Swag Bags, Teachers and Entertainers

Today my daughter shared with me something I thought very interesting, yet incredibly sad...at least from my point of view. Some of you may remember comedian Rodney Dangerfield - the man who got no respect. That was his tag line. Most of his jokes had to do with how he never got respect in any given situation. He was quite humorous.

Well, in my estimation, teachers truly get no respect when it comes to the value of their place in our society given the scope of the work they are called to do. And it's not funny at all. It has always frustrated me to no end that we place more value on sports and athletics and the people, companies, and entities that support and promote them than the men and women who scrounge to get by, work endless hours, give up countless luxuries and make all kinds of sacrifices in their personal lives to make sure that all those people and everyone else can read, write and figure out how to add up their pay checks, i.e. teachers. Don't get me started on the disparity between teachers and the sports industry!

One of my daughter's colleagues won an award for teaching. The teacher was given a small sum of money and the school received a check and all the teachers in the school received "swag bags." Each bag held a mug, a pencil, a note pad and so on. Of course everyone was delighted with the unexpected gift. I'm sure it was a much needed lift to these folks who have really been through the mill this year with curriculum changes, pay cuts due to alleged misappropriation of funds and the economy, lay offs, larger class sizes, lack of supplies and books (one book to teach an entire 5th grade class? Seriously.)....the list goes on. So getting a cup and a pen is probably a bright spot in an otherwise stressful and frustrating day.

Meanwhile, one of my daughter's friends attended an affair in the entertainment industry and that person also received a "swag bag." Let's just start with the $300 earphone set. We can end with that too. Of course the bags were filled with a plethora of other not quite as expensive items. This affair was to honor those in the music industry, many who write about .... well, I don't use that language and certainly won't include it here. Let's just say, folks like myself consider it all ridiculously inappropriate. And would they please stop giving God the glory for being successful at writing such sexually explicit filth and otherwise insidiously demoralizing crap!

Certainly there are some great songs out there and I know what goes into writing a song....I've composed my share of them. It's wonderful that these folks get honored and showered with gifts for their work, but hey people, when are we going to start doing as much for our teachers? Could we at least go a little over and above the usual? Don't they deserve some red carpet treatment? Shouldn't they be getting "swag bags" at the beginning and/or end of every school year?

People like to say that the children are our future. Now, picture a future without teachers. What kind of a future does anybody have? Good teachers are those who understand that their work is a calling. They show up. Physically, mentally and spiritually. They care about the kids. They love watching the lights come on in those little eyes when the kid finally "gets it" or when some obstacle has been overcome. They try to work with parents to understand what's happening in the child's life. They give of themselves to make a difference and they work hard to build a firm foundation on which a future of endless possibilities can be built. I submit that good teachers are national treasures. They are to be honored and respected and given the place in our society that they deserve.

There are bad teachers out there, certainly. But there are bad athletes, bad singers, bad actors but they still get the bling and the hefty paychecks and the adoration of faithful fans excusing their indiscretions; good and bad ones entertain us, but do they prepare us to fill out job applications? pay the rent? read the label on the medicine bottles? Even a bad teacher will do that much. Anyway, we find ways to deal with bad teachers. The question is, how do we honor the good ones? Certainly we need to do better than a mug, a pencil and a note pad.


When I think about the importance of our teachers to the future of our county and to the world in general, I can't help but believe they really need to be among the highest paid of the nation's working stiffs. Their job is vital to our national security - a heck of a lot more important than tossing a ball around or acting or halfway singing a song about diddling or getting diddled. Our teachers are worth a heck of a lot more than a mug, a pencil and a note pad. It's high time we do something to let them know how truly important they are. If we can spend hundreds of dollars on a season ticket, certainly we can do a little something for those who teach our kids to read the souvenir programs for the games.

All Saints meet NaNoWriMo

November first is All Saints Day. I never quite knew what that was because I'm not Catholic, although I have many Catholic friends and growing up I always thought how fortunate they were to have no school the day after Halloween. The public school kids would trudge off to school working through the sugar hangovers from the night before and the Catholic kids got to stay home and finish off their bags of candy or sleep in and sleep off the sugar high.

