Along the Road to Home

I know a woman who takes care of everyone around her.  She always has and always will.  For years and years, that woman has made it her mission in life to tend to the needs of others with little regard for taking care of the person that she herself was. The reason I know of her is this. She is me. I have several flaws in character, many of which I've tried for years to improve upon.  The lion's share of them relate directly to my physical and mental health.  I get anxious about things that I have absolutely no control over.  My mind fills with worry when I realize that a moment in time has passed by that I didn't seize the opportunity to be a part of.  Up until a year ago last summer, I consumed probably the better part of 6 diet sodas each and every day and I paid little heed to what I was eating at mealtime.  As I drove back and forth from Grandfield to Newkirk on the weekends for April and May, I always had a snack nearby in case I got tir...

I look at this picture from time to time and remember my old self, the younger version of me from the "land of long ago and far, far away".  The picture wasn't staged as many photos are today.  The photographer from the Hutch News slipped around the corner of the new library at Haven High School back in 1971 to snap a picture of a young girl intent on getting library books in the right order.  The serious look on my face was one that I wore quite often back then and still find myself doing quite often today.   That was 48 years ago and proof of one certainty. Some things just never change. I was a sophomore that year with my future awaiting me out there somewhere.  I had absolutely zero idea about what I wanted to do when I got out of high school.  As a matter of fact, going to college really hadn't even entered the picture.  If someone would have told me back then that I'd be a teacher for at least 40 years, I'd have looked at them...

Today I need to say "thank you" to someone I have never met, nor probably will I ever.  It was someone sitting in the pew on that Sunday morning on a summertime day in 2016, a person who reached deep into their pocket as the offering plate came around.   It's a long overdue word of thanks and for that I am sorry. My first experience as an Oklahoma teacher was the 2016-2017 school year.  I had one year as a teacher in Petrolia, Texas just after Mike and I had moved from Colorado.  Even with many years of experience behind me, the state of Texas would not grant me a full license without my taking a battery of tests that would end up costing a whole lot of money.  Because we lived right on the border of Texas and Oklahoma, I decided to pursue an Oklahoma license for the next year instead.   The whole process of obtaining a license here was about as easy as could be.  The state of Oklahoma welcomed me with its proverbial "open arms" and fro...

It's the early morning hours here in Kay County with the clock on the wall telling me the time is nearly 4:15.  The house is quiet for a change mostly because Gus is still asleep in his kennel.  He must have gotten tuckered out from playing so hard yesterday.  I can hear the soft sound of Mike's snoring as he finishes up his last solid block of sleeping before the 5 a.m. alarm clock goes off. This day is about to begin. Today is the final day for helping at summer school for the Ponca City School District.  I've been fortunate to have been able to assist for 2 weeks in June as well as these past 3 weeks in July.  It's been a blessing to meet a few of the district staff members prior to the actual first day of classes in only a few weeks more.  I won't feel like I'm totally a new person when I walk through the doors of my elementary building.  I have already learned so many things about our district and one of the most important things is this. Po...

My dad dropped out of school in the middle of his 10th grade year and never went back to complete the time necessary to receive his high school diploma.  As the oldest son of 8 children at home, he had to do it in order to help his family survive the times of the Great Depression.  His own dad, my Grandpa Scott, was ill with heart disease and unable to take care of the family any longer.  As the oldest boy, it was my dad's duty to pick up the slack and do what he could to put food on the family table. My dad has been gone now a long time, succumbing to the effects of an 18 month battle with lung cancer that ended on December 11th of 1982.  He was only 59 years old, a full nearly 5 years younger than I am today.  I was looking at his picture last evening and it dawned on me that I never once asked him if he was sorry that he wasn't able to finish high school.  Not even one time did I ask him how it felt to have to do that or if he ever regretted the choice...

We made the journey back to Burkburnett, Texas this past weekend.  It had been 2 months for me to be there and 4 months for Mike.  It seemed so strange to point the car south in the direction of Oklahoma City and continue on for just about 250 miles to the Red River area of north Texas.  It's an area that we know very well, having lived there for the past 4 years.   Traffic was not terribly bad in OKC and with Mike at the wheel driving, I tried my best to help watch for oncoming cars as they hurried towards their own destinations.  We made it through safely and by the time Mike turned to the east along I-44 heading to Lawton, both of us breathed our own collective sighs of relief.  We've driven through Oklahoma City many, many times and are so thankful that we have been spared involvement in accidents or car trouble.  That is one place to never take anything for granted.  One tiny mistake can spell t-r-o-u-b-l-e for anyone who does. Some ...

