was left to provide the grandchildren, and I had no wild idea that she’d have four or five children . . . grands for us.

But she, along with two husbands, did give us two fantastic grandchildren, a girl and a boy. Our first grandchild was Corey Elizabeth Mansfield, daughter of Wendy and Steve Mansfield. Corey was born on October 31, 1987. She immediately became my heart. She was such a sweet baby and little girl. When she was six years old, her mother and dad separated and later divorced. At the time of the separation, Wendy and Corey came to live with us. Divorce is almost always a heartbreaker, and Wendy’s was no exception; however, because she and Corey lived with us during Corey’s formative years, there’s a very special relationship that Frank and I have with our granddaughter. We were like second parents to her. She had so many problems in her teenage years, probably caused in large part by the divorce, but she came through and is a beautiful, talented young lady today. I credit much of her “healing” to a strong-willed mother who practiced tough love. I do have one regret with Corey. When Wendy remarried and had a baby, Corey went to both the labor and delivery room with Wendy and Todd. Just before Jackson was born, Corey came one more time to the waiting room to give a report to Todd’s folks and us. She plopped down next to me and declared, “I am NEVER having children!” And she has kept true to her word. She is 30 and has been with the same boyfriend (who is like a grandson to us) for at least ten years, with no sign of marriage and certainly no desire to have children. How am I going to be a great-grandparent? Poor Sandy! Corey has a degree in linguistics, but her love and her real talent is in making jewelry. Also she and Zach have traveled all over Central and South America and Europe. They're such good workers in restaurants and bars that their employers save their jobs for them, and they go right back to work when they return.

Our second grandchild was Jackson Matthew Yocham, born on May 21, 2005, three days before his mother’s forty-second birthday. His dad is Todd Yocham, the son-in-law that we had always needed. Jackson was a sweet baby and little boy, always loving to come to Grammy and Pop’s house. Since we live only about three miles from us and since Todd was a work-at-home dad when Jackson was a baby and a little guy, Jackson came to take care of Grammy and Pop many days. He is almost thirteen now and is still a sweet boy . . . to us. His parents see him a little differently sometimes, especially when he is glued to the computer and not cleaning his room. Hmmm . . . sounds like his mom when she was his age, except there were no computers. He has become a very good trumpet player, and this makes us happy. His mom plays French horn, and they have played duets at church and community functions. He’s very tall for his age and will pass his Grammy and Pop soon. Even though he’s almost 13, he still makes a beeline for us for hugs whenever he comes in a room where we are . . . unless his friend Cole is with him. Then it’s cool not to hug. Both boys get hugs from me, though, and they tolerate me.

In 1995, a young Russian woman, Irina, came to live with us while she was a student at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. She is a daughter to us, and we love her so much. She now has two little ones of her own, so we have four grandchildren.

Danil is her son and is a very handsome little fella. He’s smart as a whip, but he needs discipline. His sister is Dasha, and she, too, needs some strictness. Irina is going through a rather nasty divorce, and the children are a bit much for her alone. Both of the children are very sweet much of the time, and they love Grammy and Pop. The feeling is mutual!!

I’ve bent your ear about our grandchildren enough for one post. Thanks for reading about and looking at our beautiful little family!

F is for Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg and his prize baby Facebook have been all over the news lately. Since I’m not a very techie person and since I use Facebook strictly to keep up with friends and family and former students, I’m not aware of all that losing-of-my-data stuff. It breaks my heart because there are so many dishonest people in the world. I just don’t know how they sleep with themselves when they do some of the things that they’ve done via one of my favorite places to go on the Internet. I don’t know how much of the immoral things that have happened because of Facebook are Zuckerburg’s fault, but he’s going to get blamed for all of it, I imagine, in the hearings next week.

Enough said! What I really want to talk about in this piece is why I love Facebook. I began to hear about this social media site several years ago when it first came on the scene. My cousin kept encouraging me to join, but I had it in my mind that it was a site for kids. I had no idea of the scope that it already had in 2008.

