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  • I am subbing in health all week this week.  The teacher went to Florida – poor thing!  We have had snow a couple of times and I am sure she is very sad to be missing it.  Meanwhile, I am holding down the fort with her students.


    Yesterday, I had to shoot one of the little buggers.  That is another way of saying that I sent him down to spend the hour with the principal.  They do not spell principal with a pal at the end for no reason.  Our principal makes an excellent companion for students who do not seem to be in the mood to cooperate in class.  This particular young man did not bring his books to class.  He refused to work on the assignment the class was given.  Another student loaned him a book and he still refused to work.  He preferred to spend his time milling around the classroom and talking to other students.  I asked him to sit down and work, and he declined.  I invited him to go down to the office and visit with his pal, but he declined that also, rather vehemently.  When I told him that I would be happy to call his pal to come up and accompany him to the office in case he was worried about being lonely in the halls by himself, he finally went.


    As I see it, one of the main functions of a sub is to keep order in the room so the students who want to work can work.  Most of the students in our school system (and I would imagine in most school systems) are very cooperative, and, although I doubt most of them would ever admit it, I think they appreciate having orderly classrooms. At least I tell myself that to console myself when I am trying to maintain the learning environment.  I do have some evidence to back that conclusion, though, because when I taught full time in the secondary system, I heard plenty of disparaging comments about teachers who could not keep order in the room from my students.


    I find that, as a sub, I cannot tolerate a lot of things that I would tolerate if it was my own classroom, because once the room gets disorderly, it is very difficult to change that situation.  I do not have the same leverage as a regular classroom teacher because I do not grade, I generally do not contact parents, and I will be gone in a few days, so students do not have to put up with me all year if they get on my bad side.  That means that if I am having problems, the best thing to do is to separate one of the critters from the herd and “shoot” him or her.  Usually, that impresses the other students and all problems magically stop.  On the other hand, if I tolerate misbehavior from one student, that gives the rest permission to follow and total chaos results.


    I was surprised to have trouble with a student this week, because the principal just reminded all the students that there will be an end of the year trip on the last day of school and any student who is not passing all his/her classes or who has made disciplinary trips to the office during these last few weeks will not be allowed to attend.  That’s usually pretty motivating.  Apparently, the desire to torment a sub was stronger in this case, though. At times like this, I am very appreciative of our supportive administration.  It’s so nice to have a principal who will support you!  I guess he is my pal, too.

  • I joined a blog ring, so I have to post this picture of this charming fellow. Ain’t he cute? Obviously quite intelligent, too. Now, somebody tell me, what is a moran? Actually, it seems to me I do remember that term from my husband’s Coast Guard days. Maybe this guy is serving his country – do you think?

  • I have been subbing for my husband the last two days. He teaches junior high English. Even though that is not my area of certification, I am able to teach English, so I am actually doing some teaching, which is rare for a sub in our schools.

    Usually, teachers do not know who will be subbing and whether or not they can actually teach the subject matter, so they tend to leave assignments that students can do on their own and subbing becomes a matter of keeping order in the classroom so that those who are trying to work can work. In addition, subs are paid about half what a regular classroom teacher is paid, so many of them are not willing to actually teach and very few are willing to correct work. To be really honest, that gets very boring, so I am always grateful when a teacher leaves me something I can do with students. I have been correcting writing assignments and having conferences with students to assist them in improving their writing.

    Some of these kids are really very accomplished writers, better than most senior high students and many adults. I am impressed with not only their ability to tell a tale, but also with the length of their pieces. Many of them are ten or more typed pages, a pretty impressive output, especially for junior high. They are working on narrations. Some of them are factual; some are fictional. They have the usual problems with comma placement and occasionally with subject-verb agreement, but, overall, they are well done and fun to read.

    One of the things I have to monitor in myself as I correct is a tendency to encourage rewrites which sound too adult. The writing of a 12 or 13 year old should read like the work of someone that age. They really are at a delightful stage of life and their writing should reflect the joys and angst of junior high. Over-correcting can destroy that. On the other hand, I have deleted the word like multiple times from some papers. I wonder how people, like, communicated, like, before we could say, like, like?