Sooner or later, just like it does in every school year that I have taught since 1979, the subject is going to come up.  I never really plan to teach the lesson ahead of time, rather it simply lends itself to the moment at hand.  It might be when a kid is struggling and finding something that we are learning too difficult to master.  It might be when someone has heard of another person making fun of someone with a disability.  Or it could even be for no real reason at all, perhaps only because the memory of a sweet and precious girl is tugging at my heart. I come from a big family of 7 kids in all.  We were spread out in age all the way from 1941 until 1957.  One of those kids was an older sister named Janice.  She was 13 years older than me and had left home and gotten married before I even started the first grade.  One Indian summer day in the fall of 1969, Janice was killed in a car accident only a few miles from her home in the sandhill coun...

I've been busy these last few weeks as I worked in my new classroom and prepared it to become the "school home" of some wonderful fifth graders that I will soon meet.  A few nights ago, I recruited Mike to come with me to hang up several of my pictures.  I didn't have to really twist his arm very hard to do so.  He is my greatest of supporters in life and I try to be his as well.   If you would walk into my classroom on that first day of school,  I would hope that you would find it a place where you would feel most comfortable.  You'd walk into a room that has many touches of a home like atmosphere to it.  There are plants along the windowsill, and they will be ones that the kids learn to take care of in the months ahead.  I have pictures of my family on my desk and on the bookshelves, and I plan to tell the kids all about them.  If they know me, then they will know my family as well.  I will never forget where I came from, so o...

The school supply lists are out once again as parents and kids anticipate that first day of school exactly one month from yesterday.  Any day now all kinds of back to school sales will be advertised with the aisles of local discount stores packed full of people and merchandise. It's getting to be the time of year to return to the classroom. I remember the expense with 3 children of my own to provide for.   I don't know how families do it these days. There were 7 kids in the Scott family, all spread out with the oldest being born in 1941 and the baby of the family in 1957.  Although there was never a time that all 7 of us at once were school age, we came mighty close to it.  In the early days, my father was a farmer and drove the milk truck for the TipTop Dairy out of Moundridge, Kansas.  Money was tight but my folks always managed to put a new pair of shoes on our feet each September, pay the rent on our textbooks each fall, and pick up whatever school...

I have to come realize one very important thing.   It is no fluke nor was it an accident that after 4 decades in the classroom, I was assigned a fifth grade class for the upcoming school year. I've been teaching forever and a very long day.  Well over half of my experience has been with lower elementary kids in the first and second grade.  I have always felt most comfortable with them, in part because I'm still taller than they are.  My student teaching experience was with a combination class of 1st and 2nd graders in Yoder, Kansas.  Those 6 and 7-year olds broke me in back in the late '70s and the experience was one that I enjoyed.  It set me on the path towards my future in education. But you know what? I've never once taught 5th grade.   I will always remember the day in mid-May when I got the phone call that my classroom for next year was one of the fifth grade sections at Liberty Elementary.  I actually was getting ready to ...

Miss Rose Davis was my fifth grade teacher back at Haven Grade School and although it seems impossible after the passage of well over 50 years now, I can still recall the sound of her voice and remember the smell of the cologne she used to wear.  I don't know that she was ever married or for that matter had any children, but come to think of it she really didn't need any children.   She had all of us kids. I have plenty of good memories of the teachers I had as a kid growing up in the small town of Haven, Kansas.  I'm happy to say that in all the years of my youth there was only one teacher that I didn't relish sitting in class with each day of the school year.  I'd say that's a mighty fine record and a testament to the public school system there.  99.9 percent of the time, my remembrance of educators was filled with folks who loved and cared deeply about the welfare of children.  Although I'm sure others weren't aware of it at the time, I have ...

I was working in my new classroom this week and trying my best to make some progress in checking off a few of the many items on my "get this done" list.  There are cupboards to go through, books to sort, boxes to unpack, and supply lists to make.  The official start of the first day of school will soon be at hand, and I want to be ready.   Before leaving at the end of the afternoon, I stopped for a moment and looked at the chalkboard alongside the wall.  The first time I was shown which classroom I would have, I was so thankful to realize that this teaching tool, the only one I had during that first year of teaching in 1979, would still be available for me to use.  I had come across a box of chalk in one of the desk drawers and so with a piece of it in my hand, I walked over to scrawl a message on the right hand side of the board.   The feel of the smooth piece of chalk and the sound of my handwriting squeaking along the board took me back t...

I worked in my new classroom yesterday, sorting through books and cataloguing them by reading level.  I went through an entire box of gallon size baggies before I was finished and will need to stop at the store today to buy some more.  I'm thankful there are so many books for the kids to choose from and between those that were in the classroom already and others that I pick up, it is my hope that every 5th grader will never lack for something to read.   I'm on a mission. I want them to love the gift of a good book. In 40 years of being in the business of education, I've encountered many students who loved reading and equally so, many students who really didn't care to read.  I've seen those whose homes were filled with books and visits to the local public library were as common as putting on their shoes and socks before school each morning.  In other homes, books were scarce and went by two names, "slim and none".  I felt a sense of loss for those...