After two years of teaching high school Spanish in Ashland, Nebraska, I wanted to do for my students what my high school teacher had done for me – take them to Mexico. This wasn’t a trip over the border to Tijuana. This was a ten-day trip to Mexico City, including Aztec ruins. I recruited four… Continue reading Worst Chaperone Ever
Category: Nebraska
Please Ms. Postman
I was the only female in the place. Ninety-nine guys in their blue and gray uniforms watched me walk up to my case. I had on jeans, a summer top, and closed-toe shoes. It was going to be a hot one out there. It was 6:00 a.m. I’d gotten up at 4:45, eaten breakfast, thrown… Continue reading Please Ms. Postman
Worst Neighbors Ever
When I was twenty-eight I bought my first house, in Omaha, on 50th Avenue, south of Leavenworth. It was a cute little two bedroom, one bath with a full basement and big fenced-in backyard. Since I wanted to get a dog, it seemed perfect. I had a budget, and this house was in my price… Continue reading Worst Neighbors Ever
Asparagus, Anyone?
The farmhouse was next to the highway, close enough for me to hear the train come by every night, and far enough away from the tracks to get used to sleeping through it. No houses could be seen from any window — just trees, sky, and lots of cornfields. It was a peaceful place, sometimes… Continue reading Asparagus, Anyone?
Waitresses Make the Best Tippers
After moving to Omaha and teaching for a couple of years across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I grew tired of driving a car that smelled like a mildewed basement. My poor Chevy Monza had suffered through a Nebraska flood back at the farmhouse, and the car stank. I couldn’t afford a new… Continue reading Waitresses Make the Best Tippers
Worst Professor Ever
She taught the research class at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I needed the course to earn my master’s degree. It would be easy. I’d written dozens of research papers at ISU. She said we could choose any topic. All we had to do was take a position, defend it with an intro, middle,… Continue reading Worst Professor Ever
One Flood, Two Fishermen
Kristy and I met at ISU. We had been around the world together, at least to Venezuela where we did our student teaching, plus Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. Now we were roommates in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska. As the story goes, I applied for the third grade teaching job, the principal interviewed me, showed… Continue reading One Flood, Two Fishermen
Too Tired to Boogie
The band room was a freezer. “Vamos a sentarnos en el pasillo, clase.” “What?” “We’ll sit in the hallway today.” It was zero degrees outside. The school district wanted a Spanish class but had no classroom for me. I’d complained a zillion times – when the band teacher held private tuba lessons in his office,… Continue reading Too Tired to Boogie
Big Jack, Little Jack
Teaching high school didn’t open up many dating possibilities at work, unless you count the weird science teacher with the orange stick-up hair and the pocket protector, or the short English teacher who did impersonations as well as anyone on Saturday Night Live. One night, as I was complaining that I couldn’t find any good… Continue reading Big Jack, Little Jack
This Little Piggy
Right after college, I moved to a town with 2000 people and a bunch of pigs — real ones, the kind that grunt and poop and lift the gate latch with their noses. I saw something run past the window of my rented farmhouse. At first I thought it was a deer until I put… Continue reading This Little Piggy
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 