Today's Top Ten List: Thankful For Retirement

Today's post is not meant to Gloat--far from it. I am still Basking In The Glow from my retirement four years ago. Do I feel Guilty, having retired at age 52? Absolutely not. I spent thirty years in a tough public school system, one of Ohio's Big Urbans, teaching kids that, in many cases, no one else wanted to teach. Later in my career, when I was able to teach Honors and Creative Writing, the latter a course I designed and wrote curriculum for myself, I still worked hard and taught students all across the spectrum since our school did not have any requirements for entering the Honors Program.

I had kids arrested in my class, a kid with a gun in my class, my share of convicted murderers, rapists, B & E specialists, felons, and all manner of criminals. At least two of my favourite kids now reside in state prisons. My heart has been broken so many times reading the local court report.

Having said all of that, here--in no particular order--is today's List Of Ten, my

10 Reasons That I'm Grateful For Retirement

1. Easing Into My Day
2. Using The Bathroom Whenever I Want/Need To
3. Every Day Feels Like A Weekend
4. No One Is My Boss
5. No Bell Every 50 Minutes
6. Christmas Preparations Are Less Scroogeful
7. 99% Of My Stress Is Gone
8. Grocery Shopping Is No Longer A Nightmare
9. I Am Kinder, Gentler, And More Patient
10. I Have More Time With My Mother

You can skip this part if you don't want to listen to me explain these.

1. Rather than catapult from bed and into my Mrs. D. outfit and persona, I can wander into the kitchen, make coffee, read the paper, sit in my comfy chair, and do this for pretty much the entire day if I want to, getting dressed and beautified only in time for Rick to come home at five. And yes, that has happened a few times and no, he does not care one bit. In fact, he encourages it.

2. While I was teaching, my poor bladder had to get used to my teaching schedule. If I had no break until the final period of the day, well, tough. And yes, that was often my schedule. Now, my bladder is in charge. But it's nice to fall back on that incredible discipline.

3. Oh, is it Saturday already? Who knew? Because Tuesday and Thursday were...pretty much the same as this. I wish every single one of you could know this feeling. I truly do.

4. After 30 years of parents, voters, administrators, and yes, students being my Boss, it is heady stuff indeed to have NO ONE bossing me around. And no one had better even try. I talk back to television ads who instruct me, "Ask your doctor about Viagra" by saying, "Hey! I most certainly will NOT. YOU are NOT the boss of me!" Ask St. Patsy if even she can boss me around. Ha ha. It is to laugh.

5. After parceling out my life in 50 minute increments, each one signaled by a bell, I won't even have a clock in the bedroom. Time is inconsequential to me most of the time. I rarely look at a clock. I truly love and savour this luxury in particular.

6. Many times while I was working, our last day before Christmas vacation was December 22nd or 23rd. For those of you not in education, you undoubtedly work even on Christmas Eve. I raced to get gifts bought and wrapped, the big family open house planned and cooked and cleaned for on the 24th, not to mention all the other usual Christmas preparations. Now I can dawdle and shop at my leisure, like on Tuesday mornings in December. What a difference it makes.

7. My job was my stress. Period. I could go into it more than that, but I won't bother. Public education is not getting better as a career choice; it is only getting more thankless and more of a Whipping Boy for society's ills. It was never The Kids. Let's just say that.

8. I used to go straight from work to the grocery store and try to do a month's worth of shopping in an hour and a half. Or Rick and I would go on a Saturday and try not to kill ourselves or anyone else. Nightmare. Now, I can go once a week at my leisure, usually on a Tuesday morning when no one else is there, and it is a Non-Event.

9. Because all of my Stress is eliminated, I can be a Better Me. I can be kind. I can be Gentle. I can be Patient. I don't mind waiting while someone, who has had the entire time she has been in line waiting, chooses to search for her checkbook only when the cashier tells her the total of her grocery order. What else do I have to do? What good will it do me to be upset? Instead, I play Words With Friends on my phone.

10. St. Patsy is 85, and if she does not cut back on her sodium and pie, she will only have another twenty or so years left. (I am her Medical Overseer, so I am fully empowered to say this.) Being retired has allowed me the time and patience to be with her more often, and not just to haul her off to doctor appointments and to see her sister in Gettysburg. She is feisty and funny and once in a while tells a story I haven't heard yet. I have lots of friends who have lost their moms, and I am grateful to still have her around.

As I got closer to my retirement, I dreamed about it quite a bit. I'm happy to report that it has more than lived up to my expectations. I am happy and busy and I haven't regretted my decision one bit.

Dear Readers, what are you most looking forward to in Your Retirement? Or, if you are already retired, has it been everything you'd hoped for?

Money Isn't Everything, And We're Worth Way More Than Twenty Bucks

Forgive me, Dear Readers, for this is certainly Old News to all of you, but I am only now hearing of the Campaign To Put A Woman On The Twenty-Dollar Bill. (I know; nothing gets past me for long.) Certainly this is something we need to talk about, and I haven't even sorted my own feelings about this yet. It's all terribly Grace Bedell-esque, isn't it?

In case anyone else has been similarly Out Of It, a little girl wrote to President Obama last year after doing a report on Anne Hutchinson, a Puritan woman who audaciously believed that God could speak to individuals, not just ministers, and who was termed a Jezebel by the local clergy for holding prayer services in her home. When this nine-year old student, Sofia, was watching other students give their reports, some of the others used paper money or coins as illustrations of their historical (male) figures. Sofia could not; neither could any of the other students who chose women. (Apparently no one chose Susan B. Anthony or Sacajawea.) She decided to write to the President and see if he could do something about this.

President Obama wrote back, albeit rather belatedly, and the Interwebs are now all aflutter with a campaign. Replacing President Andrew Jackson was the easy choice because of his tarnished reputation with Native Americans. ( The fact that he adopted two American Indian sons is not enough of a neutralizing factor.)  I'd rather we replace Benjamin Franklin because of his reputation as a known plagiarist and terrific bore, but no one asked me. (His reputation as a Big Deal among the French, especially their women, still amazes me, but then the French are quite fond of Jerry Lewis, too, so I have to say that they have historically Bad Taste In Men. Only their cuisine and wine save them. But I digress.)

Anyway.

The Interwebs got up a bigass poll as to which Historically Notable woman we want passed around by consumers in exchange for goods and services instead of President Andrew Jackson, and therein lies my Big Issue.

