Back into the Routine

We enjoyed watching the Olympics so I was wondering if I would suffer withdrawals after it was over, but our normal schedule has kicked in and I haven't been home enough to notice.

Our weather has been very pleasant for August. It’s too bad our mosquitos are so vicious we can’t go out and enjoy it.

SCHOOL LIFE. We've been wondering how Ben would take to middle school. He may be there with all the same classmates, but it is a new building, a new schedule, and a different set of expectations from the teachers. He is, as usual, pretty quiet about his school day, never saying much no matter how many questions we ask. What we have noticed is that he is cheerful every morning and happily goes about the business of getting ready for the school day. We're taking that as a good sign.

Jenna and Nate seem to be enjoying school as well. The big news from Nate came the other day when he proudly told us he pulled his own loose tooth in class. He decided that afternoon that he couldn't wait for the Tooth Fairy so Vicki handed over a dollar right then.

I suspect the biggest change for Jenna is that she is now able to take some courses she’s never been able to take before. Two examples of this are her Family and Consumer Science (Home Ec) class and Health Science class. Jenna has to wear scrubs to school every Thursday for Health Science. I don’t know if nursing will wind up being her chosen profession, but she sure looks convincing in her scrubs right now.

SNAKE BITE DISEASE. That's what I call the affliction I seem to have when I'm looking for something that's in plain view but can’t seem to find it. The other morning as Vicki was packing our lunches she told Ben to get the deli meat out of the fridge. She was getting very frustrated with him for not finding it because the package was at the front of the shelf at eye level for the boy. When he finally spotted it he exclaimed, "Oh! That's where it was hiding." He’s inherited my gene.

THE WRECK. I am constantly amazed with the number of people who run off the road in front of our house or into one of Mom's fields. Most of the time the only evidence we have are skid marks and a trail through the field, but on occasion there's an abandoned vehicle about 100 feet off the road.

Last Tuesday afternoon a couple who lives down the road from us were returning home from Nashville when the wife, who was driving, dozed off. They ran off the road opposite our driveway, side swiped the old log shed that’s across from our house, flattened a path through the cornfield, and traveled about 200 feet into the woods before coming to a stop.

Of course, the local rumor mill had sprung into action as people drove by seeing all the emergency vehicles but no car (remember, it stopped 200 feet in the woods). Vicki and I were both at work as news of the FBI and TBI pulling at least one dead body out of the field came trickling in. “Oh great,” I thought, “The whole evening will be taken up with me being asked questions to which I have no answers.”

I am glad to report the pair suffered no major injuries. It could have been so much worse. Had their path been about five feet to the left they would have hit a corner of the building and could have been impaled by some of the logs. Unfortunately, they clipped enough of one corner of the building that we’re probably going to have to tear it down which is a shame because it adds a lot of character to the place. I don’t know how old that shed is or what its original purpose was, but I’m sure the men who built it never dreamed that a horseless carriage, if they could have even imagined that, would come flying down what may have been a dirt road and destroy their handiwork.

Joe

The Last Weekend of Freedom

The last weekend before school started was always one of the lowest points in the year for me when I was a kid. Nate got a letter in the mail from his new teacher, Mrs. Hooper. This is the same teacher Ben had in fourth grade. Nate wasn’t upset about his teacher, but he didn’t like the fact that the letter marked the end of summer break. I sure can sympathize with how Nate feels. So ends an all too short summer.

BEN’S BIRTHDAY. It’s so hard to believe that another birthday has rolled around for Ben. He celebrated twelve years on Friday. This year middle school. Teenager next year. He is becoming an extraordinary young man, but where has the time gone?

Ben really didn’t want to do anything big for his birthday this year. All he wanted was to have his friends, Jake and Luke, over to spend the night and all four boys (don’t forget Nate) had a wonderful time together. I think what’s so special about Jake and Luke for Ben is that they share his geeky side. They love to play Pokemon and that’s an interest a lot of boys at church and school don’t share with Ben.

