Thread Stealers With Too Much On Their Minds

[Noonan]

Something else special!

:ftp:

The best sig is no sig.

[JimandLinda]

FTP for the 25th!

The old barn is a comin’ down today.

[amita17]

JimandLinda wrote:

The old barn is a comin’ down today.

Be safe doing that. Not sure how I got the idea you lived in the city now (Oshkosh).  Anyway, it’s probably a good day for this kind of work.

[JimandLinda]

Someone else is doing the work. We sold the cows in ’96 and the dairy barn has been empty since. It is half down from not being used anymore. The new property owner has hired the neighbor to do the work.

A lot of good memories from those years! I’m sure my 90+ year old father will be shedding some tears.

[BigJim]

I took down my in-law’s silo many years ago. The barn had burned down and the farm was up for sale. Mother-in-law had moved out. It was just me and a sledge hammer. Betty wanted some of the concrete staves to use as pavers for a walkway from our driveway to the front door. Not many survived.

All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.

[JimandLinda]

FTP for the day following the WGA’s 1st Virtual Event!

 

Well done!

[jar42]

Had 71 deg. here East of Sandland yesterday.  I was out in shorts doing yard work and picked up my first tick of the season, a little deer tick. I later changed to jeans and the residual Permethrin from last years treatment must have killed him because when I found him he was securely attached to my leg but dead.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

So, bear with me here.  I just wanted to share this someplace.  You might know I was a special ed teacher for over 30 years before I retired.  Anyone who has been a teacher often wonders what happens to our students later in life.  In the past month or so, I’ve been lucky to hear follow-ups on some of mine.

I traveled as a teacher-leader with People to People four times.  I learned in February that one of my former charges is now the director for the new Ho-Chunk Museum in Tomah.  She came back to town to serve her tribe.  I was hoping to go visit it but we know what’s happened…..

Then, a couple nights ago on the news, they were doing a story about the huge food drives happening here on behalf of the Hunger Task Force.  One of my formers, who I saw for a speech impediment when she was in middle school and was very shy….she was on camera, talking just fine as one of the staff for Hunger Task Force.

This last one was last night’s news, and there’s lots of backstory to this one.  For several years, I had a student storytelling club, first at my middle school, and then when I was transferred to an elementary school.  This young lady was one of my middle school tellers.  She later went and grew up, subbed at my elementary school, and then became a kindergarten teacher in the room next to mine at that school.  When I retired, I had some stuff I’d purchased with grant money and it really wasn’t mine, so I was trying to figure out what I could do with it.  I decided….give it to Michelle, she knows how to use it.  I snuck into her room during our prep time, handed it off to her and she looked at one of the puppets, said “OH…Timmy the Turtle!” and then gave me a big hug and we both shed some tears.  She was on the news last night.

https://www.news8000.com/award-winning-spence-elementary-teacher-honored-by-colleagues-students/

So often we wonder….whatever happened and did I do anything helpful?  I have a signature story I sometimes tell that covers that thought.  So there’s your heartwarming stuff for a rainy Monday!

[amita17]

Thanks for sharing, Gwyn.  Like you, I wonder how my little ones turn out.  So far, I have only seen one report on the news of a bad outcome.  I have seen and heard many accounts of them doing great things.  I have even been employed along side them.  Isn’t it comforting to know you had a role in it all, and especially in Michelle’s case, that she went into teaching?  I don’t have much of a green thumb, but I plant a lot of seeds!  😊

[BigJim]

It’s always cool when a former student comes back to visit. My first year of teaching was a long-term sub job in fourth grade, that was supposed to be a couple months and turned into the whole year. About halfway through the year I had a new student transfer in, we’ll call him Steve. He had a volatile home life with an alcoholic step-father. As a result, he acted out at school … a lot. The next year, I was hired full time for fifth grade.  And guess who was in my class again. Fast forward a few years, and I was in my classroom after school one day, when a young man in an Army uniform walked in. Steve. Turns out the stepdad died a couple years after he was in my class, and mom moved back to Texas. When he was old enough, he filed for emancipation from his mother and enrolled himself in a military school. He told me that he decided to go to military school because he remembered my classroom as the only time anyone disciplined him in a non-abusive way, and he realized that he craved and needed discipline. Well he graduated top of his class.

All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.

[JimandLinda]

FTP for Tuesday.