Obviously, I'm overthinking this. But the Principle Symbolism of passing around Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, or Chief Wilma Mankiller in exchange for stuff is ... icky to me. I feel as if it defeats the Purpose of the thing. These women didn't traffic in a currency as low and mean as money. They stood for principles much more meaningful, much more important. They worked for Freedom, Equality, Rights, Dignity. I hate the idea of putting any of them on money.

Yes, I'm aware that my own Personal and Revered Hero, President Abraham Lincoln, is on two kinds of currency, coin and paper money, and for the most part, I've never given that much thought. But I do cringe at the commercials that use his likeness to trump sales for insurance in an undignified way, and caricatures or other likenesses on Presidents' Day. I hate it. It's sad when historical figures have no control over their names or likenesses (Don't get me started on the TV show "Salem." They should be ashamed and in court.) If I had my way, President Lincoln wouldn't be on money either. No one would be. Put the flag, the eagle, the purple mountains majesty on there. It's more dignified all the way around. (Look what happened in Canada with Spocking Fives.)

It's not that I'm against money. I like it, and I hope to see a lot more of it. But money should not be a monument. (To some people and political parties, it already is.) Money doesn't increase awareness of the people whose image it bears. That's easy enough to prove. Grab ten people off the street and ask them if they know whether Hamilton or Franklin was a president of the United States. (For the record, neither one was.)

Sofia, the letter-writer herself, seems to be unaware that we already have two women on currency. How much awareness of Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea did those coins raise? And while a good argument can be made that the dollar coin is an unfamiliar and rarely used form of American currency, is a twenty-dollar bill really a teaching tool? Ask any nine-year old like Sofia to name who is on the nickel and who is on the quarter and see if she or he knows that they are two different presidents.

President Obama's response to Sofia is lovely and encouraging in just the right way. The response of the Interwebs is, in the words of William Shakespeare (not Benjamin Franklin, although he would steal them outright for his "Almanack"), "full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

Speaking for myself, I'd rather not have my life commemorated by appearing on currency. Its value goes up and down; it is passed around to hands of varying repute. It is used for things that I may never have foreseen or sanctioned. I would rather, if a person of note, leave my life in the hands of careful and kind teachers and historians.

Sofia can learn more from her report on Anne Hutchinson by following the example of Anne Hutchinson than she can from envying the lazy posters of her classmates. Become a keeper of the flame by teaching about notable women and become a Notable Woman herself. She has a lot of examples already to follow.

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And The Greatest Of These Is Love...Of Learning

One of the objectives that was a Big Deal when I was still formally In Education was helping our students to become Lifelong Learners. At first glance, that looks sort of at odds with a more tangible goal, which is always to get them to graduate in four years. Becoming a Lifelong Learner, however, means to instill into each thriving mind that Love Of Learning--so much so that said mind wants to go on learning new things forever and forever.

I am a Lifelong Learner, but my education didn't make me that way. It's not that I didn't have excellent teachers all along the way; I did. Part of my quest for learning has to do with reading, and the other part has to do with an all-consuming Need To Know that completely commandeers my conscious mind and compels me to find out every single detail, fact, and available piece of information about whatever it is that currently interests me.

My lifelong learning has led me to, at various stages of my life, read deeply in, research the hell out of, and generally beat up the following topics, in no especial order:



1.  Jack the Ripper
2.  Cows
3.  R.M.S. Titanic
4.  Birds of North America
5.  Redwoods
6.  Oscar Wilde
7.  The Battle of Gettysburg
8.  Mary Lincoln
9.  Abraham Lincoln (1840-1865)
10. Human anatomy
11. John Keats
12. Emily Dickinson
13. The Black Donnellys
14. Daniel Day-Lewis

There are others, but I don't want to start freaking people out unnecessarily. I'm not counting the stuff I started to research because I had to teach it, either, like Walt Whitman. I was already deep into Miss Emily before she became part of my regular curriculum.

The Interwebs make this so very, very easy. If I hear about something on NPR, I can research it immediately on the Interwebs. I can then go on Amazon.com (my boyfriend!) and select books which my boyfriend will then send directly to my front porch in a few days or so. I can even get on Netflix and search for any documentaries on the topic. The amount of information available to me at my fingertips is almost overwhelming. There is so much that I can wallow in information: facts, details, witness accounts, photographs, recordings, testimony, you name it. For information addicts like me, it is heaven.

The problem with making Lifelong Learning an educational goal or objective is that it's impossible to achieve if you have a student with absolutely no natural curiosity. Or a student who doesn't/won't read. Or someone who doesn't care about anything but himself and his (insert trivial object here: cellphone, motorcycle, designer something).

I just this minute learned that someone from Maryland discovered what he thinks might be pictures of President Lincoln's funeral procession passing by on a New York City street. The photo, published on a Flickr site, is from the National Archives. Here's a link.  I'll be looking closely at it as soon as I hit "Publish" on this post.  Then, I'll probably click another link, then another, then another.  And pretty soon, I'll be looking at all kinds of other things and learning about them, too.

Being a Lifelong Learner is a gift.  Did you receive it?  What wonderful, interesting things have you learned about?

It's Like What Robert Frost Said

Have you ever asked a little kid what he wants to be when he grows up? The answers I love the most are when the kid says something like, "A killer whale" or "A kittycat." Once the kid gets older and becomes completely ruined by television/cable/DVDs/Netflix, the answers do too. Then he's likely to say, "I wanna be Batman" or "I wanna be fill in the blank with a Disney hero."

When I was a kid, I was awfully boring. St. Patsy confirms this. Actually, her response was, "Boring? No, you were just good and didn't give me any trouble when you were little." So, boring. I did all kinds of creative stuff with art supplies, but I was really a straight-up-and-down sort of child. And when anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said the same thing, always.

So now, let me ask you, sort of, in a question supplied by a Dear Reader:

If you had to start over again, what career path would you choose?

My stock response back then would be my response now: a teacher. I've never regretted my career choice. There were plenty of things about it that I disliked, but the teaching was never one of them. If I could simply teach--just teach--right now, I'd do it. Not grade papers, not discipline, not fill out stupid forms, not supervise standardized testing, not babysit study halls or lunch, not all that UNteaching--just teach the books and grammar and writing that I know and love and can pass along and help others to understand and appreciate and learn. I would do it. Seriously.

Now, for those of you who say, "That's not fair. The question seems to imply that you must choose a new career path," I would say, 'I'm at a loss then.' I had dreams of being a veterinarian, as I discussed here before, but couldn't manage the high-level chemistry/math. Perhaps I'd be a Life Coach, specializing in teenagers and women. I really don't know.