Ben was moping a bit after his friends went home Saturday. I knew something was wrong, but the boy is so darn hard to read we had to work to get enough out of him to figure out what he really wanted. My first offer was to take him to Game Stop in White House so he could spend his gift card. Then we asked if he wanted the rest of the family to tag along and us go out to supper. Well, he did, but getting him to decide on a restaurant was like pulling teeth. I think he has taken lessons from Mom. We wound up going to Cracker Barrel which was a good choice because the serving staff will come to your table and sing Happy Birthday upon request and surprisingly he was all for it.

We celebrated as a family again over at Aunt Mar’s last night. It was a simple meal of hamburgers, but this meal featured an actual cake. (Ben had requested peach cobbler for when his friends were over on Friday.) I think he went to bed a happy twelve-year-old.

CATS. I have mentioned the cats over at Aunt Mar’s a few times over the last year. You may recall that we lost a kitten but then gained a stray so the cat count has stayed the same. It has been an ongoing debate with me about what to do with the cats. They all get under Mom’s feet and become a trip hazard for her when she goes outside which tips the scales toward getting rid of the cats, but then I drive up and Aunt Mar is sitting at the window thoroughly enjoying their antics as they play on the patio. To hear Mom and Aunt Mar talk about them the cats are better than anything on TV. What to do?

I’ve always thought that when the time comes to remove the cats I have plenty of barns around my house that would be a great place for a good mouser. That is, until we had a momma cat and two kittens show up at our house. One of these kittens has disappeared, but momma and the remaining kitten seem to be here to stay. Momma cat has even gotten over her shyness and let’s us play with her.

If anyone needs a cat we have a few to spare. Best we can tell they’re all girls.

THE START OF SCHOOL. We went to both schools this evening for open house. It’s very odd to walk through the high school wing with our new freshmen, strange to be back in the sixth grade wing with our new middle schooler, and that leaves our youngest at the elementary school by himself now.

I’ve already mentioned who Nate’s teacher is. Ben has many of the same teachers Jenna did three years ago. Jenna, on the other hand, has a whole new experience. She has four classes this semester: Family and Consumer Science (Home Ec), Lifetime Wellness, Health Science Ed, and Algebra I Honors. Unless things change she'll have the following classes after Christmas break: English I Honors, World Geography, Computer Applications, and Physical Science.

So, I’ll put the kids on the bus tomorrow for an abbreviated day (reminding Ben to get off at the right school) and classes start Thursday.

SCHOOL IN MY GRANDMOTHER’S DAY. The start of school is a good place to come back to my grandmother's recording as she talks about school some. The part where she begins to talk about school is very garbled, but clears up. She starts off telling about cleaning her slate. I'm guessing her school, which would have been a one- or two-room schoolhouse, did not have any plumbing at all because she mentions a hole in the floor where they poured the waste water. Something about her washing her slate must have been very funny because she laughs a lot during the retelling of it and she quotes the teacher, Miss Jesse, telling her, "Joella, I believe you're going to have to quit washing your slate. You're just tickling these little boys to death."

Mrs. Joella would be overwhelmed if she could walk into a classroom today. I do see some teachers use the slate idea, though with handheld dry erase boards, when they have their classes work math problems as a group. It amazes me how much paper we use in our school system each year. Here's what my grandmother said about slates and paper in her day.

Slates was so grand for those children learning to write. We didn't have tablets too much then. [Unclear] ... couldn't keep no way ... couldn't keep you in tablets. [You buy] a little old tablet and it wouldn't be as thick as your finger and the old, coarse paper, you know, [by the] time you tear out two or three leaves wasn't no room for anything. But they finally got where they made nice thick [or slick] tablets. Everybody could have good paper. But at first they didn't. It was old coarse paper.

