Up in the Air!

Look! Up in the sky! It's bird! It's a plane! It's a...

Well, in Sarah's neck of the woods, you never know.

It could be aerialists practicing for the Rocky Mountain Air Show.

Sarah lives close enough to the Denver Airport as well as Buckley Air Force Base that she gets a lot of fly overs.

 Or, it could be a special visitor whose flight you have been tracking online.

And can watch fly right over your house on her way to visit you!

It's Lisa! Coming in from Indy for a week's visit and to see a Neil Diamond concert with Sarah.

Teachers' Last Day

While the kids' last day of school was yesterday, teachers had to work a half day today to close down their classrooms. (I will never complain about that - in Illinois I opened and closed my classrooms on my own time; here, I get paid to do it!)

Linda treated us to a catered breakfast buffet from The Outpost and all retired Hershey teachers were invited to join us. A lot of them came, too!

 The library was full of teachers, past and present!

 Linda said a few words to us (and I think she personally footed the bill for the breakfast.)

 Jo Stroud, P.E. teacher, is retiring and she reminisced for a while.

The rest of the time was ours to work in our rooms and get things put away for summer.

 I finished up around 1:00 and snapped a few pictures of my now lonely-looking classroom.

A school without children is a lonely place. While I am ready for some rest (and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half when I got home) I will miss teaching and being with the kids and my colleagues.

Saying Goodbye

While it is always SO HARD to say goodbye at the end of the school year, there is a lovely Hershey tradition that I look forward to, probably my favorite of all the "must do" activities there are at Hershey.

On the last day of school when the final bell rings, the children load the buses...

 ... and the teachers and staff join together on the sidewalk.

Every adult in the building, be they custodian, teacher, aide, nurse, secretary, principal, or other, lines up on the sidewalk to say goodbye.

And as the buses rumble by, we wave to the children...

... while the children wave back.

What a terrific year it has been! 

Water Balloons!

My dear friend, Pam Green, was also the teacher with whom I student taught. As you might imagine, we had a blast and I learned things that I still use in my classroom eighteen years later.

One of those was letting the children throw water balloons at her the last day of school. Mine get to do that, too.

 Only the 5th graders get the privilege. The 4th graders will get their turn next year.

 JB kindly asked me to turn my back to him so it might not hurt so much.

 The 4th graders lined up along the side and watched as their classmates tried to get me wet.

Unfortunately, since I had used regular balloons, they did not break easily, and soon I had quite a pile of unpopped water balloons at my feet that were now mine to throw back at the 5th graders!

 I threw at the ground in front of them instead of at the kids themselves, and so the balloons burst, spraying their legs with water.

 A few of mine did not break, so I let the 5th graders surprise the 4th graders with an impromptu water fight.

 There was a lot of running around and having fun until the last balloon was broken.

I considered ending the tradition this year, but am glad I continued - the kids enjoy it and its harmless fun.

A Dear Friend Marries

Lorna Lutter is a woman I respect and admire. A former aide of mine from my Yankee Ridge days, she moved her daughters to Champaign years ago to get them away from the violence in the projects of Chicago and to give them a better life.

A single mom who is also legally blind, she cannot drive and must take a bus if she wants to go anywhere. She makes an aide's salary and so does not have much in the way of material goods. 

But Lorna has a heart of gold. She loves "her babies" (as she calls the students) and she works hard. Devoutly religious, she and I used to hold hands and pray together frequently, for our students, for our families, friends, and anything else that needed praying for. We became so close that we called ourselves "sisters of the heart." (Still do!)

So, when Lorna became engaged on Valentine's Day and asked me to come to her wedding, I was not going to miss her special day. That day was yesterday.

 A hug as she looks at my gift.

 Lorna's groom, Michael Adams. He positively doted on her!

I love this picture of Lorna - she is so happy!

 My dear, dear friend Pam Green was there, too!

And Vickie Cromwell, another retired Yankee Ridge teacher, also was in attendance.