Those were the days! We didn't worry about our candy being contaminated or tampered with. Word got around quick as to which neighbor was giving out the best treats. Our biggest concern were the bag snatchers, older kids who would come up behind unsuspecting young ones and steal their stash. And the bags we had back then! Not the fancy schmancy things kids tote around these days. We had brown paper bags and pillow cases. Some kids were lucky and had the little plastic pumpkins with handles but most kids made due with what ever they could come up with.

We'd come home with tons of candy, sort it out, trade with siblings or friends, eat our selves silly and maybe save some for later. And of course the public school kids had to go to bed early if November 1 fell on a school day so our sugar intake was limited.

That was then, and now today, November 1st holds a new meaning for me. This is the first day of NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. This is the day I started my first real novel. I'm not going to write much about it today, only to say that I must write 50,000 words by the end of the month. I believe I'm off to a decent start since I've written almost 4,000  words so far.

I'm amazed at how this project is going and how my mind is sifting through things gathering material for the novel. It's an interesting process. I get to be participant and observer at the same time. Everything I encounter goes into my mind and gets examined for whatever pieces may be used in the story. Images get expanded upon and stored for later use. Phrases get scrutinized for their applicability to certain dialog. Ideas get morphed into usable scenes. It's all coming together bit by bit. I'm almost 10% done. It's a very good feeling!

Cloudy Thinking

Okay, here’s a thought…or maybe more like a stream of thoughts. Now days, we can store information in the “clouds,” wherever that is. I don’t have a lot of geeky computer guys for friends so I don’t have anyone to really explain to me what it means. From the little I’ve been told and from what I can gather on my own, plus with my own vivid imagination the “clouds” are pretty much like the “ether” in days gone by…basically “somewhere out there.”

So everyone can now put all their files and stuff in the “clouds.” What happens when people start dying off? Does their stuff just hang out there in the clouds getting dusty, taking up space? And thinking of space, what if the clouds get full? With everyone in the world who has stuff to store in the clouds storing it there and then their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and since folks are starting to live longer, soon there will be great-great grandchildren around - with all of them storing stuff in the clouds, what if the clouds fill up? And don’t forget you still have the dead people’s stuff hanging out there too!

If the clouds get too full, will there be information storms? Will strange files just start showing up on everyone’s monitors, laptops and tablets? Will the guys at Apple find a way to protect Apple users from such storms? Or maybe it will be worse than that and all those invisible bytes and bits will start coalescing and forming solid mass. Then the airways will become full of megabyte and gigabyte “plaques” and people will have a hard time breathing and seeing and doing anything because everything will be clogged with miscellaneous information.

Planes will have a hard time navigating the skies because of all the data plaque clogging up the filter systems on jets and slowing down the propellers on small planes. Cars and buses will start choking on the highways as data plaque gets into the air filters.

I wonder what this data plaque will look like? Will it be transparent like cling wrap or will it have color? Maybe different kinds of data will have different colors. All the numbers related data might be black or red and all the words could be blue or green. In the beginning of the coalescing stage it might appear as movement out of the corner of your eye or like the shimmering you see when heat is radiating off something. As time goes on and more stuff gets stored, it gets thicker and thicker. If it gets too thick, the sun will have a hard time reaching the earth and slowly our world will change.

“They” say it’s a good idea to back up your files in the clouds. You will always have access to them no matter where you are. I don’t know. Sounds like a good idea to me. Then again, maybe not! What do you think?

Old Advice

Ever since the first car accident back in the early 1900’s mothers have given their children some good advice: Make sure you put on clean underwear before you go anywhere just in case you are in an accident. Of course, there are plenty of other good reasons for wearing clean underwear, but somehow that one always seemed paramount for moms.

Several years ago a dear friend of mine was in a terrible roll over accident. It was truly a miracle she survived after having been thrown through the sun roof as the car was flipping over.  The paramedics had to cut her clothes off to attend to her injuries. She’s a meticulous person, so she had nothing to worry about regarding cleanliness. However, she tended toward the more luxurious things in life as treats every now and then and since this was to have been a special trip, she was wearing the special dainties she bought as a gift to herself. Needless to say, her very expensive, lacy dainties ended up in the emergency room trash barrel along with her designer jeans and cashmere sweater.

