~with childlike faith~

A very strange thing happened on Thursday night here at the Renfro house in Newkirk.  It was nearly 7:15 in the evening and I had just gotten home from an activity at school.  I was tired, worn out and ready to have a bite of supper before heading off to bed for the night.  I was visiting with Mike about his day, when all of a sudden the doorbell rang.  We both wondered who would be stopping by at that time of the evening for seldom do we get a visitor after dark.

I opened the door and looked out but saw no one.  I almost closed the door again but thankfully just in the nick of time, I looked down and there they were!  There were two Moose on the Loose and a note attached to the box in which they had arrived, waiting right there beside the front door.  

"How do you know they were Moose on the Loose?" you might ask me.

Trust me friends.  If anyone can recognize a Moose on the Loose, it'd be me.

Olga on the left and Olivia on the right

This note explained everything to us.

We knew exactly what to do!

It was two years ago when I was a teacher back in the southwestern Oklahoma community of Grandfield, that Mike and I first became acquainted with a traveling band of renegade Moose on the Loose.  There were four of them in all who went by the names of Otis, Otto, Oliver, and Oscar. They showed up at the door just like Olivia and Olga did and were totally unexpected.  The only instruction letter they came with, from their Uncle O.J. who'd been raising them, advised us that the boys were a little unruly and needed to be shown by my second graders at Grandfield Elementary School how to behave themselves.  

There they were, waiting on our front porch in Burkburnett, Texas!

Their note explained what Mike and I were to do.

Friends, let's clear the air up a bit on a question that might be looming within you all.  Perhaps there are a couple of naysayers, ok more than a couple perhaps, who might be looking at these Moose on the Loose and saying to yourselves,

"Does she not realize that these are seasonal dog toys from Walmart?"

Well as a matter of fact, yes I do.  I haven't quite lost all of my mind yet, you know?  Be that as it may, the very precious brain cells that I do have remaining still contain one of the most priceless commodities of my childhood.

It's called an imagination and I fully intend to use it as I teach my 5th graders here in Kay County, Oklahoma.

In the days that lie ahead as we wait for our Christmas break, I hope that these two Moose on the Loose can be allowed to "see the world" around Kay County, Oklahoma and beyond as their Uncle O.J. requested.  I have plenty of folks who help my classroom and I'm going to ask if they would mind taking Olivia and Olga home for a short visit, take pictures of all the fun they have, and then share those photos with my students.  In the two years that the 4 original Moose on the Loose were with us, all of the 2nd graders as well as many staff members took them home for the night to entertain them and share their own lives with the kids in my room.  They had some mighty awesome adventures!

They tried to escape out Miss Lisa's doggy door.

The boys took a motorcycle ride with Otis driving and the other 3 hanging on for dear life when Mrs. Jacks, Grandfield's 5th grade teacher, took them home for the night.

They enjoyed a bedtime story with the Grandfield Elementary librarian, Miss Lisa, when she entertained them for the night.

There were a couple of moments when they might have gotten into a bit of mischief, like the time they went home with Acelyn's family and hopped out of the grocery cart at the local United grocery store in Burkburnett.

Or the time they went home with Coach Curry and got into trouble at the high school one Saturday during one of the Grandfield High School softball games.  I shudder to even think of what that might have been like.  They definitely learned a lesson I hope.

The temptation of the copy machine proved to be just too much for them to handle.  Since each of them are nearly identical, they ALL tried to blame the others.  However, it's a little difficult to deny participation when your necklace ID shows up in the photo.

 

Caught red-handed, there was little more that they could do.  The Grandfield High School principal, Mrs. Yeager, ended up giving them a talking to about the importance of using exemplary traits of character that day.

The original 4 Moose on the Loose will more than likely not visit us again this year.  We moved away from Grandfield and our home along the Red River in Burkburnett, Texas in May.  Uncle O. J. probably doesn't even have our forwarding address.  Not sure how Olivia and Olga found us, except perhaps for the kindness of a man named Mike who realized just how much his wife needed to see these two show up on our doorstep on a cold and rainy November evening.  

It's no secret at our house.  This year as a fifth grade teacher has been a challenge for me and there has been so much to learn. My school day starts at 5:30 a. m. and is seldom over before 4:45 in the afternoon.  The stakes are high as we face the prospect of state tests in late April .  When those test scores are released come summer time, my name will be attached to them.  I want my students to be ready and we have worked hard during this fast paced first semester to do as much as we can.  There is a never a moment when we are not busy.  I'm proud of my students for doing their very best each day.  But just for a moment in time in the fleeting days that will come to pass before we go home for the holidays, I want them to use their imaginations with child like faith and learn lessons in character from two Moose on the Loose named Olga and Olivia.

40 years is a long time to stick with being a teacher.

There have been plenty of times that I could have quit and might have.

I was born to do this.  In the waning months that are ahead of me, I intend to do my best.

Lessons of character are my favorite ones to teach kids.  The Moose on the Loose will be my co-teachers.

~my first group of 2nd graders and their Mr. Renfro~

Since Mike and I got married in 2013, he has always stepped up to help out any group of students that called me their "teacher".  He's actually a bigger kid than these kids are.  Over half of my career in education has been spent teaching children in the first and second grades.