Christmas once again and an angel gets his wings

I love Thanksgiving. It is a no-stress, no-pressure holiday. A bunch of people who generally like each other get together and eat fabulous food, and, if necessary, watch a football game or two. Wine is always included, as is dessert, and everyone is happy at the end of the day.

Christmas is another story.

Did I get the right present for _________ (fill in the blank)? How do we visit all the parents, in-laws, step-parents, and other dear ones in such a short time period? How do we not tell someone that we like the other house better? Do I have enough poppy seed bread to go around? Have I forgotten anyone? Stress, stress, stress. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

Add to that the fact that my husband and I cannot tell time, and so our daughter was born on December 30 (Really, I didn't want a December baby. I said that loud and often. However, after years of infertility, I would have done a back flip whenever she was born!).

What that means is that for about three weeks, I am on the go all the time. I bake presents. I buy presents. I clean house. I decorate the house, usually alone, but my husband is getting the idea that I would rather have lots of help. I wrap presents. I find a suitable birthday present for our only child. I stay up late asking the questions in the third paragraph. And I grade final exam papers. By the time Christmas is here, I am worn out and don't really care about much of anything.

I have dreaded this Christmas more than usual because it has been a hard year. My mother-in-law died in February after a long stint with liver disease. I taught two really hard on line classes this past fall. My brother-in-law had a stroke-like event that has left him lying in a bed unable to do anything for himself, and unable to communicate at all. My daughter has begun and finished her next-to-last semester in college, and she and her boyfriend of over a year broke up. One of my best friends has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. And yet Christmas was coming on like a freight train.

At first, things went better than expected. My husband won tickets to the December 26 Chiefs game. Emily had planned on giving tickets to that game to her boyfriend, but with the unexpected crash of the relationship, was not going to go. So she got an extra Christmas/birthday present, and was ecstatic. We had our usual Christmas Eve tradition, visiting dear friends, going to a fabulous Christmas Eve party, and then finishing the evening with our friends of almost 26 years. We got up late on Christmas day, my mother, step-father, and sister came over, and we had brunch. We opened our gifts, and everyone was happy.

The next day, Emily and Max went to the freezing game, and I intelligently spent the time with my ex-sister-in-law (who got custody of us during the divorce) and her siblings and nieces and nephews. The Chiefs won big and are going to the playoffs.

I slept late on Monday. A friend came over to dinner, and dinner was good, and we had a good time.

Until.

We noticed that our little 15-year-old, deaf, blind, Bichon Frise was not in her usual place upstairs in the chair. She wasn't in the dining room on a chair. She hadn't gotten lost in the basement. She was gone. We were beside ourselves, and couldn't remember who had let her out, or who had not brought her back in, or when any of that might have happened.

We put on our coats and hats and went looking for hours - until 1 in the morning. Nothing. There was no trace of her. We came home and tried to sleep, hoping some kind soul had found her, picked her up, and taken her home for the night. The next day, we called the veterinarians in town, the animal shelter, the police, and the radio stations. We made fliers and took them to all our neighbors. Then we sat and waited. Nothing happened.

Last night, Emily completed applications for graduate school. I tried to get a headache. Max feigned interest in the Missouri game. And we tried to come to grips with the fact that the little dog, Fluffy, was probably gone. We were sad and cried a lot over little things, but never really said why we were crying.

Then we went to bed.

At 7:30 this morning, we got a call from animal control. Fluffy was found. Someone, obviously an angel, had found her, taken her in, and then taken her to the shelter, where someone put two and two together and figured out she was ours. A few minutes later, the big white truck pulled up in front of our house, and a tired and disoriented Fluffy was handed over to us. I got the angel's telephone number and called him a little later.

Fluffy was a little over one mile from our home. I have no idea how she got there or why she felt compelled to go. She was out all night, and when the angel found her, she was cold and hungry. He took her home, got her warm, fed her, kept her all the next night, and when he called the animal control people, he told them that if the owners didn't claim her, he would take her. I started crying again, and called my husband, and he teared up, and then he went by the man's house to personally thank him.

So all in all, this Christmas season has been better than most. An angel appeared to me and said, "Fear not," which is what Christmas should be about, anyway - a miracle on earth. I have a couple of other miracles I would like to offer up for consideration, but the one we got was just fine, and I am grateful for it.