But it's your turn. Let's hear what direction you might have taken, had your life made a different turn.

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I Have Issues. Let's Talk About Them.

One of the many things I have grown to love about my retirement is the quiet.  After thirty years of generally talking all day, listening to other people talking, or being subjected to hallway noise of yammering and shouting, the relative silence is a true pleasure.  It's rare that, in the course of a usual day, I hear a single voice that is not my own.

Think of it! For days and days, from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, aside from me chatting with my cats, there is not another human voice to be heard.  Unless my mother calls, unless Rick calls, unless a sister calls (all of which could happen, but seldom do), no voice interrupts my day.  I don't turn on the television or a radio.  I wallow in The Quiet.

Another part of the reason I enjoy the quiet might be that it's apparently difficult to have a sane discussion with people anymore, about anything.  It's terribly tedious when grownups link every little thing to The Politics and blame everything on their pet issue du jour.  I do it about the republicans for humorous effect here at the Dept., but Out There, it's reached a level of sheer idiocy.  I'm going to try my best not to add to the circus as I answer today's question, which is:

What is one political or social issue that drives you crazy when people talk about it?

(This question also adds the gentle and civilized note:  You don't have to give your opinion; just tell what the issue is.  Honestly, in this format, I don't know if that's possible.  Readers here know most of my opinions anyway, though, so it's not an issue.)

All of the Issues drive me crazy anymore, especially when David "Gregorius Interruptus" Gregory tackles them on Meet the Press.  Do not get me started.  That show should start with Rachel Maddow giving him a good, smart smack in the mouth every single week.

But I digress.

Firstly, the Affordable Care Act.  I hate like a root canal that Everyone calls it "Obamacare."  Yes, I realize that President Obama himself claims to embrace the term, but that was a political move to take the sting out of the term, I think.  Certain people speak about the ACA as if it were a product of The Great Satan--as if it says that, at some point, all the elderly among us will have to go to the woods and live off the land with only a backpack of dried fruit and a Swiss Army knife.  The most rabid detractors have no idea what the ACA even says.  Or does.  Or will do.  They just want Sarah Palin to run for president and drill for oil in snowy game preserves.  And shoot things.  From her snowmobile.  Named Prak.

Next, guns.  Chiefly, gun control.  This is an issue fraught with so much conflict.  The US has a very distinct gun culture, and within it are separate gun cultures.  Some of them are historical and go all the way back to our earliest regional heritages.  Some are simply violent and macho gangster posturing.  I'm not pretending to understand any gun culture; it's all alien to me.  But I will never believe that what we need are more guns, as in NRA president Wayne LaPierre's quote about the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with one.  And I worry a great deal that all the rhetoric about beefing up mental health initiatives instead of legislating commonsense gun control will only serve to further isolate, stigmatize, and harm those struggling with mental health problems.

Finally--I'm going to confine myself to three or I'll get too fired up--public education in general and teachers specifically.  The amount of teacher-bashing and outright disrespect and belittling of the profession and individual teachers is both astonishing and breathtaking.  Wait--add "heartbreaking" to that list.  There are actually people, and a great deal of them, who think that a teacher is someone who gets paid way too much to work only nine months a year, then retires to a cushy salary for doing nothing.  These are the same people who, when they find out you are a teacher, say, "Oh, I could never do that job!" or "You couldn't pay me enough! Kids today...!"  These are the same people who want inexperienced kids from government programs to teach cheaply in public schools, but then raise hell when all teachers aren't perfect in the classroom.  "These are our children you're talking about!  That teacher is in a position of Trust! We expect the best for our kids." Basically, what they want is ... I have no idea.  Honestly, I don't know what in the hell they want.  They have free schools.  Teachers get paid little, comparatively speaking. It's painfully obvious that education is not a national priority, and nothing gets cut more on the national, state, and local level more often and more deeply than education budgets.  My entire career, I did more with less, year after year.  There was never a year that we didn't hear the phrase "Because of budget cuts...".  Teachers are Heroes.

Dammit.  Now I'm fired up.  Your turn in Comments.

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Bring The Car Back Around, Please: Driver's Re-Education

Approximately eleventy hundred years ago, when I was sixteen, high schools offered Drivers' Education classes.  A whole herd of us paid our forty dollars to the secretary, handed over our parent-signed cards, and made plans to show up from 6:30 until 9:00 in the evening for as long as it took to fulfill the requirement and "get our temps."  I got mine, no problem (except for the gruesome movies of car accidents with people's blood foaming out of their mouths like cherry Icee).  I went out for my driving time with a strange old lady instructor whose idea of driving practice was to do all of her errands:  we picked up her dry cleaning, went to the post office, drove by her bridge partner's house to see if she was home, and once, even dropped off a little brown bag containing what we later found out was her stool sample to the hospital lab.  I shared a car with Esther, and we tried not to laugh as we drove and drove and drove.

And after all of that, I sort of...stuck.  My parents didn't feel the same urgency I felt to get me out on the road, let alone get my permanent license.  It was incredibly frustrating.  I asked them both to take me out driving.  "Oh, not now, maybe later," they'd say.  If we were in the car coming home from school, church, an errand, I'd say, "Hey, let me drive home!"  And Mom or Dad would say, "Next time."

Next time never came.  I had to renew my temporary license every six months to keep it current, and I did, three times.  Three times!  Before you laud my Patience, don't.  It was Spite.  Pure, unadulterated Spite.  It cost them time, inconvenience, and whatever the fee was each time I renewed.  And I was hoping it kept reminding them A) that I had yet to have a driver's license; B) this was ridiculous; and C) they were wasting time and money.

Suddenly, The Time came.  And when I say Suddenly, that is precisely what I mean.  One day, my (not yet canonized) mother said, "Nance, your father and I are planning our vacation up to eastern Canada.  We'll be leaving on the same day you start your classes at community college.  So!  You're going to need to get your license.  I'll practice with you, and your brother will help you with parallel parking."  I had mere weeks.

Mere weeks and the family cars, which consisted of a 1967 Chevy Impala and two 1969 Buick LeSabres, all fine for driving, but not so nifty to parallel park.  But this wouldn't be a problem, my mother assured me.  We would borrow a car belonging to my sister's roommate!  It was a Chevy Nova, small and easy to park.  Did she need it during the week?  Yes, but she would be happy to trade cars for the weekend so that I could practice with it.