One day, when my husband and I were waiting for our flight in the Albuquerque airport, on a whim, I decided to take my cousin’s advice and join. It took only a few minutes, and when the first Facebook screen popped up with photos of people that I might know, there were Mary and Charles, two college friends that I had been trying to find for years! I decided at that moment that I loved Facebook!  I learned the basics of using the program by writing to Mary, one of my college suitemates. She was just as elated to hear from me as I was to find her.

That was ten years ago, and I still love Facebook, warts and all. What I love most is being able to keep up with people. Oh, yes, I get all that Trending stuff and ads and sometimes political pieces that friends from opposite political leanings have, but I just ignore all of that. I did hide one friend because of her nasty postings about the president, but I have never unfriended anyone. I have more than 1400 friends on Facebook, but I don’t try to keep up with all of them. I just like to see what they post every once in a while, and I love to see pictures and most of the stories and articles  that they post. For instance, yesterday someone posted a meeting between Woody Allen and Billy Graham. It was wonderful and went directly to my Facebook page. I have about 150 of my former students as friends, and they send me such funny grammar cartoons, knowing that their old English teacher will enjoy them. Some of these students even ask me grammar and composition questions so that they can help their children with their homework  . . . or even their grandchildren.

I get messages with good news (honors that they or their children have received, announcements about weddings and graduations, information that they’ll be traveling in my area and wondering if they can see me, all sorts of wonderful things). Sometimes someone will give me bad news (deaths of friends or news about problems that friends have and that they need prayers for; recently a message that broke my heart: a favorite student from many years ago had shot and killed his two sons and then killed himself probably because of the devastation that he was feeling because of divorce).

I don’t post something every day, but there are two days of the year when I always post: February 10, our son’s birthday, and July 2, his death day. On those days, I write and post something about Jay, who died on July 2, 1992, when he was 24 years old. I know for sure that I’ll check Facebook many times during those days, and I know that I’ll be in tears most of those days. You see, our son was loved by many. He was a very talented rock musician, and he and his band played all over the Southeast and up the Eastern Seaboard. They had hundreds of followers, and those followers loved my boy. On those special posting days, I usually get about 50 comments from people who loved Jay Young and Velvet Melon, his band. Such very special days! Thank you, Facebook!

I’ve mentioned only a few of the reasons that I love Facebook. My feeling about people who are unhappy because something dreadful has happened because of their Facebook account is that they shouldn’t post anything that they don’t want just anyone to know. I post only what I’d be happy for anyone to read.

I’ll be interested to find out how all of the hoopla about Facebook turns out. It will take almost an act of Congress to make me close my account.

E is for the Elephant in the Room

When our son, Jay, died on July 2, 1992, almost immediately I began to read books and articles by and about bereaved parents. I knew that I would get through my grief mainly by dependence on God. I’d also rely on friends who had either experienced the loss of a child or who loved me so much that they would let me reminisce about my boy. Most of these people knew Jay, loved him, and wanted to help me through my grief by allowing me to talk about him. Some friends didn’t even know Jay but would listen to me as I told funny stories about him or wept through poignant stories. Oh, how much I appreciated those friends!

But there were also a few people who just couldn’t accept the fact that a young person the age of their own children (Jay was 24 when he died) could die. Those young folks are invincible, aren’t they? No, they aren’t, and some of us (just a few by comparison to the number of young people that there are) must face their invincibility.

I had to go back to teaching not long after Jay died, so I didn’t have a chance to read the newspaper before going to work each morning. One afternoon I came home to find my husband, Frank, sitting with an article in his hand. I could tell that he’d been crying. He handed the article by Ann Landers to me. I had never heard the expression that was the title of the article, but as I read, I knew that it was meant for Frank and me on that very day. Here’s the article by Ann Landers and the poem that spoke to us:

Dear Ann Landers: Not long ago, you printed a letter from Rose Sahli in Carmel, Calif. Rose spoke of how her son had died and she wished family members and friends would talk about him more often. That letter made us think of a poem, "The Elephant in the Room." It appeared in your column a few years ago.

We have been members of The Compassionate Friends, an organization for grieving parents, since our son was killed in a freak auto accident eight years ago. Matt was 17.

This poem makes it clear that not only is it OK to talk about our dead child but that the references are appreciated because a day never goes by that our child is not in our thoughts. We give this poem to family, friends and co-workers to let them know how we feel. I hope you will find it worth sharing again.