I am grading papers, and Secretary Vilsack is on television talking about school lunches. His comments bring to mind a commercial I saw the other day that addressed childhood obesity. The commercial was clever; children were commenting about the rise in in obesity, one of them saying that childhood obesity had increased by 30% in the last so many years. Then another child says, "So have you, Dad." And yet another child says, "My dad thinks ketchup is a vegetable."

Normally, I would think that to be funny; however, it is not funny because ketchup became a vegetable for school lunch purposes under the administration of The Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan. I am serious. In order to scrimp on school lunches, which are required to follow the FDA's dietary guidelines, the Reagan Administration's FDA declared ketchup to be a vegetable. By doing so, schools did not have to offer a REAL vegetable at lunch, but could give kids ketchup, wonderfully healthy ketchup, high fructose-filled, sodium-filled ketchup, and say that they were offering a vegetable and therefore following FDA regulations.

And people think Ronald Reagan was a wonderful president. I sigh.

Life Goes On

It seems as if the school year ended just recently, and yet, here we are, ready to begin another semester. Perhaps the hiatus seemed to evaporate because I taught two classes this summer, or perhaps life is just flashing by. Whatever the case, I feel as if I have barely enough time to breathe.

I think that the hiatus from school is necessary because classes are so intense. The beginning of the semester is stressful as to getting the students ready for learning and then involved in class. As the semester progresses, then, the coursework becomes more and more difficult, until the last part of the term, when the requirements are nothing short of grueling, and the work reaches some sort of fever pitch. Teaching writing or any other English class brings its own stresses, because as those multi-page papers must be assigned, they also must be graded. As the "degree of difficulty" increases, so does the time requred to grade each paper.

The rest of this week is my class lab: I will be posting assignments for my on line classes, I will be revising syllabi and other class informational documents, and I will be preparing my grade book. I would rather READ a book, but I will do what is required instead. Wish me luck as I face this semester with something less than fabulous enthusiasm, as I continue to wonder what life has in store, and as I struggle with trying to make my classes relevant to those who really want to learn.

Time off

My college classes begin next week. I feel as if I haven't had any time off, and it's only when a person doesn't have a vacation that he or she realizes how important that is.

I remember writing a piece about taking Emily on her first trip - it was to Sea World - and how excited I was because I was fulfilling a childhood dream of going on a vacation. My family never went on vacation. We couldn't afford it. I watched "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" hungrily each Sunday night, hoping to one day sit in the twirling cups, but my first trip to Disneyland didn't come until I was almost 30. I loved it then, but wonder what it would have been like to be a child and step foot into what felt like magic.

My schedule doesn't allow for much time off. I am in church at the piano and organ bench every Sunday, teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on a different bench on Wednesdays. Even when school is not in session, I am still spoken for on Wednesdays and Sundays. That divides the week either nicely or perversely, depending on how you look at it: enough time to take a short trip to Arkansas or Kansas City, but not enough time to sit back and relax and wipe the drudgery of everyday life off my mind for a few days.

When I read the word "drudgery," I am somewhat ashamed. I really enjoy the things I do. I love to make music, I love to connect with students, and I love trying to bring justice to those who are looking for it. Occasionally, I would just like some time off.

Stranger than truth!

We had a cookout on Monday afternoon, a good, old-fashioned picnic in the back yard to celebrate the holiday. We invited long-time friends and new friends, and thought the mix would be good.

When I introduced the new friends to the old friends, they discovered that they had a last name in common - obviously not theirs, but some relatives'. What happened next was just plain weird.

Pat asked Barry to spell his last name: "Guier." Pat wanted to know where Barry's family hailed from, because her husband, Wendy's father, was related to some Guiers in Kentucky. Well, Barry's family is from Kentucky. It turned out that Barry's relatives are Wendy's relatives. They share a great-uncle Quint (I think it's "Quint") and some other distant great-uncles and cousins. We figured out that Barry and Wendy may be third cousins or first cousins thrice removed, or something equally as confusing.

Barry's father is planning a reunion of Guier kinfolk, and so now my friends will be meeting at a family get-together, with relatives they knew nothing about, all who live within 40 miles of each other.