I was overwhelmed by all the machinations and arrangements.  I felt pressured by the deadline.  Still, the final result would be that I WOULD HAVE MY DRIVER'S LICENSE.  At age eighteen, every single one of my friends had been driving for years.  Years!  And I was always their passenger, forking over gas money and thanking them for rides.  If all went well, those days would be over.

My mother, to be fair, is an excellent driver, far better than my father ever was.  Dad saw most traffic laws as guidelines when it came to his own driving.  He coasted through stop signs if he saw no one coming, and he was turning right on red decades before it became permissible by law.  He invented the wide left turn.  As a matter of fact, his left turns were so very wide that once, when he was taking the dog to the park for a run and Dusty was perched with her front paws on the edge of the open window, he turned left down 33rd Street and she fell right out of the car.  Dad told us later, "As soon as I saw what happened, I pulled the car over and got out.  There she was, just sitting on the tree lawn, looking up at me.  I felt all of her legs and her back to make sure she wasn't hurt.  I felt terrible.  I had her walk a little bit, and she was fine.  So we got back in the car, and she ran in the park like usual.  From now on, I'll have to keep that window at least halfway up."  And it was a stop street, too.

But I digress.

Mom and I practiced driving, mostly in the blue Buick.  Which was unsatisfying because not only was the cable to the speedometer loose, rendering the speedometer unreliable, but also because said cable produced a constant chirping noise that drove me jaw-clenching crazy.  When we got the little yellow Nova, I practiced driving and parallel parking, the latter eluding me completely.  My brother was the Soul Of Patience, but I have no sense of spatial relationship.  "Use your mirrors," he kept reminding me helpfully.  "For what, for what?!" I kept crying inside my head.  There was something about thirds and something else about something, and I was ready to hit everything I saw at full ramming speed.  It was all the worst.

But it had to be done, and I had to take my test.  I did, and I failed parallel parking.  I hit a cone practically the minute I put the car into reverse.  I didn't dissolve into tears because it was exactly what I had expected.  What I didn't expect was the reception I received once I got home and Mom and Dad wanted a confab with me in the kitchen.  What it amounted to was this:  D Day (Departure Day) was fast approaching, and I was kind of tossing a monkey wrench in their vacation machinery.  I would therefore need to call the BMV ASAP and schedule another test.

So much for sympathy.  And wallowing.  I remember feeling very put upon. Things didn't get any better when I called to get my testing appointment.  There weren't any available for the next two weeks.  I needed one well before then.  The clerk checked in other cities.  "We have one available in Sandusky next Saturday.  How is that?"  I booked it and thanked her and went to tell my parents that someone would have to drive me forty-five minutes west in order for me to try and pass a parallel parking test so that they could go to Canada the following Monday.

My dad took me.  It was ungodly early, and he drove (of course), so I slept.  My test administrator was a kind woman with blond braids.  I must have looked like I wanted to chew my limbs off or something because she said, "Try to relax and take your time.  There is no time limit for this.  You can take an hour if you need to, okay?  You can do it."  I had never heard anything so ridiculous in my life; I was certain of it.  There was no way I could do it.  Then I was seized with an astonishing realization.  I could name about a dozen kids I knew who were a lot stupider than I was who had gotten their license.  Kids who were real idiots.  How hard could this be?  I took a deep breath and started the car.  What followed probably looked like a super slow motion YouTube video of a one hundred-year old woman trying to parallel park a car.  For approximately seven minutes.  It was gut-wrenching and epic.  It was nerve-wracking and suspenseful.  It was so intensely...intense that my knuckles ached and my head hurt.  I passed.  I passed, and the blond-braided woman simply patted me on the back and said, "Great job!"

We walked into the test center and she nodded and smiled at my dad.  I wanted to collapse into a knot of bones and sweat, but I couldn't.  My knees wouldn't bend anymore.  So I tottered over to get my picture taken and sign my Real Driver's License.  My picture looked like I wanted to throw up.  Probably because I did.

Without even asking, I knew to climb back into the passenger seat for the trip back home.  I had a headache anyway.  I didn't drive again until it was time to go to school, and on the first day of classes, I locked my keys in the car.  Driving became a chore for me; I hated it and almost feared it.  My poor sense of direction compounded my distaste, and I wondered why anyone drove at all, beyond necessity.

My dislike of driving continued until my husband gave me a GPS as a gift.  That one small device took away my fear of being endlessly lost.  When I stopped working, that took away my distraction and stress.  I gave myself a road test, a solo trip to visit friends in Virginia.  I passed.

Now, driving is freedom to me.  I chauffeur St. Patsy around, do all the shopping, run errands, and go meet friends all over the place.  When I hear stories about elderly people who fight against giving up their driver's licenses, I empathize.  I understand what it will mean for them.  Waiting.  A whole lot of waiting.  And being on someone else's schedule.  Feeling like a kid again.  Giving up.  All terrible feelings that I can remember.

Our early experiences go on to shape us later in life.  What I've been happy to learn is that those attitudes and interpretations don't have to be forever.


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We Interrupt Regular Programming To Bring You This Special News Report

No tip today, Dearest Readers, thanks to this horrid headache which has taken up residence since
Wednesday night.  I'm presenting instead a sort of Palate Cleanser whilst I wait for my Uninvited Guest to take the Pharmaceutical Hints I keep dropping and leave.  Let's call the following some Sad Reminders Of Our Company here in these United States.

First off is a sign photographed by my nephew Zach, who spied it in his very own high school.  He snapped a photo of it illegally surreptitiously, and sent it via cellphone.  It's glorious in its mystery.

Like you, I wonder.  I wonder at the emphasis of Lights.  I wonder if there is a "/" missing between ALL and NONE.  I wonder if the lights can stay on after school functions.  I wonder why the author didn't just write PLEASE TURN OFF LIGHTS.

This next example appeared on a dessert forum that I happened upon somehow in my travels around the Interwebs.  Someone wanted some ideas for a dessert she could make that did not require sugar or an oven. This answer made me simultaneously laugh and feel true horror at the squalid state of some people's education.  It is cut-and-pasted here exactly:

 Jello and whip cream,fuirt salad, fuirt sherbert, freeze a can of any kind of fuirt and serve it in a bowl...crapes and sugur free ice cream..or traffle of jello whip cream fuirt..repeat to the top of the bowel.

I want nothing to do with anything of that last dessert.