    It has been an enjoyale couple of days. I have been able to work with some students whom I have known for years. I will miss them when I am gone.
    ______________________________________________

    I seem to be stuck on the topic of death lately. Yesterday I got the sad news that one of the bridesmaids at my son’s wedding was probably dying. I have not heard what happened, but based on what I was told, I think it is likely that she is no longer living. She was a very delightful young woman in her mid-twenties. I had the opportunity to get to know her at the time of the wedding because I made the bridesmaids’ dresses. I have seen her since then at many gatherings. I enjoyed knowing her very much. It’s a very sad event.

  • I don’t spend much time on my blog talking about religion and politics, not because I am not interested in those things or because I am afraid of the controversy which often accompanies them, but because I choose to make my blog about my life and to keep it fairly upbeat most of the time. I can’t resist putting in part of something that was included in our church bulletin this week as an enclosure, though, because it relates to my marginalization blog. This is from The Faith Connection, a publication that comes from Resources for Christian Living in Allen, Texas, so I am assuming that some of you may also have received it in your church bulletins. Here is the part that struck me:

    The excerpt begins with cautioning on the importance of learning to recognize the gray in life instead of seeing everything as black and white, totally good or totally evil. “… If Christian disciples are intimidated by sin, we cannot evangelize the world. On one hand, we will not recognize our own faults and failure; we lack the self-awareness to make good life choices and to repent when we inevitably do not. On another hand, if we are so scandalized by the idea of sin that we cannot and do not reach out to the seemingly vulnerable and marginalized among us, we miss the grace of God at work in them and cannot call ourseves Christian because that outreach was the heart of Jesus’ mission on earth. Finally, the fear to face evil gives social sin – racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and other injustices – free reign to enslave society …”

    To me, the above quote means that if we are to call ourselves Christians, or if we are to call ourselves good human beings if the term Christian does not apply, we must reach out to others rather than shun them because we consider them unworthy. In my experience, most people have good qualities and can be loved and appreciated for them if we only take the trouble to discover what they are.

    I had some personal experience with that over the last couple of days. One of my dearest friends called me last Thursday to tell me that her sister’s husband had died. I did not know the man who died well and they do not live in our community. It’s about an hour and a half drive to their home. I could tell that my friend wanted me to come, though, so Sunday evening, Dan and I got in the car and drove up for the wake. There were not many people there. At the prayer service, the pastoral minister spoke of the hardships the family had endured because of the deceased’s alcoholism, something he had fought unsuccessfully for his entire life. Then my friend, her husband, and a co-worker got up and spoke, and a completely different picture was painted. The man they described was a twenty-two year career Marine, rising from the enlisted ranks, eventually attending OCS, and retiring as a Major. He led troops into combat through two tours in VietNam and received a commendation from the Department of the Navy. He was a loving and generous husband and father, as well as a beloved uncle and brother-in-law.

    Obviously, even though this man’s drinking often made life difficult for those around him and caused heartache, he was a much loved man. He was also a marginalized man, set aside from the mainstream by an illness he could not conquer. There were not many people there to support his wife and sons as they said good-bye to him. We had planned to attend only the wake, but because of the small number of mourners, I decided to go back today for the funeral. I am glad I did. It was a small thing to do for my friend and her sister.

  • Last week, I attended a professional conference where I was privileged to hear a wonderful speaker on the topic of marginalization. Marginalization is the act of placing people on the periphery of a social system. There are several criteria for marginalizing, including social status, job, educational level, religion, and ethnic group.

    Marginalization is different from exclusion. When someone is excluded, they know it. They are left out. They are not part of the “in crowd.” There is definition to that role. When people are marginalized, they are allowed to stand around the edges and admire those who are really included. They dream of being part of that group and they may think it is possible, but they are usually wrong. The speaker gave an excellent example of marginalization from his own life. When he was a teenager, he tried out for the basketball team. He worked very hard and he made it through several rounds of cuts in the process of forming the final team. The coach announced that he had to make three more cuts. The team continued to practice. Eventually, the speaker and two other potential team members were called in to the coach’s office. Instead of being told that they would not make the team, they were told that they were the players who would have been cut, but that there were three extra uniforms, so the coach was going to allow them to be on the team. They had been marginalized. In effect, they were told that they were really not quite good enough, but they remained anyway. It spoiled the experience of basketball.

