School Days

     I can remember walking to school, mouthing the letters of the spelling words.  We did have spelling tests in first grade back then, and so far I hadn't missed any words.  My mother would go over the list with me and everything had made perfect sense.  Until this time:  there were 2 words on the list that threw me.  The words were "store" and "white."   The first I thought I had, but I could make no sense of the word white, so I relied on memorization.  Around the corner by the Valley Inn, past the Methodist Church, and up the steps into  the red brick school building, I repeated the spellings over and over, my stomach churning every step of the way.
    I was in my seat, pencil in hand, blank sheet of paper before me, awaiting the dictation of the words.  The rest of the list, as usual, was easy, no problem, even the word store, once written, looked right to me. But I panicked at the word white.  I knew it started with a "w" but beyond that, I knew what all the letters were, but had no idea of where they came after the w.  I tried, writing over the letters I thought needed changing.  The word looked scratchy and scrawled.
    Then, the moment of dread---the arrival of the teacher to correct the test.  The teacher was Mrs.Flynn,  to my first-grade self a tall and foreboding presence.  She loomed above my desk, over my shoulder.  And she had her pencil with her, with the sharpened red end at the ready. She scrolled it down over my list of words, and Horrors! stopped at my feeble attempt.  "What is this supposed to be? she asked, in her stern, schoolmarm voice.  I was sure everyone in the room, including the second-grade section on the left side of the room, was watching, aghast.  I whispered "white" and she halted the progress of her pen down the list and laid down a big red Check Mark next to the offending entry.  She said no more, just walked away.
     Is that all there is to a fire?



   
 

Liberated and/or Doomed

    Maybe a mixture of both.  That's the feeling you get when you cancel your doctors' appointments.  It's not that I don't believe in health care, but there is a time and a place for everything.
   Kids hardly ever seem to get sick anymore, except in the most terrible instances where the poor little tykes are diagnosed with cancer.  Back in the day, kids routinely got all the "childhood diseases," and we were no exception:  Chicken pox, which was usually considered a minor disease, when compared to the others; Mumps, which was so very uncomfortable;  Whooping Cough, which threatened Dorothy's life during her severe coughing and strangling spells; Measles, the "regular, red" sort, from which I got so sick I wanted to die;  German Measles, another mild, "You're only sick for about one week" ailment. Our old school Report Cards document our absences during these sieges, some for weeks at a time, and we loved to go to school, hated missing it.
   Even a generation later, my own children, 2 of them, were very sick with Chicken Pox, and its lasting effects of blisters and styes.  They were not yet able to be protected from Mumps, which caused them a lot of misery and pain, from which the youngest was saved due to the advent of the vaccine.
    For a time, there was, and maybe still is, a theory that there are so many more child cancer victims today because children are now spared from the childhood diseases which routinely took the lives of those kids with the weakest immune systems. I think environmental causes have pretty much displaced that theory, though it probably holds a grain of truth, if not more.
    The focus of modern medicine is, and rightfully so, on maintaining health and preventing diseases.  What can be done for treating acquired and chronic conditions can be undoubtedly helpful, some if not all the time.   After all, what doctors and health providers do is prolong your life, not save it.
 

The Case of the Fourth Air Conditioner.

   I couldn't figure out how we came to possess 4 "modern" A.C.'s.  I should have known:  David sent it, for his father.  It is the only one we have that has a remote control, so the temperature and air flow can be regulated without his getting out of bed.

A Different View

   I woke up this morning, and something seemed different. As if something important had occurred.  But everything is the same, exactly the same. And I'm not superstitious, or psychic.  Maybe the planet changed course in the middle of the night.

A Fortune

Pamella Couthiner contacted me through a feedback I'd left for the VA several months ago.  She has terminal throat cancer, lost her husband, is from England but is now in France and has chosen to donate to me her fortune of 60,000 somethings, maybe Euros.  I just need to contact her; who says nobody cares?

Toast Crumbs in the Butter

    It's a hard truth to have to face, but when no one else has access, you are the one who is responsible for the toast crumbs in the butter container. You alone must bear responsibility for the spilled coffee stains on the kitchen counter, and only you could have left the front door ajar instead of closing it securely for the night.   But then, nobody knows and nobody sees and nobody cares but me.