Great stories, folks. Definitely not useless drivel.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Jim, That is a great story.  Trekkin’ actually has had a lot of similar experiences.  He spent over 30 years teaching kids with emotional and behavioral issues…like Steve.  Sadly, he had some bad outcomes, but many, many of those kids have called or come to visit and tell him that what they learned in his classroom finally clicked for them as they got older….sometimes only after they were released from prison and decided to change their life path.

So many of those stories are really pretty funny, too.  One he likes to tell is one day, this group of guys who looked like refugees from the set of Road Warrior walked up toward our front door.  He told me he’d go out to see what they needed, and he heard the lock click behind him as he stepped out.  Turns out….former students.  Obviously not mainstream society, but doing all right.

One of his formers put his middle school skills to use and has opened a CBD store in downtown La Crosse!

One odd coincidence….many of his formers have ended up working or connecting in some way or another with our older son.  When they hear his surname, they ask….Are you related to Mr. C?  They all tell him they really liked him, he didn’t take any crap but was always fair.  Our son chose to work in the trades, and a lot of those kids are suited to that line of work….hands on stuff with problem solving built in.

[JimandLinda]

I coached youth softball for several years and got to know several of the kids and their circumstances. My first recollection is a 10 year old boy that had little talent but a ton of energy. The first game we played, I started him in right field, even though we had better fielders than him. He caught his first fly ball in his life for an out, and his newly divorced Mom said he often talked about that day.

He died in the attack on the USS Cole.

[bartrod]

Living in a small town, I rarely see any of my former 5th grade students cuz, once they graduate from high school, they leave the community. But every once in a while, someone will come up to me and say, “Hi, Mr. B” and I have to scratch my head and ask them to identify themselves. Growing up, the guys have accumulated facial hair, the girls have developed a figure, everyone is a good foot taller and few pounds heavier, but the names always stick in my head and I’ll remember when…. I considered myself blessed when I had my first hip replaced at Bellin Hospital in Green Bay and three of my nurses were former students of mine.
Thanks for sharing your stories…very uplifting during these times when most news is so depressing. 🙂

Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)

[Noonan]

Having taught in my hometown for 20 years, I had many of those experiences, especially when I ran for assembly. Funny how many people were willing to cross party lines when they knew the candidate.

I miss being able to walk into a fast food joint and not order. The kids just know what I wanted. Walk in, say hello, and they wave me right to the register with my food ready. I even had a running joke with some boys that worked at Dairy Queen. I would tell the story about my friends from high school sitting in the same benches they sat in, discussing what the most disgusting type of Blizzard would be – this was just after they started making them. We eventually settled on either a braunschweiger blizzard, or a fish fry blizzard. They’d then start their own discussions. I’d make a point of going through the drive thru, asking if I could order something from the “secret menu”. The kid would laugh, say if they have it, I could have it – and I’d order a fish fry blizzard. The kid would agree, ask me to pull around, and have my cookie dough blizzard for me. Everybody else that heard it was gobsmacked.

My favorite one was during my first year there. A freshman girl exclaimed at the end of “meet the teacher night” at the beginning of the year that, “My mom was your babysitter, and she said you were the worst kid she ever had!” To which, without missing a beat, and in front of a room full of parents, I replied, “NO, ask her again. That was my brother. I hid behind the recliner all night because I was shy!” She came back the next day and confirmed my story. Her mom brought that up every time I saw her for the next four years. Years later, after she graduated, the girl even told her friends to vote for me, because I was the teacher that hid behind the recliner.

Hardest one to think about was the boy that came into my room after school one day. He’d graduated (maybe?) a few years prior. He started apologizing for his behavior, etc. After a few statements I realized he was going through the 12 Step process. He talked about how much he missed during school because of his addictions, but he remembers that I didn’t quit on him even after his parents did. What hit me in the gut was how he also said he had recently quit the white supremacist group he had joined. They recruited him right in front of school. He told me the recruiter started to recognize me when I would walk home and would hide in his car until I walked past. Eventually it dawned on the boy that if the people he was with were so proud of what they believed, they wouldn’t need to hide from a guy walking past them.

I have a lot of other ones that aren’t so happy. Not living in an area for very long, I catch myself dwelling on those too much. Glad I had a chance to read your experiences to bring back the happier ones.

The best sig is no sig.

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