    One of the points this speaker made was that our society demands marginal people. There are certain occupations that are seen as not quite as desirable, so members of those groups are often not incuded in the “upper crust,” yet our social structure could not function without those roles. Examples of occupations whose members are often marginalized include maintenance and janitorial workers, restaurant wait staff, public transportation workers, and housekeeping staff. Some people make careers out of those jobs, but many see them as transitional, working in those positions while they are attending school or preparing in some other way for a more desirable job.

    It’s interesting to me that the workers who are marginalized vary from culture to culture and the extent of that marginalization varies. In the United States, being a waiter is not seen as a high career goal. It is often a “filler” job until something better comes along. In most restaurants here, waiters and waitresses do not receive much training. Their service often shows it, too. In some countries of the world, waiters are very respected. They go through an extensive training period before they are allowed to work, and then they begin as busboys and must work their way up to being waiters. Achieving that status is an event. There is pride in providing smooth and unobtrusive service and the skill is respected.

    The world would be a more benevolent place if everyone appreciated the skills and talents which all people possess. Some people are very good at doing that; some just look down their noses at certain people or just don’t see them at all. And wouldn’t it be nice if we could all look past all the other things we use to categorize people, if color, religion, ethnic group, sexual orientation, etc. just didn’t matter?

    Are the people who are marginalized really marginal? I don’t think so. I suspect that everyone marginalizes others. I think it’s something that we can only see when it is being done by others or when it is happening to us. There are probably few people who are not marginalized at some times and in some ways. It’s very painful when it happens. If it happens a lot, it can do permanent damage. I wonder why we cannot stop doing it?

    Wouldn’t it be nice if we were kinder
    Then we wouldn’t hurt each other so
    And wouldn’t it be nice to live together
    In the kind of world where we belong

    You know its gonna make it that much better
    When we can acept each other and stay together

    Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up
    In the morning when the day is new
    And appreciate the many talents
    Of all we meet the whole day through

    Happy times together we’ve been spending
    I wish that that they were neverending
    Wouldn’t it be nice

    Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true
    Baby then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do
    We could be accepting
    And then we’d be happy

    Wouldn’t it be nice

    You know it seems the more we talk about it
    It only makes it worse to live without it
    But lets talk about it
    Wouldn’t it be nice

    (With slight adaptation from Wouldn’t It Be Nice by the Beach Boys)

  • Happy Valentine’s Day!

    We received a couple of very special Valentines today. Our daughter assisted our five year old grand daughter Madison and our two year old grandson Ryan in producing this lovely work of art.

    This is Madison:

    And here’s Ryan:

    Our dughter-in-law helped Jake the Giant Baby do this hand print. It is inside a very lovely card made by his mother. She makes most of their cards and they are a treat to receive. Jake has a very large hand print for a six month old, but then Jake is a very large six month old. He comes by it honestly. His father was large and so was his mother’s brother. Anyway, here’s the card:

    Here’s Jake:

    Our grandchildren tend to have big round heads as babies. I wonder where they get that? Here’s me at about six months:

    Have a great Valentine’s Day!

  • Winter Carnival

    Minnesotans do winter well. We relish it. We are proud that International Falls, MN, is the coldest spot in the nation most of the time. In our capital city, St. Paul, we celebrate the glories of winter every February with the Winter Carnival.

    Saturday evening, we made a pilgrimage to St. Paul to have dinner and enjoy the last night of the Carnival with our friends Ross and Sheila. It was really pretty warm, about 10 degrees. The previous week when we took our grandchildren it was about 10 degrees below zero. That’s Farenheit. For those of you who use the Celsius scale, it’s more than 23 below Celsius! 10 above is a positive heat wave to us at this time of year!

    Traditionally, the Winter Carnival includes ice sculptures, and, on rare years, they build an ice palace. This was one of those years. There have been four ice palaces in my lifetime, one in the mid 70′s, one in 1988, one in 1992, and this one. In the early days of the Carnival, they built them more often, but it’s a very expensive project, so in modern times they are built only when there is some special event happening in St. Paul during the Carnival. This year it was the hockey All Star Game and the ice palace was built next to the Xcel Energy Center, the home of the Minnesota Wild and the site of the game. Saturday evening was the last time the palace was open to the public. Sunday there was an event connected to the All Star Game there and today they will take the palace down. It cannot be allowed to melt because it is very large and if parts of it would begin to slip and fall as it melted, people could be killed by falling ice blocks.

    This is the palace as seen from Cathedral Hill, high above downtown St. Paul.