I wonder who I'm related to? I hope I can find out.

Passing the Bar

As promised to Beth Poore Finch, here is the story of Debbie vs. the Missouri Bar Exam:

I studied sporadically, but felt as if I knew most of what I needed to know to pass the darned exam. I planned never to practice, but knew that I would consider myself a quitter if I didn't go the distance to actually become a lawyer.

Ten days before I was to take the bar exam, I think it was ten days, I heard the news on television that the Hyatt had collapsed on a couple thousand people. My mother was one of them. The short story is that I got down there, found her, and she was injured but not permanently - unless you consider that she no longer has the nerve that controls her balance.

I took the bar on schedule, though I was totally rattled and didn't really care about anything other than getting my mother out of the hospital. When the news came out, I wasn't surprised to find that I didn't pass.

So I took the two sections that I didn't pass in July again in February. "Please let me at least fix breakfast for you," my mother wheedled before I went to Jefferson City. "I feel as if I were the reason you didn't pass before. You need to have a good breakfast before you take a test."

Against my better judgment, I agreed to stop at her house for breakfast on my way to take the Bar Exam for what had better be the last time. So I stopped.

When I walked in the door, I smelled something smoky. It smelled as if my mother had brought the Weber grill inside and had begun to cook something on it. But that's not what was smoking. It was the tree in the fireplace. Yes. A tree was lying trunk end in the fireplace, where it was burning away. As the trunk burned, my mother pushed the branches end closer to the fire, hoping, I assume to eventually burn the whole darn thing.

But the thing that smelled the worst was the sleeve of her robe, which had caught fire when she had pushed the tree closer to the fire. The whole length of her right sleeve was black.

As any reasonable person would, I hit the ceiling! "Are you trying yet again to make sure that I never get this thing done?!" I screeched.

"NO, NO!' she whined. "It was an accident! This is just smoke on my arm, I swear!"

I shook my head, rolled my eyes like any good 13-year-old daughter would do, and ate breakfast, which tasted a little smoky. I then went to Jefferson City to take the darned test.

And this time, I passed. And lucky for me, because I opened my law practice the year after Emily was born, and have been there ever since!

This is College?

I am teaching an on line class this summer, as well as an on-site class. I have taught the on-site class before - expository writing - and the on line class, as well, but this time I have to use new software. I got ready to load my assignments onto the "classroom," but I couldn't get on the "classroom" site for some reason. I think I must be doing something wrong.

The first thing I am doing right, however, is being open to teaching on line. While I am a true believer in the traditional classroom and its interactions, I realize that the education world is changing at a high rate of speed. Many people, especially those who are going back to school, or re-training themselves for a different job or career, find on-line classes the better option. A student can do homework in pajamas, and can post those assignments as his or her schedule allows. "School" can take place after a student gets home from work.

The cost of on-line learning, however, is pretty steep - not in dollars, but in personal instructional interaction that used to take place face-to-face in a classroom. Although I use lecture in a classroom, a lecture that I can transcribe to Word and place on Blackboard, or Angel, or MyCMU, my lectures can become hijacked because of a student's questions or a classroom discussion that ensues after or during the lecture. The on-line student cannot benefit from those impromptu "learning moments." Additionally, on-line students have to be incredibly motivated. Unlike being in a classroom where an assignment may be explained or an example demonstrated, on-line students must read a text and understand the material; an instructor may post an example on a power point presentation or something similar, but the students must be able to learn visually, with no additional explanation.

These instructional/learning method deficits raise important questions: does on-line learning reduce what a student is able to get from a class? Is on-line learning, while convenient, actually "dumbing down" material that should be learned by a student during a semester's time? Can a teacher be as effective in a faceless disembodied cyber-classroom as he/she is in a traditional classroom? By making a college education more accessible, do we make it less meaningful or less comprehensive?

I don't know. I know only that this change has already occurred, and I guess it's up to us to make sure the students get the most out of it.