South Windsor, Conn.

Dear Conn.: Thank you for suggesting I use that wonderful poem in my column. Incidentally, I was among those who had the mistaken notion that it was painful for family members to hear references to a loved one who had died. Many readers called me on it, and I know better now. Here is the poem:

The Elephant in the Room

By Terry Kettering

There's an elephant in the room.

It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it.

Yet we squeeze by with "How are you?" and "I'm fine"

And a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.

We talk about the weather.

We talk about work.

We talk about everything else--except the elephant in the room.

There's an elephant in the room.

We all know it is there.

We are thinking about the elephant as we talk together.

It is constantly on our minds.

For, you see, it is a very big elephant.

It has hurt us all.

But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.

Oh, please, say her name.

Oh, please, say "Barbara" again.

Oh, please, let's talk about the elephant in the room.

For if we talk about her death,

Perhaps we can talk about her life.

Can I say "Barbara" to you and not have you look away?

For if I cannot, then you are leaving me

Alone. . .In a room. . .

With an elephant.

I’m thankful that we didn’t have many friends who walked around the elephant in the room, but I wish that even after 25 years those friends could read this poem by Terry Kettering. People should always let those of us who have lost loved ones, in our case especially a child, talk about, reminisce about that person. It’s a part of healing and of keeping our children alive.

D is for Dogs

When I was a senior in high school, my parents bought their first house. They had been married for about 25 years but had always lived in apartments. Now, at last, I could have a dog. I was scared to death of dogs, but I wanted one anyway. My girlfriend and I were riding around town one Sunday afternoon and spotted a sign: Puppies for sale $10. I had ten dollars; all I needed was permission. I called Mother and begged. She agreed, and I went home with Ruff, my short-haired collie. He was the cutest puppy, and my daddy fell in love with him. So we shared our new baby. He was a bit rembunctious in his puppyhood, one time digging up the septic tank in the back yard and throwing his balls in it. And then there was the time that Mother and I had prepared refreshments for my senior class play cast party. We put them out on the dining room table before going to my performance. While we were gone, Ruff pulled on the table cloth, sending lots of goodies to the floor. My dad cleaned up as best he could, and I don't think anyone knew the difference. I went off to college the year after I bought my first dog. I can't remember how long he lived, but I think it was all through my college years and maybe into Frank's and my early married years. He was such a sweet dog, and again, a piece of my heart left with him.

When Wendy, our first child, was two years old, we bought her a dog, a beautiful little black poodle, and we named her Jeanne. She had to have a French name, don't you agree? She was a good dog, a sweet dog. After we moved to Pensacola, she had a couple of litters of puppies. I remember that we kept one and named him Beau. He was a gorgeous champagne colored toy poodle. Just so cute. He was the only dog that we lost to an accident. We lived on a busy street, and Beau was run over. Our hearts were broken, but we still had Jeanne. I really don't remember how she died, but she lived to a ripe old age.

And then there was Peppy, a stray who became part of our family. She was our garbage disposal doggie. I really do think that she knew when Saturday rolled around each week because I cleaned out the refrigerator, giving her all the food that I was going to throw out. She was Wendy's dog, and we all loved her.

Jay had two dogs, Chinook and Jocko. Chinook was a Christmas present. My nail technician's big dog had a litter just before Christmas, and the only payment she wanted for each puppy was a big bag of dog food. We gave Jay a note in a Christmas card, telling him that he had a dog waiting for him. He got the pick of the litter. He chose a beautiful pup and named her Chinook. She was a sweet, well-behaved dog. Her first litter consisted of one rather homely white puppy. We didn't keep him long enough to know what kind of disposition he'd have. Jay gave him to a waitress at one of the bars where Velvet Melon played. She said he was the best, sweetest dog she'd ever had. Chinook was of a mixed determination . . . malamute, husky, and wolf, a beautiful combination. After Jay had had her for a couple of years, he bought a thoroughbred Rottweiler and named him Jocko after a musician, of course. I think he paid $400 for him, much more expensive than Chinook. Chinook loved the new puppy and taught him everything he needed to know to be a good dog, especially to howl at the full moon in typical wolf style. They were so cute sitting outside and howling together . . . mother and son. But . . . when Jocko was about nine months old, Chinook no longer looked like his "mother"; she looked like a girlfriend. And . . . Chinook and Jocko had a beautiful litter of eight puppies that looked for all the world like thoroughbred Rottweilers. Well, Jay died before we could get those puppies into good homes, so it was up to Frank and me to get them "adopted" because they were eating us out of house and home! I put signs up in grocery stores and all over my school for free puppies. I was almost to the point of giving extra credit to my students if they would take one or more! I didn't have to do that, but one of my students (now a friend on Facebook) took one, named him King, and told me at a Class Reunion years later that he was the best dog he'd ever had. I didn't doubt it.