Sadly my grandmother's educational experience was typical of many elder daughters of large families in her day. She missed a lot of school because she was needed at home to help with her younger siblings. She was supposed to share this responsibility with her younger sister, Mamie, but Mamie didn't seem to keen on staying home from school to cook and do laundry. My grandmother also didn't have the heart to leave her mother to do it all by herself, and, as she explained, "Mammy had a breaking out on her hands plum to her elbows. Had to wear rubber gloves to make up biscuits and to work with [unclear], such as that. She didn't use her hands without 'em ... biscuit dough and cutting meat. She had [unclear] on her hands. And that [unclear] would have to be tied down. She wore rubber gloves up to her elbows."

WALKING TO CHURCH. The last story that's intact on my grandmother's tape is about walking to church. She had been talking about her older brother, Frank, and some of the things he did, though the recording is hard to hear for that. One tale I could make out is that Frank loved to play ball, baseball in particular. A lot of the balls were homemade. On one occasion he wanted a rubber ball and made it by cutting out the tops from his father's rubber boots. He told their father a squirrel had gnawed off the tops of the boots. This story segued into a tale about going to church which was easier to understand.

Frank sure was a mess. But he was the best thing that ever was. Yeah. I know one time the [unclear] meeting was going on. And Mammy would go. And when Pappy could go he'd carry us all on his two horse wagon but he couldn't go all the time. And we'd all walk ... had us a little path ... and the path was so much better than the road was that the wagon had to go over.

So, one day, one morning, Frank says he wanted to go to church that morning. And Mammy said it was alright. We all got ready to go to church  ... he got Mamie going ... Frank [unclear] out. I don't know whether [unclear] John went or not.

And it had been a raining, but it wasn't raining that morning. So we went on the church. We had to go it was about a mile and a half or two miles from home. And so we went on to church and after dinner at church it come up this here cloud. Oh, it just rained, it poured. And then Mamie and I didn't have nothing but our little old parasols to keep the rain off of us. And so, when the rain was over with and it was after dinner Frank says, "Well now, you and Mamie get ready now we've got to go."

I said, "We can't go. We'll get our shoes muddy."

Frank said, "Pull 'em off and go barefooted." He said, "I'm going to pull my shoes off. I'm going barefooted. I ain't going to wear my shoes out in that slop."

So we pulled them off and went barefooted. He said, "Keep your socks on if you want to." I told him I thought as much of my socks as I did my shoes. I pulled them off.

So we went barefooted and [unclear] in the road just like a [unclear]. We walked all the way home. Awfullest time it ever was and I thought we was going to have to stay all night over there at the Presbyterian church. Frank said, "No. We ain't going to stay all night no where. We're going home. Naw, and we wasn't going to [unclear] stop on the road either to [unclear]. We was going straight on home."

He didn't stop for nothing. He said, "If we stopped we never would get started." And we went on home.

They must have had to cross a creek to get home and were concerned that the creek would be flooded.

He said, "[Unclear] Well, if it get's up I'll pack you and Mamie across the creek." [Laughs] He said he could pack us across the creek. You know, Frank wasn't no bigger than me. But it wasn't no [unclear] swim the creek. It hadn't rained that much.

We got home. Frank had on his new suit Mammy had made and pressed [unclear].

I said, "What in the world are you going to do with your suit?"

He said, "Well, I don't know. It's just as well to throw it out there on the fence and let it dry and Mammy can fix it."

[The] sun come right out right quick and so I had [unclear]. Well, mine and Mamie's clothes was just so wet -- ruined -- awful. I had on a white looking dress which was ruined. And Mammy had to stick all that into soap and wash it.

And, so the next day we kind of wanted to go back, but Pappy told us we better not go -- it might rain again. Well, we decided we'd better not go either.

So we finally got to going back to church. Oh, we thought it was the biggest thing that ever was to [get in the path and keep walking -- unclear -- go to church]. It was [unclear] the biggest crowd you ever seen. We had more dinners over there. I guess that’s what made us go over. You could eat all you wanted. Mammy would send dinner too.