It's Like Festivus In June

Scores of people have told me that, since My Retirement, I have become a Changed Person.  My family tell me things like "Welcome back" or "It's nice to have you back to your old self."  Other people who have not known me for eleventy thousand years say things like, "You are so much more relaxed" or "I've never seen you so happy."
Rick says I am more "serene."

On Saturday, my friend Butch, who has not seen me since about January, said, "Wow.  You're catching up to Rick in the grey hair department." 

Chivalry.  Dead as a flat skunk on the turnpike.

Anyway. 

My Serenity and Inner Smile notwithstanding, I still have a few things to snark about.  Do you?  Howzabout we share, here, at the Dept.?  I'll go first, and you can grouse around in Comments.

1.  Brrrrrr.  It is June, and I have my heat on right now.  Allowing for the absolute fact that I Am Not Normal, it's still abusive that last night it was 49 degrees in NEO.  It got so cold in my house without the heat on that my cheapo wine fridge refused to work.  If it is exposed to temps below 61 degrees, its thermostat malfunctions. Well, guess whose reds were at a frosty 57 degrees until I unplugged it this morning to recalibrate?  Right now, it is 64 degrees outside.  On June 4th.  It was 65 inside when I came home from the afternoon movie. I do not suffer in my house, so on went the furnace.

2.  Duh.  Speaking of the movie, my "daughter" Kait and I went to the noon showing of The Great Gatsby.  Until a few teenagers showed up, Kait--at 20--was the youngest person there.  (I was the second youngest, even though I used my AARP card for $2.00 popcorn and free soda.)  At the end of the movie (possible spoiler!) the narrator Nick Carraway is shown placing a title page on the manuscript of the story he has been telling for the whole movie.  It says "Gatsby by Nick Carraway".  As he is doing this, a teenaged girl behind us said, "Wait.  Wait.  Is this a true story?"  A few moments later, she said, "Hold on.  Wait.  I thought the book was called..." (another possible spoiler detail) and then in the scene, Nick is shown writing "The Great" above the title.  The girl behind us says, "Nick Carraway?  I thought the book was written by F. Scott Um..." and then I stopped listening because I knew that if I didn't, I was going to have to go back there and teach for about an hour in order to be able to go on with my life.

3.  Hello?  The media are all exercised about this Pew Research report that says over the last 50 years, many more women are the sole or primary breadwinner for their families, a figure jumping from 11% in 1960 to 40% in 2011.  Well, holy crap, where the hell has everybody been?  How many of my readers needed the Pew Research report to tell them that?  How many of my readers have been living that stat?  How in the hell can this be News?  I guess I shouldn't be so intellectually disdainful.  After all,
Erick Erickson, Fox News contributor says it's downright anti-science:

"I'm so used to liberals telling conservatives that they're anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology -- when you look at the natural world -- the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it's not antithesis, or it's not competing, it's a complementary role."

Hey, so there ya go.  Ahem. 

4.  Grrrrr.  I've said it here before, and I'll say it again.  Until she said that stupid, condescending remark about the Hurricane Katrina victims, I liked Barbara Bush quite a bit.  I still do like the way she speaks her mind and seems to be realistic about her family and politics.  Everyone knew she was fully aware that the wrong son made it to the White House, and when she said there have been enough people named Bush at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she was right.  Jebby disagrees, however, and he is already starting on the stump for 2016.  When asked about his mother's assertion that their family should end their aspirations for the Presidency of the United States, here is what Jeb said about Bar:  "What can I tell you? All I can say is we all have mothers, right? She is totally liberated, and God bless her."

What can I tell you?  If either of my sons said any of that condescending and chauvinistic bullshit, I'd call him out in the media for A) using empty, meaningless rhetoric; B) stating the obvious; C) being full of hot air; D) acting like a candyass.  Barbara Bush has more restraint than I do, so I'm sure she did all of the above, but in private.  She is totally liberated...what a perfect ass.  Hey, Jeb!  If it were up to people like Erick Erickson in your party, women would never have been liberated, such as we are.  And we liberated ourselves, no thanks to you. 

And the struggle continues.

Your turn now to unload your snark in Comments. 

Indulge Me. Remember What Mae West Said: "To Err Is Human, But It Feels Divine." The Dept. Is (Sinfully) Seven!



by Marc Petrovic and Tim Tate

 In 375 AD, Evagrius Ponticus, a teacher and writer also known as Evagrius the Solitary, decided to identify the most terrible sources of temptation for human beings.  He came up with eight and named them as the sources of all sinful behaviour.  Two hundred years later, Pope Gregory I revised the list down to seven, and we now know them more commonly as The Seven Deadly Sins:  Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, and Sloth.

In August 2012 AD,  the Dept. of Nance, written by a former teacher, celebrates seven years of being a source of...well, something for human beings here on the Interwebs.  In its existence for the past seven years, no doubt it has encouraged and celebrated some sinfulness here and there.  In the spirit of Evagrius Ponticus and Sinners everywhere, I would like to 'fess up--in spirit--to seven each of the Seven Deadlies.

1.  Pride/Vanity:   I'm vain about everything, as Readers all know, but inordinately so about my shoes (which must match my outfit); my clothes (which must be impeccable ensembles); my reading glasses (which must match my shoes and outfit); my hair (which I am at war with constantly); my eyelashes (Bug, where is the Mascara Spreadsheet?); my cats, who remain overweight despite their pricey diet food (and getting no treats or table food--so embarrassing); and the appearance of each post in this blog (it's exhausting, really).

2.  Envy:  This is a tough one.  I'm not generally an envious person, although I do wish I had the blogger book deal, the wherewithal to go on a world cruise, a warm-climate winter getaway home, the ability to eat and not get fat (like Sam's girlfriend seems to be able to!)...(See?  This is turning into what I wish, and not really a list of Envies.)  I'm envious of people who have a really good sense of direction, who like to take photos and have them organized, and who don't have the Worry Gene.  Because I do.

3.  Gluttony:  I don't eat like I used to be able to, and my food cravings change.  But we all have foods we love.  Seven of mine are:  Lobster, Avocados, Fresh-cut French Fries, Duck, Asparagus, Risotto, and Nutella.  Still Nutella.

4.  Lust:  Sometimes I find myself attracted to the oddest men.  Other times, they fit My Type exactly.  Here are seven men I find attractive, and a few are just big question marks, honestly:  Daniel Day-Lewis, Rob Lowe, Pau Gasol, Hugh Laurie, Robert Herjavec (from TV's Shark Tank), Anderson Varejao, and Richard Engel.