    When we were up at the Cathedral, we overheard a young woman standing on the steps enjoying the above view and talking on a cell phone. She was saying, “I’m here! There are people everywhere and it’s absolutely beautiful!” That about sums it up.

    The ice sculptures are located in Rice Park, a couple of blocks from the palace itself. They are carved out of large blocks of ice and stand between 6 and 10 feet tall. Carving them is quite a skill. It’s a competitive event with prizes for the best ones. Here is an archer.

    Here’s a winged maiden.

    This sculpture, called Grand Excursion, was not part of the competition. It was carved to remind everyone that during the Taste of Minnesota, St. Paul’s multi-day Fourth of July celebration, all the paddle wheelers on the Mississippi River will come to St. Paul.

    The park was ringed with ice sculptures showing the logos of all the NHL teams. These also were not part of the competition.

    There were snow sculptures as well. Can you imagine building this white wizard snowman? He is well over 10 feet tall.

    This year, you could pay $5 and go into the ice palace. That’s the first time that has been allowed. It has always been considered too dangerous because of the possibility of falling ice. This year’s palace was very blocky to prevent that. We stood in line with thousands of other people and finally got in. We were tired after that and had to take a little rest in this icy chair. This is me, Sheila, and Ross, who would not sit on the ice.

    Dan took a rest also.

    The Winter Carnival celebrates the battle between King Boreus, the King of Winter, and Vulcanus Rex, the Fire King, and is a struggle between fire and ice, so there is always some representation of that concept. This year, it was inside the palace.

    As you can see from the pictures, the ice palace has internal lights and changes color. It is an awesome sight, as the faces of these people show.

    There was a skating rink inside the palace and these skaters seemed to be having a very good time.

    St. Paul was the childhood home of Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. There are sculptures of the Peanuts characters all over the city. I could not resist taking a picture of this one in the park near the ice sculptures. Don’t Linus and his sister look like they are enjoying the Carnival?

    It is traditional that there is a fish frozen in one of the blocks of ice which are used to build the ice palace and visitors are supposed to look for it. We did not find it, but we had a very good time anyway.

  • Farewell

    A long life
    Lived well
    Lived frugally
    Lived in service.

    A crying wife
    Comforted by children
    And grandchildren
    And great grandchildren.

    A brave son
    Standing by the casket
    Last moments
    Spent with his father.

    A formal good-bye
    From his comrades
    Those who bore arms
    And defended us all.

    Another farewell
    From the Knights
    Who carry the sword
    To defend their faith.

    A last view
    The lid is lowered
    The pall is spread
    By the family.

    Sweet music
    How Great Thou Art
    Amazing grace
    From his daughter-in-law.

    A sweet good-bye
    From the heart
    From his family
    Spoken by his son.

    An old friend
    Shares memories
    With a stranger
    There is no one else.

    Bitter cold
    Chills the already numb
    Making short
    The final commital.

    A communal lunch
    Served in the hall
    By church ladies
    Waiting their turn.

    A long life
    Celebrated with love
    A good life
    A life of service.

    Does he know?
    He got his wish
    He left his mark
    He made a difference.

    The above was written in response to the comment from The_Clowne_from_Clown that he would have had at least one poem from the occasion of the funeral in my last blog. I am more of a prose writer.

  • He was 84. Crotchety would be an apt description. Gregarious is also a good fit. And funny. He served in World War II and was proud of it. He raised nine children on a teacher’s salary, so frugality was the benchmark of his financial practices. He was a forceful man in his younger days, but feeble would have fit better in the last couple of years. Faith was central to his life, as was family. His now adult children called him stern. We went to his funeral on Saturday.

    It was a lovely service. The VFW was there, looking very sharp in matching suits, shirts, ties and overcoats. They marched in slowly two at a time and saluted the casket before taking their seats in the first two pews. They were followed by the Knights of Columbus. Beautiful music was supplied by his daughter-in-law, who really has a professional quality voice, one of the other soloists from our choir, and the organist. Father Jerry gave a wonderful sermon highlighting details of his life and personality. One of his sons gave a beautiful eulogy in which he said that one of his dad’s wishes was to know that he had left a mark on the world. I think he can be sure that he did leave that mark because he produced a family that could plan and execute such a lovely service in his tribute. What better legacy could anyone want?