But Pappy and them, Uncle [Thomas'?] folks, they always get up the two horse wagon to carry all of us. [unclear] But the road was so awful, almost turned the wagon over trying to get on the road. And you'd rather walk than to be in the wagon when the wagon would [turn]. We all went. We'd go on anyhow just to sing.

As I’ve said before, I don't remember much about my grandmother, but one thing that many people have said they remember about her is that she would not tolerate gossip and that she would never say anything bad about anyone. I admire that about her and hope I hit close to that mark.

Joe

A Great Day

(My intention was to post this on Monday or Tuesday, but we’ve been enjoying the Olympics each night so I didn’t get to it. I decided to leave it written somewhat from the perspective of a few days ago and follow up with more news in a day or two.)

I’d almost swear that my grass is trying to make up for lost time now that it’s gotten a little rain. I mow and it seems like the yard looks wooly again two days later.

A GREAT DAY. We had the privilege of going to Murfreesboro last Sunday to attend church. We went to be with a friend of mine from high school and watched her and her husband participate in a baptism ceremony along with dozens of other people. It was a great day.

I am a little sketchy on these details, but as I understand it World Outreach Church does baptize people throughout the year, however, yesterday was set aside as a special day for baptisms. They had two swimming pools set up in their courtyard and baptized around 400 people over the course of several services.

To fill in the back story here, Tessa and I were friends in high school. Several of our teachers, as many do, enforced assigned seating in their classes and the usual method was to sort people by last name. Since Tessa’s last name then was Searcy I found myself in the seat behind her quite often. I lost track of her after graduation only to wonder what happened to her for about 25 years until we reconnected on Facebook. (By the way, I deleted my account on Facebook a little over a year ago because it was just consuming too much time.)

I don’t remember exactly what happened, but our conversation on Facebook somehow got on topics relating to Christianity. As the conversations grew we switched to email and it evolved into my typing up my Sunday School lessons as I organized my thoughts each week and emailing them to her.

Tessa surprised me four weeks ago when she emailed to say that she and her husband, Thomas, had been attending church and were going to be baptized on the 29th. When I shared the email with Vicki she said, “Well, of course we have to go.” It was a blessing to be in Murfreesboro and share in this special occasion with the girl who used to sit in front of me in high school. I am so thankful to be able to see how God works in people’s lives.

THE TRAVELERS ARE HOME. Vicki and the kids got back home last Saturday. They stayed with the Jones family for the first half of last week and we talked frequently through Jenna’s iPad. Whenever we talked they were either about to swim, drying off from swimming, or playing a board game.

Vicki surprised the kids last Thursday when she told them they were going back home by way of a trip to Dollywood. Since they got to Pigeon Forge late in the evening their tickets covered that afternoon and all the next day. I know they had a wonderful time, but I can’t get a lot of details out of them. I do know they had to convince Nate to ride the new Wild Eagle and that he loved it afterwards.

At any rate, I got four tired, happy people back home last Saturday. It was a nice last hurrah with only one week of summer vacation left.

A MOST DISCOURAGING WEEK. I don’t make it a practice to share a lot about work here, but I did have a most discouraging week at work last week while Vicki and the kids were gone. For those of you who don’t know what I do I manage the student information system for our school system. I have been working on a project for over a year to migrate our data from the product we use to its successor. This project has included training all our users in the new software.

Last week, as a result of a secretive corporate take over, the company that produces these two products was bought out. The new owners immediately announced both software packages were now in maintenance mode and would be retired in two years. We immediately had to migrate back to the old software and throw all the training out the window. Now I am looking at having to repeat all I’ve done in the last year plus with a new product that hasn’t been selected yet, and it may be necessary to do it in a shorter amount of time.

As discouraging as it all is at least my family was able to travel and has gotten home safely, we are all in good health, and I still have a job and can provide for them. And the icing on the cake is that I got to see a friend of mine get baptized last weekend.

Joe