And now to our two precious dogs that we've had since our move to New Mexico. Frank calls both of them New Mexico thoroughbreds, meaning that they were of some mix but just the best dogs in the world. Maizy was the first one. We think she was shepherd, husky, and heeler. She was a beautiful dog with the sweetest disposition . . . and in love with Frank. She loved me, but she was absolutely in love with him. They fell in love through the fence at the Espanola Animal Shelter. We had her for about eleven years before she developed a tumor on the side of her face. One morning, Frank went to look for her and found her in the yard almost unable to get up. Her right side was close to being paralyzed. He called the vet and arranged to have her put down. Our vet came to house to perform the "operation." I was so glad that I was out of town working and didn't have to watch. Wendy came to be with her dad.

Maizy died in 2015, not too long before we were having my family reunion at our house. We determined to wait until after the gathering to get another dog. Then we decided that we'd wait until the fall because we were taking two long vacations that summer and didn't want to burden Wendy and Todd with a puppy. Just before Memorial Day, Frank went with me to Gallina, NM, so that I could do inservice at a school. When we were going home, through Espanola, Frank asked me if I wanted to check the shelter. Once again, he and a dog fell in love through the fence. The next day, we took Bella and Hatch, Wendy's and Corey's dogs that we were keeping for a week, to the shelter for approval. We left the shelter with three doggies that had already become friends. They slept all over each other on the way home. Since we got our new dog on Memorial Day Weekend, Frank named him G.I. Joe, but we just call him Joe. In many ways, he's even more wonderful than Maizy . . . but I'd hate to have to make a definite determination on that one. We love that dog so much, and I don't know who will suffer more at the death of the other, Frank or Joe. I don't want to see the grief of either one, so I hope I go first!

C is for Cooking at the Youngs' House

I learned to cook at home when I was a teenager. My mother worked in our store and didn’t get home till after 6:00 PM, so I needed to at least get dinner started each evening. Most evenings I cooked the whole meal. I didn’t learn from cookbooks or from watching my mother cook: I learned over the phone. Mother would give me basic instructions to begin with; then I’d call her to get specifics if I couldn’t figure everything out for myself. She’d say, “What does it look like? How does it smell? How does it taste?” Just generic questions. I managed to become a pretty good cook that way.

But when Frank and I married, I needed more instructions because he wanted things that I’d never even tried to cook: shepherd’s pie and SOS and liver and onions . . . all sorts of things that I’d never even heard of. He was a good teacher, cooking right along with me.

For 32 years, I did so much cooking while I was teaching, so when I retired from the classroom and took to the road as a sales representative for a textbook company, I was so happy to cook only on the weekends. Frank did his own cooking while I was traveling the highways and byways of Florida and later New Mexico. He ate better than I did because restaurant cooking gets old after a while. I must tell you that he spoiled me on Friday evenings, when I got home from working with teachers all week. He almost always had a delicious dinner ready for me, many times with wine and candlelight.

When we moved to New Mexico, I was afraid that I wouldn’t have any friends. Frank said that the way to make friends was to have a big birthday party for him in September each year, inviting all the new people we had met during the year. Fine with me. The first year, we had about 20 guests, and Frank and I cooked for everyone. He was 70 that year. The next year, about 50 new and old friends came. The year that he was 75, we had a birthday party family reunion combination, and we had at least 125. Our son-in-law helped us with the cooking for that party.