5.  Anger:  Lots of stuff makes me mad.  You and I both know that the short answer here could be "republicans" and I'd be done.  But that wouldn't be fair.  So, without getting too peevish, I'll say the USA's poor mentality about education funding in general; the way society bashes teachers; the downward spiral of quality in journalism, especially among broadcast/television media; the glorification of bad behavior in society, namely via so-called "reality programming"; the breathtaking sense of entitlement among people in the past 20 years; the astonishing attempt by some politicians to demote women to second-class citizens by abrogating their rights; and the unreasonable and inexplicable discrimination against gay citizens of our country.

6.  Greed:  This is the desire for material wealth or gain while ignoring the realm of the godly.  And while I pretty much observe the latter, I'm not the Quintessential Material Girl in that I don't wear jewelry or care about designer clothes or give a hoot about driving a Beemer and all that baloney.  Are there even seven materialistic things I want, say, before I die?  I would love a Viking range, a Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment for my mixer, a shopping spree in Sur la Table or Crate and Barrel, someone to come in and repaint the inside of my house for free, and oh hell!  While I'm at it, how about someone just gives me a summer home in Niagara-on-the-Lake? Wouldn't that be nice? Oh yeah, with a vineyard!

7.  Sloth:  According to everyone I meet, I have this one covered.  As soon as anyone hears I have Retired, the very next thing out of his or her mouth is, "Oh! And what are you doing now?"  It's become incredibly embarrassing to say "Nothing."  When did Retirement come to mean Moved On To Next Big Fucking Busy Work Thing?  Because I retired in order to Be Done Working. Here are seven things I'm NOT doing:  grading papers; calling parents of highschoolers; holding my pee for three hours because it's not my conference period or lunch period yet; having a 12-hour day because of parent conferences; buying my own supplies to the tune of a couple hundred bucks a year; pulling together a semester's worth of makeup work in one day for a kid who has been absent and failing but is entitled to his makeup work even though I know he will never turn it in; running to four different copy machines to find one that works in order to copy a test that I am giving that day since I tried to copy it all day yesterday to no avail.  Ahhh, yes.  Sloth.  I'm still, as far as Work Outside The Home Goes, diggin' the Sloth.

Now that I've suitably shocked and dishonored the memories of both Evagrius Ponticus and Gregory I, I invite you to help me celebrate my Blogiversary and do the same.  What are some of your Deadlies? (Or, if you don't want to share, you may merely comment upon mine.) And, oh, do have some cake.  But don't be Greedy and make a pig of yourself.

On Thinking And Teaching And Retiring

When I was a little girl, my mother used to tell me that I think too much.  While I'm not sure what would prompt that admonition, I do know that it continued long into my teen years. 

These days, when the weather here in NEO has turned cooler, greyer, and wetter, I am prone to introspection.  My tendency is also to cocoon.  Piper and Marlowe don't do much to discourage this behaviour; they're drowsy and inclined to curl up on my lap or in their beds and only animate themselves if I am up and busy.  There is always a Project, or Light Domestic Goddessing, or Something To Do.  I have some writing jobs, paid and pro bono, the latter for charities and people I care about. When I do go out for errands, the cats are accusatory and reproachful upon my return.  Only when they see I am staying home for a while do they accept me back into their good graces.

I'm often asked if I have regrets about retiring.  The short answer is No.  My dear Aunt Shirley, herself a retired English teacher, counseled me way back in July to take a short trip the week school started.  "You'll need to be away," she said knowingly.  "Trust me. You don't think you'll miss it, but you will.  You need to be away when it starts back up so you won't feel strange."  Well, I didn't and I don't. I left at just the Right Time for me.

I am often asked if I miss Teaching--in my mind, a different question entirely.  The answer is very complicated, so I usually answer, "Oh, sometimes."  My teacher friends never ask me.  They already know. 

I do not miss the Not Teaching part:  incessant record keeping, phone calls home to parents of highschoolers, labyrinthine office procedures, unreliable copy machines, being informed that the internet is down via email, baffling administrative protocols, and the constant disrespect by government--and, oh hell, let's throw society in there, too--at every level. 

But every so often, I do miss the Teaching part.  I treasured being the Giver Of Literature to my students.  It was with true reverence that I gave them the work of Walt Whitman (America's first hippie); that I introduced them to the genius of Miss Emily (Dickinson).  Who else will enlist empathy and champions for poor, motherless (for all intents and purposes) Holden Caulfield? Who else will defend the honor of Edgar Allan Poe and beg the students to look, look deep into his eyes before they read his work, before they dismiss him as some drunk crazy who married his teenaged cousin?

And I miss working with Creative Writing students the most. Words and writing are my passion, and there was an electric satisfaction, a sort of inspirational symbiosis that occurred when I sat down in conference with my writers those many years.  I felt simultaneously rejuvenated and drained by them. It was a glorious paradox, and those decades were Golden Privilege.  This year, Creative Writing is not even offered, and it breaks my heart.

So much of Teaching--True Teaching--is a Gift. I have it, I gave it, and I got it in return.  Like many gifts, it wasn't always perfect, and there were times when I wondered if the recipients were deserving. But let's not belabor the metaphor.  Or...think too much about it.

Instead, I have a little jaunt to get ready for and some PR stuff to write.  And the head of cauliflower in the crisper won't clean, cut, season, and roast itself as part of tonight's dinner.  It might be a good idea to update our Cellar Inventory, too. Allow me a small indulgence:  to leave you with my good friend, Walt.

School's Out

Oh, Alice.  I can't say it any better myself, so I'll just borrow from you.  School's out for summer.  School's out forever!  Out for summer, out till fall.  We might not go back at all!

And I won't.  Go back ever, that is.  2011 is the year that Nance Finally Gets Out.  With my thirty years in, I'm retiring.  Or, retired, that is.  After doing the math, I can finish out my Illustrious Career by serving a little extra time (14 days) in July, thanks to the Nice People at HR. 

I have to say that I'm very comfortable with my decision for lots of reasons.  Thirty years is a long time to be in such a demanding, giving, calisthenic career.  I am confident that I am leaving while I'm still at the top of my game.  I had a good year with some terrific kids.  And I was fortunate to spend the vast majority of my teaching career at one school district, and one which afforded me an incredible amount of academic and professional freedom with colleagues whom I respected and had a good time with.