 I couldn't stay for the reception as it was later in the evening, but Pam went and took this photo of Lorna and Michael having their first dance together as a married couple.

I hope that they are very happy together. Michael got a peach, that's for sure!

Tornado!

Yesterday while driving home from Lorna Lutter's wedding in Illinois, the skies darkened and a sudden downpour began. I looked at the external temperature gauge and it had dropped from a warm eighty-four degrees to sixty-four - a twenty degree drop in only a few minutes!

As I drove through the rainstorm, I happened to look out my driver's window to the north, and saw this:

 A tornado on the ground a ways north of the interstate!

I grabbed my phone and quickly began snapping pictures. The funnel cloud moved parallel to the freeway so I knew I was not in any danger.

 Shortly after this picture was taken, the funnel dissipated and disappeared.

I was between Covington and Crawfordsville and out in the middle of nowhere, so I did not know if any storm warnings had been posted. The rain quit as suddenly as it began, the temperature rebounded, and soon it was as though nothing had happened.

What an exciting thing to see!

Memorial Day 2015

Craig and I did a road trip on Memorial Day to visit family graves in the area. Eighty-two and a half miles later, we had gone to graveyards in West Lafayette, Lafayette, Colfax, and West Point!

 First stop? My father in Grand View Cemetery.

 My mother's parents are buried there, too.

Then it was on to Rest Haven, off Sagamore Parkway in Lafayette.

 Craig's Fairchild grandparents are interred there.

 A memorial marker.

Next we made a jaunt out to Colfax where Craig's great grandparents, grandparents, and father are buried in Plainview Cemetery.

 It's an isolated spot that sits on a windy hill way out in the hinterlands.

On our way back to town, we swung around through Linden so we could grab some lunch at one of our favorite way stations.

 The Lindy Freeze!

The food is unremarkable, but it's fun to stop at the tiny building, grab a sandwich, and sit on the picnic benches eating.

 Our last stop was to see a grave I had never visited - Craig's Uncle Don who died in World War II. He's buried in West Point Cemetery, West Point, Indiana.

He left behind a pregnant wife who gave birth to a daughter after his death. So sad.

Visiting the family sites prompted us to discuss where we would like to be buried when we're gone. We didn't come to a decision outside of the fact that we want to be together wherever it may be.

Poplar Sphynx Moth

Hershey is by the north fork of the Wildcat and surrounded by woods, so we get a lot of interesting wildlife by the building. Bald eagles, skinks, (yes, I spelled that right - not skunks. S-k-i-n-k-s.), bluebirds, kestrels, deer, coyotes...

And there is abundant insect life, too. Giant moths in particular. They tend to settle on the walls of the building. I don't know if it's the heat from the bricks that makes them do that or what, but I have found an IO moth and two Luna moths in the past.

Yesterday I rescued yet another large moth. It was near the front door huddled on the bricks.

The moth looked pretty unremarkable except for its size - it was enormous! I knew it was an unusual moth, but I was not sure just what it was. I'd never seen one like this before.

I carefully moved it away from the high traffic area of the front door and took it around to the side of the building away from where the kids would be playing at recess. I noticed it had some pink showing on its underwings - such an unusual moth!

Here's a picture of my hand with it for scale.

After googling unsuccessfully for a while, I emailed Tim Gibb - he's an entomologist at Purdue and I knew he could identify it for me.

Poplar sphynx moth. They fly at night - often attracted to lights. That is probably why it is on the school. The caterpillars feed on tree leaves (poplar, willow, etc.) There are several color variations. Most have some red or orange on rear wings that they will uncover when disturbed. The idea is that displaying a quick flash of color will startle predators and elementary school kids enough to allow them to escape (apparently does not work on teachers.) Cool find.

(I love Tim's sense of humor.)

Todd also weighed in in a humorous vein.

From what I have read, Poplar Sphynx Moths are found west of the Mississippi, so why did I find this one at Hershey? 

Another email is out to Tim.

