So, now that the library is open, we are back to the waiting game. Only worse. The books that were on hold for us in March are again making their way through the list of waiting patrons, but the books we were reading to tide us over are long...
I was five years old when the United States entered World War Two. I spent my early school years collecting tin foil, buying savings bonds, standing in lines with my mom with our ration books. I remember us all being full of patriotic fervor and...
"Remember when we had ten superintendents in eight years?" my friend John asked me the other day. No, actually, I didn't. The RDP (Revolving Door Policy) had developed as an unusual phenomenon when John was teaching here in the Ocean Beach School...
Nyel and I don't do fast food. People don't usually believe that – not completely. Especially when I say that we've never been to a Pizza Hut or a Taco Bell or a Jack-in-the-Box or a Carl, Jr or… any of the others. Not in the thirty-five years...
They call the Transesophageal Echocardiography a TEE for short – not tee as in tee-hee but TEE as in the initials said one at a time. Not much tee-hee about it! According to the American Heart Association: Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE)...
You could have heard a pin drop. The classroom absolutely thrummed with concentration. Twelve young scientists hard at work making… paper airplanes! It was about 9:30 yesterday morning and I had walked over to the Oysterville School at Diane...
These days, Farmer Nyel heads for the coop about 4:30 in the afternoon, just as it’s getting dark. By that time, the girls have returned to the coop from their daily endeavors and are settling in for a good night’s sleep. Nyel has only to check...
On Monday morning when the phone rang, I was ready. It was a conference call coming in from ‘somewhere near Issaquah’ which sounded pretty exotic in the first place. The call had been set up by the tutor who was helping eighth grader, Bella, with...
As far as I can determine (and I’ve actually done the research), the current political embarrassment of the United States (read: the leading Republican presidential hopeful and followers) is all related to M&Ms. Yes! M&Ms! Plus, of course,...
On more than one occasion, I’ve written about the teachers who I remember and who (maybe, probably, certainly) influenced my life. I wonder if they knew. I hope so. Perhaps even more than that, I wonder what impact I might have had on them. That’s...
This evening will be the final gathering of our “Putting the Story Back in History” class. I’m polishing up my notes with mixed feelings – glad to have the rest of the summer without a weekly obligation, yet already feeling bereft and missing the...
It’s disconcerting when things just disappear from your computer. You know they are ‘there’ somewhere but… As with other computer mysteries, my tried and usually true method is to go to Google, pose the problem, and see what pops up. I’ve never yet...