The only regret I leave with is that I had to mislead my students.  My decision to retire, once made, was a deeply personal and private one, and they did not know that this was my last year.  No one did. Many of them made plans to check in with me next year, either to be an aide for me or to contribute to the literary magazine for which I am the faculty adviser.  So many inquired about taking my creative writing class, knowing it was their only chance to have me again as a teacher.  I feel bad that I couldn't be entirely honest with them without making my personal life part of the public domain. 

Now, I will take some time to breathe.  I'm not sure what I'll do with all this English in my head.  Who will I share color symbolism and diction clues with in The Great Gatsby?  Who wants to talk about the Freudian elements in The Catcher in the Rye?  Anyone up for a discussion on the dynamic hero in Miller's The Crucible?  And whenever there's an impromptu forum on Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman, please let me know.  I'm all over that.  If only I could just Teach and do nothing else of it all.  That was always my most profound Joy.

In the meantime, allow me to leave you with this most apt conclusion, brought to you by a junior student of my dear friend and colleague Melanie.  I quote it verbatim:

In this novel The Great Gatsby, things got crazy but in the end there was an outcome and everyone was okay.  The End!

The Defender of The Language Returns, For Evil Never Sleeps In The Minds Of Those Bent Upon The Destruction Of English

Once again, the Defender of The Language will use this space to take questions from vexed readers residing all across this Great Land of Ours. She will try her best to repair these breaches in that Sacred Trust. First to share a concern is Reverend Nigel Ellsworth, from Maine.

Oh, Defender, cheers! I had the most embarrassing conversation with one of my parishioners. She wanted my guidance with regard to her teenaged son. He had started hanging around with a bad lot of friends, and she was worried about him starting up with drugs. She wanted my advice as to how to, in her words, "nip it in the butt." I almost wept with embarrassment! Surely that is not an accepted alternative to the idiom, is it? Isn't the proper saying still to "nip it in the bud?"

That must have been embarrassing, indeed, Reverend, for both of you, although your congregant was oblivious to her mangling of this common idiom. You are correct. The saying is "nip it in the bud," and if you visualize it, you can imagine exactly what the metaphor is behind it. It means to deal with a problem when it first appears, before it has a chance to grow larger. Now you, and even your hapless parishioner, can see why "nipping it in the butt" is both awkwardly embarrassing and nonsensical. Certainly it is painful for the problem at hand, but it's illogical: how would nipping anything in the...er, butt solve the problem?

Next, Chrystal from Providence has a question. Chrystal? Chrystal! You're up! DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION OR NOT?

Huh? You don't have to shout at me. God! Whatever. My question is this. My boyfriend has this big paper due tomorrow and I'm helping him with it. His grammar and stuff is terrible. We just had a humongous fight over two stupid words, everyday and a lot. He keeps pushing both of them together, no matter what. I told him like twenty times that he's totally wrong. He won't believe me. Can you tell him he's a big freaking idiot so that I'm not the one he's mad at and I can still go to Prom?

Well, Chrystal, tear the tags off that dress, my dear. You are going to the prom. Let's deal with everyday first. When written as one word, everyday is an adjective, and it means "commonplace, ordinary, usual." It would be describing a noun. You could use it thusly: These are my everyday shoes. If written as two distinct words, it then describes a time--"each day." You could then use it in this way: I eat cereal every day. Your second issue, a lot, is somewhat easier. As a skilled and careful writer, you should simply avoid it, especially in a lengthy, scholarly paper. It is inexact and flabby. You are, however, correct. It is always, always, always written as two words, whether describing a great deal of something or, more correctly, a parcel of land upon which you might place a building. I would prefer that you only use it for the latter.

Finally, we will hear from Felicia, stationed in Guam.

Hey, Defender! Memorias, everyone! I realize that I'm in a whole different country over here, but I still speak English, and the majority of the people I deal with on a daily basis do, too. I've noticed a disturbing trend, and I wondered if I missed something since I've been stationed here. Did "have went" suddenly become proper? Am I the wrong one?

Felicia, thank you for your service. The short answer to your question is a resounding NO. The perfect tense of the verb "go" is and always has been "gone," whether it is with the helping verb "has," "had," or "have." It is, therefore, correct to say I had gone to the gym rather than the horrid I had went to the gym. As to the reason why you are suddenly hearing such dismaying speech in Guam, I have no idea, but I am as distressed as you are. What a terrible ordeal for you so far from home. Buena Suette.

As always, if you have a question or concern for the Defender of The Language, leave it in Comments or email Nance here at the Dept. of Nance by clicking the email link in the sidebar. Questions and issues will be addressed in the next column.

The Defender of The Language Never Rests, And She Takes Questions

This week, the Defender of The Language will be answering questions posed by irritated readers from across the globe. Let's start with Jill, from Oregon.

Hi, Defender. Like you, I find myself physically sickened by these morons who can't use the apostrophe correctly. Can you talk about the signs I see on people's houses that say things like The Taylor's and The Smith's? That's not right, is it?

Certainly I can comment regarding that. Those signs are not displaying the correct usage of the apostrophe and are, in fact, both egregious and upsetting. Unless the residents of those properties are known by a nickname like Donald Trump, who goes by "The Donald," those signs should have their apostrophes relocated. The houses are owned or occupied by all of the Taylors and Smiths; therefore, the apostrophe should reflect that and be placed at the end, thusly: The Taylors' and The Smiths'. The fact that commercial signage cannot be trusted shows in what a sad state we find Our Language. How abysmal, really.

Now let's hear from Costa in New Mexico.

Thanks, Defender, for being there and for taking my question. I know idioms are sometimes regional, but why are some people so stupid about them? For example, the idiom "cut and dried." If I hear one more person say "cut and dry," I think I'll shoot someone. Or am I the one who's wrong?

Oh, believe me when I say that I share your vast frustration. There is even a blog out there in the ether with the erroneous version of this idiom in its title. The correct idiom is indeed "cut-and-dried," and complicating matters further for lazy writers is the necessity of hyphenating it when it is used as a plain, not predicate, adjective. Sometimes, simple common sense can be useful in understanding some idioms. To say something is "cut and dry" just sounds awkward, both in tense and parallel structure. Makes me shudder.

Finally, someone calling himself ZuuZuuu in Pennsylvania writes:

Yo, Defendah! You're cool and all, but what's the big deal with spelling everything so perfect all the time and whatnot? Plus, English doesn't make sense, the way its spelling is, like, so random! Like, a double-o in "moon" is pronounced "ooh," right? So why is this sentence wrong? That girl is fat, so she needs to loose a few. Later, Big D.