We almost always have a Christmas Open House, with anywhere from 75 to 100 friends and family present. And who does the cooking? We do! He makes vegetable soup, and I make gumbo. I begin a couple of weeks ahead of time baking cookies. We’ve slacked off a little bit with our big parties, but at 78 and 84, we’re not ready to quit having big parties. Frank will be 85 in September, and he has already announced that he wants a party. We’ve skipped that party for about four years, but we both think that 85 is important enough to have a Big Birthday Bash!

This photo is at one of our Christmas Open Houses. You can see the results of getting up at 5:00 to get started in the kitchen for several days. Lots of work, but very rewarding!

Cookies galore . .  . 

B is for My Books . . . My Treasures

If you were to come to see me, it wouldn’t take you long to decide for yourself that I love books. I’m sure that between my husband, Frank, and me, we have thousands of books of one kind or another. Every room in our house, including the bathrooms, have books and/or magazines, but mostly books. Let me kntroduce you to our very much unorganized “library.”

I was an English teacher for 32 years and a consultant/sales representative for a publishing company for 21 years; therefore, I have a few textbooks left from those professions. I’m officially retired, but I just couldn’t get rid of all of the books that I either taught from or sold and inserviced. When I took two van loads of textbooks to the dumpster last summer, my heart hurt. Teachers and homeschool moms don’t want old textbooks, so I had to throw them away. But a few books had to stay with me for memories.

I love to write, so I have many books about writing and grammar. I was one of those strange English teachers who loved teaching grammar even more than teaching literature. So I collect books on grammar and writing, especially ones with strange titles like Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meaniesand Spunk and Biteand The Elephants of Style. Have I read all of my peculiar books? Goodness, no . . . I read fromthem, just a chapter here and a page there. I use the writing books to help me improve my writing. I know that sounds strange for a retired English teacher, but I never had a writing course, so I’m teaching myself now instead of teaching students.

At one time, I was doing some editing and proofreading work with a friend, so I ordered books that I thought would help me in my new endeavor: The Writer’s Manual of Style, Mark My Words, The Copyeditor’s Handbook, The Elements of Editing. I worked with her for a few months, but I found that editing and proofreading weren’t my true loved. Too much like grading papers, but I didn’t even know the people who wrote the books and articles that I was “grading,” so I couldn’t make funny remarks to them about their writing. But I couldn’t get rid of the books.

Frank and I love fiction, especially mysteries and thrillers. So . . . we have complete collections of novels by Lee Child, Harlan Coben, and Vince Flynn. I know we should take them to Book Mountain in Santa Fe or to Cerrillos Station in the Village of Cerrillos, but both of us are reluctant to part with these paperbacks that we have enjoyed so much. We may give the Jack Reacher novels (Lee Child) to Frank’s brother Jim, who just sits and ready and watches TV all the time. He’d enjoy them!

I have a collection of books written by friends, too. Some are very good; some not so good, but I want to have them anyway. Those friends are an encouragement to me. My best friend in high school is a much-published author, and I’ve read most of her books. My problem with them is that they’re so much connected to her denomination that they’re a bit difficult for me to read. I don’t understand all of the terminology. When we were teenagers, our favorite thing to do when we spent Friday nights at each other’s houses was for her to write about her favorite characters, Tony and Tricia, and for me to read right along with her as she wrote. My favorite book by a friend is by a Jewish man. The title is Finding Home: An Immigrant’s Journey. It tells of his living in Israel when he was a boy and the hardships that he and his family endured. Then he tells of his move to the United States, the home that he finally found. Both Frank and I loved Avi Shama’s book!

We also have collections of college textbooks, mainly Bible study books and other books of a religious nature. Frank orders books on politics, and I order any books that I think I might like to read: novels, memoirs, biographies, autobiographies. We also have bookshelves of old books, some of which might be worth something someday, and bookshelves of just a jumble of various kinds of books.

I think you can see that we love books. We passed our love on to our daughter in a way. She reads mostly nonfiction . . . nothing that can be bought at the grocery store. Our son read music magazines, but he did read one book, and he was so proud of himself: Charlotte’s Web!

