A Valentine for Howard

I'll be your Scarlet if you'll be my Rhett.
We'll have the hottest love affair yet.

You be my Bogey, and I'll be your Bacall.
We'll love longer and better than them all.

I'll be your Snow White if you'll be my Prince charming.
If you'll be my prince, as your Cinderella I will be alarming.

Such a love affair no one ever did see.
I'll be your Lucy if my Desi you will be.

My Romeo you are, so your Juliet I will be.
We'll love like Othello and Desdemona without the tragic ending they did see.

Or perhaps I could be Priscilla and you Elvis, singing "Love me Tender, Love me true..."
And I would never let you go because I love you!

We would love like King Arthur and his Guinevere, so hot!
Without the Lancelot factor to spoil our happy Camelot.

With happy hearts and lucious tarts
For you I would worship with an angelic start.

For never in this whole wide world
Could two be separated after such a whirl!

Have You Ever???????????

Have you ever worried about someone's safety and imagined all kinds of horrible things have happened to someone you love? I just did that. What is wrong with the human mind that tells us when things are just a little off the norm that something is wrong? I have worried for three days about the whereabouts of a friend only to find out that the friend was helping someone else out and had no way of communicating that to me! Does this make me selfish? I think it does so I'm here to confess my sins. Dear Lord, forgive me for my selfishness and for thinking that all my friend had to do was email me! Maybe if I could get out from under this false sense of importance, I could realize that I'm not the only person in the world!

"Unhappy Seasons" for Lindsay Kasten Losch

Summer memories cloud holiday dreams
And winter winds speak quietly beneath
Beautiful dancing snowflake dreams of you
As long walks collect promises of Spring...
No more.


(Written in memory of a favorite student who was tragically killed.)

So What's Really Wrong with American Education?

Having been a teacher for the past 26 years, it's is easy to see what is wrong with American education, but it isn't easy to fix it. First of all, schools have gotten too large. If you check statistics for high schools of less than 500 and compare the progress of those students to the ones who attended high schools of 1,000 or more, I'll bet any amount of money that the smaller schools have a higher graduation rate and a lower dropout rate than the larger ones. Track students for the past 10 years and you will find that the majority of the smaller schools' students graduated and are productive members of society with higher morals to boot! When schools become too large, the closeness and the idea of belonging are lost. That's when students becomed disenchanted and dropout.

Another problem in our system is that parents no longer really take the time to care about the education their children are getting. When was the last time you actually went to your child's open house or attended parent conferences? Did you sign up for PTA or to help out in some capacity? You say, "I work full time. I don't have time." Do you have time to bail your son out of jail because you never took the time to get him interested in something to occupy his mind so he wouldn't get involved in drugs? You say, "I don't have the money to pay for extracurricular activities." Do you have the money to bury your son when he kills himself after drinking heavily and running his car into a tree?

The main problem is priorities. Parents don't realize the importance of raising their children to become educated, productive members of society who know how to help others and provide for their families. They are so busy trying to "keep up with the Jones's" that they don't TAKE the time to do what is the responsible thing to do.

Last, but not least. Everything comes down to money. It is cheaper to educate 30 students at a time, but more productive to teach them 10 at a time. Perhaps we should home school all students and go to online instruction. There you have it! I have just talked myself out of a job.

God's Wrath or God's Will?

It seems that the world is coming to an end. Think about it. The earthquake, the Tsunami, fires in Australia, mudslides in California, what next? Some people say all of this is a result of the bombings in Iraq. I say that's bunk! Would God waste time with little details? If the end of the world were here, wouldn't he just wield his power and make it explode all at once?

Perhaps all of these recent catastrophes are just a result of God's plan. Perhaps he knew people all over the world would come together to donate funds, time, and sweat equity to help those in need. Perhaps he wants to show the Muslims who so badly hate America that we actually have a heart.

A while back after 9-11, I remember saying to a friend. "Why doesn't God just send an earthquake to take care of all those people who hate us?" My friend assures me that none of this happened because God listened to me! That was not my thought, really! I felt almost psychic and this is not the first time. Call it intuition; call it whatever you please. There have been many times in the past when I have thought about something only to have it happen just the way my mind told me it would. Crazy, you say? Maybe...maybe not. Now, I'm not saying the people who died or were hurt were being punished by God. But, think about it...I believe the only person who could change the minds of Muslims who hate us is GOD. God's wrath...or God's will?

Hello from Indiana!

Can you believe it? Another day of ice and snow in northern Indiana! I have lived here for almost 22 years and I still cannot get used to the weather. They say, "Just hang around a few minutes, and it will change!" Boy! They weren't kidding. It is impossible to know how to dress around here! Give me good old North Carolina's changing-of-the-seasons any day of the week! Is it retirement time yet?!! I can't wait. When you think about it, what exactly does Indiana have to offer? There's corn...and then there's corn...and maybe a little...what?!!!...CORN!!! You have got to be kidding me. That's it?!!!!!!!!!

All kidding aside, my husband and I have lived in Elkhart, Indiana, for the past 22 years. Elkhart has been good to us. I am an English teacher, and he is a Quality Engineer. Yes, that means he is a perfectionist and I am too. "How's that workin' for ya?", Dr. Phil might say. So far...so good. He cooks and irons because I can't do it to suit him. I clean, and if he notices, he doesn't say much.