It is with great restraint that the Defender of The Language will address only the issue germane to your last query and leave the myriad concerns of your...commentary for another time. Now, then. What you are really bringing to bear is the age-old Lose Vs. Loose battle that is, in a word, never-ending for those of us on the Front Lines of Language Defense. Let me just say this: In the English language, we already have a word spelled "L-O-O-S-E." It is an adjective meaning "free from restraint; unfettered, unbound" and it rhymes with other words spelled similarly, such as goose, moose, and caboose. Occasionally, the word loose can also be used as a verb, but it still means to set something free, to unfetter it, to release it from its restraints. Most usages of this are archaic or poetic. "L-O-S-E" is an active verb, and it means to fail to retain something; to come to be without an object. If you become confused because these words don't follow some sort of rules, simply accept that fact and resign yourself to the fact that part of being a mature writer is remembering a few important things on your own. Certainly that cannot be too terribly taxing, can it?

If you have a question for the Defender of the Language, leave it in Comments, or contact Nance here at the Dept. of Nance by clicking the email link in the sidebar. The Defender of the Language will respond weekly.

In Which I Expose Albert Einstein's Big Lie, As Well As Other Fallacies Of Democracy (And No, I Haven't Started Drinking Tea)

Rick and I were in the car not so long ago when a minivan zipped past us at a pretty good clip. I was immediately on alert because I have a Major Minivan Theory, and I wanted to see if it held true yet again. (My Theory is that most minivans are under-utilized; I maintain that the vast majority of minivans are not transporting large families/groups of people and are, therefore, wasteful and unnecessary.)

But I digress.

The driver was alone in the van (ha!), and as she sped away from us, I caught a glimpse of her bumper sticker. The minute I read it, I became derisive and outraged. Here is what it said:

Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge

What in the hell kind of bullshit is that? How can anyone truly believe that, let alone unabashedly market it and advertise it? Just because it is part of a quote from Albert Einstein doesn't mean it is Scientific Fact. You know, this idiocy is another overly simplified Great American Lie, right up there with

1. You can be whatever you want to be.
2. Anyone can be President.
3. If you want something badly enough, you can make it happen.

Now, while it is true that Bush 43, aka The Angel of Death, would seem to buttress the assertion made in #2, all clear-headed people know that this statement simply isn't true. He may have been a buffoon and an ersatz cowboy, but he was a rich, well-connected doofus with a political pedigree and a republican family name equivalent to the Kennedys. That isn't just "anyone." And before someone flings the name Barack Obama around, please do a little research. He's much closer to "Anyone," but he's a lot closer to a "Somebody." Do poor, uneducated people ever run for government office? Let's just start with that.

With respect to Lie #1, which should really be nipped in the bud right after elementary school, if not sooner, I can offer my own experience. I have always had a natural affinity for animals. I had many pets as a child, and no animal is anathema to me except perhaps the snake. I decided in high school that I wanted to be a veterinarian. In college I began a pre-vet program of study and worked my ass off. Guess what? I couldn't cut it. Once it got into hardcore math and chemistry, I just washed out, pure and simple. All the love in the world for animals--or imagination!--can't stand in for basic subject material. That, and I discovered an abject abhorrence for the sight of blood.

But I really, really wanted to be a vet! Oh. Well.

You can just imagine the scene, though, right?

(Interior. Office of veterinarian exam room. Man rushes in with injured Irish Setter. Dog is limp, bleeding. An unidentified organ is protruding from stomach area; it glistens in overhead light.)
Man: Dr. Nance, our dog was hit by the ice cream truck! It just happened! We came as quick as we could!
Nance: (back is to Man; pulling on latex exam gloves) I'm glad you got here as soon as you did. Let's have a look. (turns around) Oh good heavens! I--I'm--The poor thing! How awful! What's his name?
Man: MacDuff.
Nance: Oh, I love that! But you know, MacDuff was Scottish, not Irish. That's from Macbeth, and---ugh! What is that? (points to organ thingy hanging out; begins to gag a little)
Man: I know. It's pretty bad. Will he make it?
Nance: That's--bloody--that's--his stomach. Excuse me. I have to go throw up.
(end scene)

Point is, I could NOT be a veterinarian. I wanted to, but I COULDN'T. Not only was I not smart enough in the subject areas required, but I just didn't have the temperament. I could imagine myself as one, but...not gonna happen.

Now, #3 seems to be the same as #2, but really, it's not quite. If you've ever watched the show American Idol on television, then it is a perfect example of how stupid this tenet sounds. How many times do these sobbing wannabe singers whimper, "But I really, really want this"? Well, sweetheart, I really, really want this blog to get me a book deal, but guess what? That isn't happening either! Ha! Desire alone is not enough. I had a student many years ago--a junior--who had to write a career narrative, a short essay in which he had to explain his plans for his future career. This student--I'll call him Jason--wrote about becoming a professional basketball player. I asked him if he currently played for the high school team. No, he didn't. I asked him if he ever had. No, he had not. I asked him if he played in junior high. No. Did he play for his church or for the city recreation league? No, none of those. I asked if he planned to try out next year or in college. No, he didn't see those things happening. "Jason," I said gently. "How do you think you'll make the NBA if you don't play anywhere that a professional basketball scout would see you? They don't normally just drive around small towns like ours and see kids out on playgrounds or in driveways." I suggested that he might want to have a backup career plan, just in case.

Well, that was not what he wanted to hear. He exploded. "Don't come up here with your essay!" he yelled, turning around to face the class. "She is killing our dreams!"

O-kay.

No.

The point that I wanted to make was, just because he wanted to be a professional basketball player didn't mean he was going to be. He was doing absolutely nothing to get him anywhere near that goal. He had just as much chance of being a pro basketball player as I did. NEWS FLASH: IT IS ALMOST 15 YEARS LATER. HE IS STILL NOT IN THE NBA.

(Did you see that coming?) I'm sure he imagined himself in the NBA. But that's not enough. It never is, is it?

Imagination is never MORE important than knowledge. That is just patently absurd. At some point we have to stop selling our children--who eventually become adults, you know--these glib, slick, meaninglessly dangerous axioms. Because they believe them. And many of them go on living their lives expecting things to just happen to them because they want them to.

We know better, and so should they.