Eighteen Years Later

I got a note from a parent of a student in my very first class this weekend. I had her daughter for two years (my first classes at Yankee Ridge were also multiage, although they were gen ed, not high ability.)

Her daughter had fetal alcohol syndrome, a learning disability, and a host of other issues. Mom was a drug abuser as well as an alcoholic, and struggled as a single parent. She blamed "the system" for her daughter's ills, but the truth was, her daughter was a master at looking busy and getting nothing done. Couple that with the severe learning disability and she did poorly in school.

I did my best for my student and tried to help the mother by meeting with her when asked, calling her, etc. but, as sometimes happens, the problems were deeper than what could be addressed at school. The mother was an exceptionally difficult parent, one of the the hardest I have ever dealt with. She's the only parent who I ever actually slapped my hands on my desk, stood up, raised my voice, and said, "That is simply not true!" and telling her that our meeting was over when she accused me of doing nothing to help her child.

At the end of a stressful two years, the student still refused to do any work, Mom still felt the school and I had done nothing, and they moved on.

Several years passed, and I began hearing rumors that the student was in kidney failure. I was surprised when the mother began phoning me to keep me updated as her daughter's kidney disease progressed, to the extent that she even called me when a recipient was found to let me know that they were on their way to Peoria for the transplant. When the new kidney was successfully implanted and the girl back home in Urbana, I went to visit her and was stunned to see a framed picture of the two of us from 5th grade graduation on a table. I wondered then if, despite the difficulties, perhaps mother and daughter had realized that I had actually cared.

More time passed, and again I lost contact with this family. We moved to West Lafayette, and nearly ten more years passed. Then, out of the blue, the mother contacted me yesterday through Facebook and requested that we be friends. Very soon after  I clicked the "confirm" button, I received a message from her.

Hi Lynn. Did you know steph had another Transplant! 2 years ago. A double. Kidney and liver. Wow the liver is scary. She is hanging in there We go to Indianapolis Tplant How are you? Still teaching? You were Stephanies favorite.

It has been eighteen years since her daughter entered my class as a 4th grader and the mother and I began butting heads. I am not sure why she has initiated contact after all this time, but I am heartened at the last line she wrote (although I never, EVER would have guessed that!)

As I chew on this, it makes me think that maybe, when you truly care and try your best, that sometimes that is felt, despite the conflict, the frustration, or the angry words. The student, and even the parent, feels that and it makes a difference.

Even eighteen years later.

Graduation Weekend

Curt's graduation was Friday night, and so that meant we could enjoy the rest of the weekend celebrating without needing to rush off somewhere. Things started early Saturday morning, with Curt and Ian arriving around 9:30 AM.

Boompa helps Curt and Vanny into the house.

Cole, Emily, and Julie had arrived at 2:00 in the morning. They had to miss the graduation, but having them here all weekend meant we got lots of time together.

Julie was fascinated by Millie and would follow her around, "woofing" at her!

Ian tries out the rocker that was Boompa's when he was little.

Julie found that she fit well, too.

Aren't they cute?

Julie approaches Millie with Aunt Lisa's help while Ian and Uncle Cole look on.

Aunt Lisa, Millie, and Julie.

I found a couple of bowling sets at CVS and we set up an alley in the hallway.

Uncle Curt shows Julie and her mama how to bowl.

Julie waits for the ball to come rolling down the hallway.

We had a family BBQ Saturday night. Curt requested that I make Texas sheet cake and potato salad.

I made a ton since we expected seventeen people.

Vanessa set up a picture gallery.

And filled up balloons with helium and tied them around the house.

Food was set out in the dining room and Craig kept the grill going (everyone brought their own meat.)

Cole, Ian, Emily (holding Julie), Aunt Jenny, and Vanessa.

Curt also opened gifts.

Curt, Ryan, and Carlisa.

Getting ready to blow out the candles.

My class made and signed a card for Curt. He took this picture of himself with it for them to enjoy.