Life is full of twists and turns and surprises of one sort or another. My friend and everyone who loves her feels blessed that she made it through that terrible accident.  We still talk about it occasionally when we are counting our blessings and reviewing how fortunate we’ve been in this life. We’ve both lived long enough to have grown old. Now that she is on a fixed income she doesn’t indulge in the expensive treats to herself so much anymore. And when she travels, everything she wears is clean but not expensive. You know…just in case!

The Importance of Farewells

When we were growing up, Mom and Dad made sure we learned our manners and they were religiously enforced – more by my siblings and myself than by my parents actually. One of the things we were taught was to always greet people when coming in and always acknowledge people when leaving. This was standard procedure in our home so we were kept informed of each other’s goings and comings by greetings and salutations.

It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized how much of an impact that one little courtesy had on my life. One day a friend was visiting and at the end of our visit she just got up and left without saying anything more. It wasn’t that she was angry or upset or anything like that, though at the time I wasn’t so sure and I spent time wracking my brain to see if I had done something to offend her. After I got to know her and her family better I realized that it was just how they were. When it was time to go, they left! Needless to say, it took some getting used to for me.

What I didn’t realize at the time is that the courtesy of saying farewell, see you later, bye, peace – out, provided closure to our visits and there was something inside me that always needed that closure. In a sense, saying farewell meant to me that our time together had been acknowledged and appreciated; perhaps even that I had been acknowledged and appreciated. On some very primal level, that acknowledgement had a far deeper meaning than just the courtesy it embodied.

I’d had friends that insisted that I never say “Good bye.” For them that was too final so we would use other terms of parting. What that told me though was that acknowledging one’s departure was important, not just to me but to others as well. It told me that for some of us, what we say even is indicative of our future intentions. To say, “Later!” means something different than “Good bye.”

Maybe I’m wrong in thinking this, but I’d venture to say that most of us appreciate closure whether it’s temporary, like going to bed or away for the weekend or final like the death of a loved one. I haven’t figured out why it’s important; it’s more a feeling of importance than an actual fact. At the same time those who have not felt closure over one thing or another usually seem to have a nebulous sadness hanging over them. When, in some one way or another, they are able to come to terms with it, in some cases handling the farewell by proxy, the sadness disappears or at least diminishes.

Perhaps the most important farewell in my life is one I was not privy to witness. In fact, it happened centuries before my time. Yet still, for me, it is the most salient valediction because it means I am not alone even when I feel alone and somehow when I feel “invisible” around others, I still feel acknowledged and appreciated by One who always sees me. Before He left, He said, “…And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

No, I'm NOT cockeyed!!

One thing I meant to do with the first post was to explain the title of my blog. First off, I'm not cockeyed. Well, maybe sometimes when I'm very tired and start day dreaming my eyes may go a little off center, but generally speaking, no, I'm not cockeyed. That part of the title is actually taken from the song in the Roger's and Hammerstein musical, "South Pacific." Great musical with a message that unfortunately still needs to be heeded. One would think we would have come a lot further along the way in social development considering that many of us witnessed the turn of a century and the dawn of a new millennium. But, I won't get on my soap box this time about that.

People who know me well know that I have a tendency to have random thoughts pop into my mind pretty much all the time. My kids get tired of me sending them texts about arbitrary things and they suggested I get a twitter account. I've always told people that I had popcorn for brain cells because of the way my brain seems to work and always be "on." It loves to make connections all the time and one thought always leads to another and yet another and.....Yes, it is maddening at times and I often find myself working hard to focus on the current conversation and not entertain the capricious thoughts that are popping off in my mind.

One day I decided to start blogging about my random thoughts. I figured it would be a good way for me to work on my "electronic footprint" in the world and give me some practice with my writing (which I am proud to say is at a five star level at both Guru and Elance freelance sites!) and be a way for me to share my random thoughts with whomever may be interested. And voila! Popcorn for Brain Cells was born!

