(re-run) Father’s Day has come and gone. I saw many black and white photos of men on Facebook, people my age honoring their deceased dads. I didn’t have a good photo of Dad to post, just silly ones or childhood ones. It never occurred to me 34 years ago that I would someday want a… Continue reading Just for the Halibut
Category: teaching
I Wish You Would’ve Died
Imagine a white woman from Iowa teaching Spanish in a town that was one fourth Latino. Imagine coming into the classroom mid-year after a string of substitutes. On my first day, a student said, “You’re our 12th sub. How long are you going to last?” It was a brand new middle school in Ramona in… Continue reading I Wish You Would’ve Died
Teaching in Nowhere-Nebraska Memories
After student-teaching in Caracas, Venezuela, and Des Moines, Iowa, at the local all-girls Catholic high school, I went to Spain for the summer to finish up my Spanish credits for my double Spanish-Elementary Ed degree, with a minor in teaching K-12. Then I was off to my job in Ashland, Nebraska, population 2000. The principal… Continue reading Teaching in Nowhere-Nebraska Memories
Dieting, Body Image, and Stay Out of my Business
(re-run) “Are you going to eat all of that?” I was sitting at a table in the teachers’ lounge, my lunch spread out before me. There was a sandwich, a red apple, carrot sticks and a glass of juice, maybe a chocolate or two. Why was the teacher I barely knew commenting on my lunch?… Continue reading Dieting, Body Image, and Stay Out of my Business
Deciding for your Children
(re-run) It’s funny how something pops into your brain and you think, that would make a good blog post. Today I mailed 100 books to a librarian in Menlo Park. They are old kids’ books that my children read back in the day. My librarian Facebook friend asked for books for her students to read… Continue reading Deciding for your Children
The 48 Year Old Letter
My sister was going through some letters our mom had saved, and she gave me a short stack of them, supposedly ones that I had written. Then I came across one written to my dad from a past boyfriend. It was three and a half pages long, in cursive. It was a chatty letter until… Continue reading The 48 Year Old Letter
Another One Bites the Dust
I had only been a teacher for a few years when I was asked to teach an interest class during lunchtime. I agreed to teach aerobics, since I loved doing them, and why not? I was young, strong, and didn’t look half bad in an 80s leotard, complete with leg warmers and a sweat band… Continue reading Another One Bites the Dust
Paying It Forward
When one of my daughters studied abroad and found her roommate stealing her food because the girl had no money to buy groceries, my daughter was upset. When she finally told me about it a few years later, I had to say to her, “That was me. I was the girl sneaking food because I… Continue reading Paying It Forward
Challenger Explosion and Subbing in San Diego
(re-run) It was a Tuesday, my third week of substitute teaching in Ramona, California (January 28th). The Middle School Spanish teacher before me had left in October after a former student told her therapist that he had sexually molested her while on his high school track team. The teacher was terminated, and the string of… Continue reading Challenger Explosion and Subbing in San Diego
The Neighbors, the Pit Bull, and the Daily Pooper
(re-run) We bought a house on a street that was a long court with two courts coming off of it. We were up at the top, and it was a great and safe place for my kids to walk our greyhound mix dog. Until it wasn’t. “That was a short walk,” I said when they… Continue reading The Neighbors, the Pit Bull, and the Daily Pooper
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 