Here are a few more bookshelves:

Reference books . . . no one uses encyclopedias now, but we just can’t get rid of ours. We bought the set of Encyclopedia Brittanica when we first married and had practically no money.

Our Great Books of the Western World are precious to us for the same reason – very little money, but our hearts were in books.

Our guest room wouldn’t be complete without a collection of books that we think our friends and relatives might like:

And then there’s my messy bookshelf full of all sorts of books that I’ve read and not read:

And Frank’s neat bookshelf . . . most of which he’s read.

In Frank’s office, there’s also a wall of books, most of which I wrote for other people: my students, students who traveled with us in Europe, friends, Corey, all sorts of books. All of them were printed here at home and bound at Kinko’s. Very professional, huh?

And finally . . . there are the three books that I wrote and Wendy published either through Blurb or Lulu. Married to My Hero is the book that I wrote for Frank on our 50^thAnniversary. Memories is a collection of stories about my cousins and me. And My Mom’s Always Hot! is the book that I wrote about our son, Jay, who died almost 26 years ago, when he was only 24. These books would never be best sellers, but they are books that are full of my heart and may just be the books that I treasure the most.

A is for Alphabet Journal

For the first twenty-five years of my thirty-two-year teaching career, I really didn’t like teaching writing. I wasn’t a writer myself, and all I knew how to teach was the five-paragraph essay and the research paper. Even though I steered clear of writing myself, I made sure that my students were prepared for college with these two types of writing, not enjoying my part of their learning very much.

But times change, and after taking part in a writing workshop one summer where I discovered other types of writing, I began to enjoy leading my students into new territories. One of the new things for both my students and me was journal writing. Every morning, I’d go into my classroom and write a quotation and a journal topic on the board. They were to spend the first few minutes each day responding to/identifying with the quotation and writing a journal on either my topic or one of their own. I did this for a few years, building up a storehouse of journal topics that I could use each year. I even had a book of topics. (I need to tell you that this was back in the “dark ages” before the Internet. I couldn’t just look up a website that had a gazillion topics listed.)

One morning, as I was standing in the hall waiting for my first-period students and watching to see that no fights erupted, I realized that I had gotten busy before going to my classroom and hadn’t put a topic on the board. I frantically searched my cart (my classroom on wheels . . . it had everything that I would ever need for teaching on it. Well, maybe not everything!) for my little journal book. Couldn’t find it! What to do? What to do? My students had come to the point of expecting a journal topic, and they would demand one (I had them trained!).

After a few minutes, I thought of something, but I didn’t mention it just yet. I checked roll and called a couple of kids to my desk to talk about make-up work. Then I turned to the class. Just as I thought, someone said, “Where’s our journal topic, Miz Young?” (We’re Southerners.)

“Well,” I said, “we’re going to do something new. What can you think of that has twenty-six parts?” Oh, my goodness, they thought of all sorts of things but not of what I was thinking of. Finally, one of them chirped up, “The alphabet!”

Yes! They would do an alphabet journal, thinking up their own topics, one letter a day for the next twenty-six days.  They couldn’t believe that I wanted them to do the choosing of topics themselves. That sounded hard. A journal for EVERY letter? What about X and Z? I knew they’d think of words even for those letters. And they did!

I feel sure that some of them waited until the night before the Alphabet Journals were due, but that didn’t matter to me. I just wanted them turned in on time.

The first year, the journals looked terrible for the most part because I hadn’t said anything about HOW to write them; therefore, most of them were in their terrible handwriting. Also I didn’t give a length. Some were VERY short. So . . . the next year, I added a couple of instructions to help me. Each letter had to have a journal at least one page long . . . one typed page long. This was in the early days of computers, so many of the students were still using typewriters.

The Alphabet Journal turned out to be one of my favorite assignments and a favorite of my students, too. I liked it so much that I, too, did Alphabet Journals. I even made copies of mine and gave them to my students. They needed to see my “creativity,” too, just as I had seen theirs. The Alphabet Journal in my classes was introduced in the late ‘80s, so you see, I had the idea for this blogging challenge way before John Holton began the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge. Of course the “challenge” is much better organized, but I’ve always been proud of my “challenge” for my students because I, a very uncreative teacher, thought of it myself!