    The church was about 2/3 full. Of course, when you produce nine children who marry and have children who grow up and marry and have chilren, and then you throw in the VFW and the KC’s, that about accounts for the numbers. There were not many others there. Most of the non-family members were elderly women from our church. That’s what happens when you are 84 and have moved away from the community. You have no professional colleagues anymore. Many of your friends have died and you have not made new connections in the community because you haven’t been living there. Your funeral is populated by elderly women who attend the church service and then serve the lunch afterwards.

    It was bitterly cold, so much of the graveside service took place in the church. We did not go out to the cemetery or to the lunch that followed in the church hall. I am glad we went to the funeral Mass, though. I talked to an elderly couple who had come from out of town and did not seem to know anyone. The husband had been a college classmate of the deceased and had come to say good-bye to an old friend. He and his wife needed someone with whom to share their memories, and they chose me, a stranger, because there was no one else. I was happy to talk to them.

    It was a touching service. It gave me much on which to reflect.

  • Last Saturday, we went with some friends to have dinner at a Russian restaurant.  The place must have been fairly authentic, because we were the only people there who were not speaking Russian.  It was a very interesting place.  The dining room itself was quite small.  There were five tables with parties of two to six, and two very large tables set up for some kind of special gathering.  Since everyone was speaking Russian, we could not tell for sure what the event was, but there was an elderly lady there and everyone seemed to be paying her a lot of attention, so possibly it was her birthday.


    One wall of the dining area was actually a canvas curtain which served to divide the eating area from the waitstaff’s service area.  The curtain and the narrow end wall adjoining it were covered with a colorful Russian mural.  The other long wall was decorated with Russian folk costumes.  Each table had fresh flowers and/or candles.  Against the narrow wall under the mural there was a man and a woman providing live music.  They mixed traditional American tunes sung in English with Russian music performed in Russian.  One number that I particularly enjoyed was a lovely rendition of Midnight in Moscow sung in Russian.


    There was a small dance floor in front of the musicians and it was usually packed with dancers.  It was fun to observe the difference in the way that the Russian patrons enjoyed the evening.  Most of the women were very dressed up, some even wearing long gowns.  The men wore suits.  We felt a little under dressed.  The men in our party had on dress slacks and sweaters, appropriate for most mid-priced American restaurants, and the other woman and I wore pants suits.  We felt a little out of place.


    Even though the customers were very dressed up, this was definitely a family place and there were several children dancing with the adults.  Although some of the music was Russian, the dancing was what you would see anywhere else in the U.S.  We got up and joined them for a short time.


    It was apparent that the restaurant owners did not intend to fill their tables more than once during the evening.  The patrons ate whatever they had ordered, got up and danced awhile, then sat down and ate another course.  Most of the adults were drinking wine, various cocktails, or vodka, but none seemed to be over indulging.  It was quite different from our normal dinner out experience when we go in, order, eat, pay and leave.  These people were making a night of it.  We were the last people seated and the first to leave.  On our way out, the waitress smiled and said, “I saw you dancing!”  We had the impression that “foreigners” did not usually do that and that she was pleased that we had joined in.


    The leisurely dining experience everyone else was enjoying reminded Dan and me of a similar experience we had at a restaurant on the island of Martinique.  There is a very famous French restaurant in the port city on that island.  It has a lovely view of the area of the harbor where private yachts anchor.  We were anxious to eat in this world class restaurant but we had definite time constraints because we were on a cruise ship and it is usually not considered good to be standing on the dock waiving when the ship leaves port.  We were among the first to arrive for lunch and were seated right away.  Beverages came quickly and then we were left to enjoy the view.  And enjoy the view.  And enjoy the view.  Finally, we asked to order and thought our waiter seemed a little surprised by this request, but he did take our order.  We waited optimistically for our food.  Then the optimism faded.  Impatience grew.  Finally, we had to tell the waiter that we really had to have our food because we had to catch our ship.  I think he said something about impatient Americans in French, but he did bring our food, which was truly delicious.  It would have been nice to have had time to really savor it, but we ate quickly and then literally ran for the ship.  One of my goals in life has been to return to that island someday and enjoy a meal properly in that lovely restaurant.


    Now I have another goal.  I want to go back to the Russian restaurant and spend a leisurely evening dining and dancing.  I think we Americans have something to learn from the rest of the world!