Still a Thayer Girl

Last week I went to pick up Emily because she needed to come home before her adventure in Washington, D.C., begins. I met her and Joe, her squeeze, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, a hop, skip, and a jump from my home town, Thayer, Missouri. In fact, Thayer is one of those towns that is perilously close to being in two states, and could be called "Thayer, Missouri-Arkansas," somewhat like "Something, Tennessee-Virginia." Jonesboro is about 90 minutes from Thayer through improved Arkansas roads, but regardless of how much the roads have improved, it is still only 76 miles.

I spent only 17 years in that part of the country, but driving there still feels like home. I know the next little town on the road - Ravenden, where a huge, black, metal (?) bird stands on the east side of the highway, or Bono, where my great-uncle used to go to the pool hall without my great-grandmother's knowledge, or Black Rock, where there is a really cool, long bridge that I remember going over after seeing Elvis Presley in "Jail House Rock." My grandmother and great-grandmother took me to see that movie when I was very small, but I remember Mama, who didn't like the pool hall, saying that Elvis was wonderful because he "loves his Mama and he loves the Lord." Little did she know.

So I picked up Emily and we ate at a Ruby Tuesday's - no national chain in its right mind would have been in Jonesboro in 1971 - and then we headed north toward Sedalia on those Arkansas roads. We made our first stop in Williford, where the Elvis-lovers and pool-player are now buried, along with my great-grandfather. The little church needs painting, and the cemetery has now stretched from behind the churchyard to in front of it. How many more graves can there be? The town's population is now fewer than 70. This past year, Emily went to the little church to take photos for her photography class. My heart felt a tug when she told me, "Joe and I drove up to our church today." I have always felt it was "our" church because I had a history with it, beginning when my great-grandfather "Papa" walked with me to the church, played "church," including passing the offering plate, and listened to me pound on the piano. The fact that Emily sees it as "our" church makes me feel that the history will not end with me.

Eight miles up the road, we drove around Hardy. When I lived in Thayer, Hardy was a sleepy, dying little town a little bit east of the beautiful Spring River. Since then, however, Hardy has become the antique capital of the world, it seems. Driving through the town, about two blocks long, could take up to 20 minutes, because everyone and his brother was crossing the road to gawk in the window of yet another flea market or antique store. Someone must have complained, because the State of Arkansas built a road around Hardy, and a nice road it is. When I come out on the other end, the McDonald's is about 100 yards to my left, so Emily and I pulled in for a pit stop for the next 16 miles.

When I wa about 20, I realized that Hardy was just 16 miles from Thayer, and I was shocked. It always took 30 minutes to get there. The distance between the two towns is layered with Ozark mountains and curvy, winding highways. When Bill Clinton was governor, the State of Arkansas laid down some extra lanes in the highway, so that instead of creeping up one of the mountains behind an 18-wheeler at 25 miles per hour, a driver will creep for a while, and then will be able to shoot past the driving impediment by using the extra passing lane. This alone would make anyone who travels Highway 63 want to vote for Mr. Clinton. Regardless, it still takes about 30 minutes to get to Hardy from Thayer.

When we got to Thayer, we stopped at the Country Cottage, also known as Goldena's, to have a Coke with crushed ice. Country Cottage was closed, but cars were parked outside, so we went in. They were closed, but when I said, "I'm Debbie Gillespie," I heard a voice from around the corner saying, "She can have anything she wants." Goldena, who sold the restaurant a few years ago, was hanging out there on a Sunday afternoon, and bought us a Coke. She owned the restaurant when my dad went back to Thayer, and that restaurant was his home away from home. He ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Goldena's, and she sat and talked to him most of the day - that part of the day, that is, when he was not at Lloyd Best's shoe store talking to Lloyd and anyone else who came in while he was there.

It was good to talk to Goldena, who told us that she hadn't really ever gotten over my dad's death. He was bigger than life to her, I think, someone who came in to talk, to listen to her, and to hold forth on whatever was on his or anyone's mind. I wish only that he had wanted to talk to me in that way, and listen to what I had to say.

We left the Country Cottage with Coke, no crushed ice (the machine had broken for the last time), and a feeling that we had spent a good hour continuing our connection with a little town that seems to be a large part, though only a few years, of my history. Two hours up the way, we stopped in Springfield at the Metropolitan Grill for a light supper, and then we headed the next two hours to our presents, leaving my past behind one more time.