So if you were to ask me what you can expect to read here, I'd have to shrug my shoulders and say quite honestly, "I dunno! It depends." A writer friend of mine suggested that I consider choosing a specific topic around which to blog. That makes a lot of sense to me, except then I'd probably end up with 20 different blogs. Just like I have about five or six different journals going at once because each one is dedicated to something specific even though entries in each may intersect regularly. Actually I did start another blog about dementia. It's called "The Dementia Dimension" and it's about my journey with Mom as we deal with her dementia. (I give credit to my daughter for the name. Thank you my little chickadee!) I'm going to try not to get a boat load of blogs going! Unless, of course, I'm blogging for someone else and getting paid for it!

Here's another example: my best friend in the world of all things crafty suggested I consider narrowing my scope of craft projects down to a few to have some consistency and order. I tried, but I just couldn't do it. I like too many things and my mind goes off in too many directions. The only thing I could almost stick with was doing things in blues and purples. I'm drawn toward sky tones, particularly sunrise and sunset colors and I love jewel tones. But I couldn't decide to just stay with making dolls, or cards, or jewelry, or... the list just goes on.

Well, there. You see what I mean? My mind just goes off wandering willy-nilly wherever it pleases if I let it. So this space allows me the luxury of sharing odd bits of nothing special to those who find it interesting or amusing. For all my eclectic friends out there - come and join me. I know I'm not the only one with popcorn for brain cells!

"Knee Work"

It gives me great pleasure to report that the reunion was a success - despite the fact that there was another family "reunioning" as well and they... how shall I say this tactfully? They left quite an impression on everyone! So much so that we wanted the hotel personnel to know that our reunion was in no way connected to the other. Have you ever been to a hotel where some of the guests held a fish fry bar-b-que? In the parking lot? Well, there is a first time for everything!

Regardless, we had good weather for the picnic on Friday (ours was in the park!) and the renewing of vows on Saturday which was outside in a beautiful arbor area. I had the great pleasure of singing for my cousins as they recommitted themselves to one another. It reminded me of the old days when I used to sing at weddings. I'd take my guitar and sing the wedding songs of the 70's. Yep, I'd sing my little heart out lauding the joys of being in love and getting married. I even wrote a few songs for some of my friends who asked me to sing at their nuptials.

Once, I remember, I was singing at an outdoor wedding and a fly landed on my forehead and strolled down my nose. I kept singing, but I also started praying that the fly would not end up in my mouth! Thanks to God, it didn't and I got through the song just fine - except for the mosquito bites. There weren't too many since I always put repellent on, but I had to be careful not to wreck the finish on my guitar.

Anyway, our 57th reunion was a hit...a good time was had by all. This past weekend my brother and his wife helped pull off her family reunion at Bay Lake, MN. They also were faced with dire weather forecasts. It always amazes me what a little "knee work" can help accomplish. Just like at our reunion, it rained in the morning, cleared for the day - just in time for all the outdoor fun - then rained again at night. I love how that works! I know lots of folks will think it's just coincidence. But I think it's more like what my brother, the minister, calls a God-incidence! Once again, a good time was had by all.

The Very First Kernel

Ahhh, the first post of a new blog. How rewarding! So begins my journey of putting my thoughts out there in the ether for the entire world to view. Tonight's thoughts will be brief as it is late and I have to make a fruit bowl for our family reunion picnic tomorrow.

Here we are in Hotlanta, hoping that tomorrow will dawn sunny and not too hot and certainly not stormy as is predicted. This is our 57th Annual Family Reunion and my daughter is hostess for the year. Interestingly, she acquired the job at the last reunion as a result of allowing herself to be a voice for the younger members of our family. Other places had been suggested but the kids wanted to have the reunion in Atlanta and asked her to volunteer, which she did since she was pretty confident that the majority of adults were going to vote for one of the other destinations. She was shocked when the vote turned out for Atlanta which is farthest away for most family members.

The lesson here is: If you choose to volunteer yourself on behalf of those who don't have a voice, make sure you are willing to follow through and do the best job you can possibly do. I'm very proud of my daughter because she has done an excellent job as hostess for this reunion. Then again, she usually does things with excellence in mind!

Considering the weather report, I'd better spend some "knee time" putting in my request for a not too hot or humid, and definitely not rainy day. Actually, it can rain during the morning and the evening; just not during the family picnic time!