Nancy Drew

My parents sent a huge box of stuff from one of their sporadic cleanings-out of the room that used to be mine, and in that box was an old hardback copy of a Nancy Drew mystery. I only ever owned one, but I know I read all of them when I was younger courtesy of our local public library.

In desperate need of a break from the pressures at the end of the year, I sat down one afternoon and read it. I think it took me all of two hours to read through the whole thing, but I was remarkably refreshed at the end. I think the saddest moment in the whole book dealt with damage to Nancy's trusty blue roadster. I put the book to the side and really didn't think about Nancy Drew again for awhile.

Sometime later, I was cruising one of my favorite junktique locations, and in two separate stalls, I saw some ten total copies of Nancy Drew. Remembering the pleasant afternoon I'd had reading the one from Mom and Dad's, I picked up one of the books to look at the cover art. To my surprise, the price tag was only a dollar. I decided I might pick another one and read it, too. By the time I'd looked at the descriptions of each book, I wound up walking out with all ten.

When I got home, as I do whenever something new/old catches my eye, I looked online to see what I could find about Nancy Drew. Apparently, in the years since I spent the summer going back and forth between Podunk and the library, stories, new series, and even some kind of stupid-looking movie have been made about good old Nancy. I, however, really am not interested in ultra-hip modern Nancy.

I like the classic mysteries from the 1930s to the 1960s. In addition to the joy of the simple mysteries, those old Nancy Drews also contain such candid little pictures of the evolution of what was "daring" for a woman. In one book from the late 30s, Nancy and her friends are outside at night setting an ambush for a criminal, and they put on their "dark colored dresses" to do it. I had to giggle. Teen aged girls setting an ambush for a potentially-dangerous criminal? Okay. Teen aged girls wearing pants? TOO shocking!

I've read several of these classic Nancy Drews now, and they're definitely predictable, but I still enjoy them. Sometimes, a formula is a good thing. I'm working on collecting a full set. eBay, as always, has plenty of Nancy Drew, some of them multi-book sets for very little money. The editions I'm collecting are by no means valuable, but I keep thinking that maybe someday I'll have a little girl who might enjoy reading them. In the meantime, I know I'll continue to get a kick out of the titian haired detective and her somewhat campy exploits.

Sadness

As this year is finally grinding to a halt, I felt sad today. Too many people are leaving, both students and teachers. I can't even imagine what next year is going to be like. Every project I'm a part of seems to be getting more complex instead of finding a path to move down easily. Weariness just washes over me in waves.

The primary cause of my sadness today was actually having to go down to the vocational center where Dad taught for a meeting. Just walking through the front doors and knowing he wasn't down the hall in his classroom, just knowing that he would never been down that hall and in that classroom again was more depressing than I can express. I wanted to go into his supervisor's office and ask her how she sleeps at night after telling such heinous lies. Of course I didn't. Professional people don't do things like that, I guess, and I still have barely enough reserve left not to do things like that.

I've been throwing out papers and old files. I found last year's class of AP students' writing samples. I don't know why those folders were even still in my cabinet. I found a whole drawer full of materials for Julius Caesar and To Kill a Mockingbird, and just not teaching those also made me nostalgic. It's getting a bit silly. There's too much change. Even my job is not going to be exactly the same next year; more responsibilities are coming, and while I welcome the challenge, right now, I feel totally inadequate to meet them.

Maybe it's just the time of the year. It's not a beginning where everything is fresh with hope. It's an ending with all the farewells, memories, and regrets that endings always entail. What I want to do more than any other thing is just get in my poor wounded car and run away for a couple of days. The pressure of being around all these endings is making my soul feel sore. It will be a few more days before that sort of escape can be a reality, though. In the meanwhile, I suppose I'll just hunker down and try to focus on the good instead of the lost and the wasted.

Graduation

Tonight, I watched all my little chickadees walk across the ersatz stage on the track to receive the last handshakes and the empty document folder. They are free now. I am so proud of them all. They gave prayers and speeches. They greeted or simply walked up to receive the fruits of twelve years of labor.

Watching them line up in their bright blue robes, they reminded me of baby birds who were just now fledged and ready to test their new wings. They had that same wondering look in their eyes as it began to set in that next year would not involve a seven-period class day or the restrictive security of the routine within red-brick halls. They strode proud and ecstatic or collected and calm, but each one shook our principal's hand with a new awareness, a new mantle of the future settling its weight, both liberating and unsettling, around their shoulders.

I wish the class of 2007 the best. They have certainly been a lot of fun to teach, and it's not every year that I can say that. They have so much potential, and it's been my very great privilege to watch them begin to stretch those wings. I hope as they soar away into whatever the future holds that they remember fondly those of us whose job it is to keep the nest ready and help the next class begin to believe in the power of their own beautiful flight. Dios te bendiga, class of 2007.

Decisions

I haven't been blogging much lately. There have been too many things swirling around in my head to allow for much reflective writing. Little pieces of my stable world have been crumbling off around the edges, and I've been trying to figure out some answers for a major decision or two.

The biggest decision of these is where I'll be teaching next year. I teach at a school that has a vocational school on the same campus, and for years, my father has taught there in one of their programs. Because of a personal vendetta on the part of his supervisor, his program is closing two years away from his retirement. He has jumped through all the hoops, and there is no recourse or way to stop the closing.

That alone is hard for me to swallow. Just the closing is enough. The fact that the program is going because of her personal venom is almost intolerable, and after Dad's board hearing (a farce beyond the farcical), I decided that I could not work for my school system anymore.

Since I had to go see my insurance agent in a city in another county, I decided to stop by that county's superintendent of education and see if they had any job openings. They did, and shortly thereafter, I found myself being offered the senior English/AP English job at their high school. I told their principal that I needed a week to consider, and I drove home full of questions to which I could find no answers. Was this a sign that I was supposed to change now?

So many things at my school have been crazy lately. The crazy screamer down the hall has been in full form; kids run up and down the halls with no control at all during 6th and 7th periods. I don't know what their teachers are thinking, or even if they are thinking, but they're certainly not keeping them in their classroom the way they're supposed to do. Also, as the numbers finally stabilize, I find I will have 26 AP students next year, and while I'm so excited about the program growth, I am trying to figure out when in the world I will get all their grading done, much less the section of Honors III I'll have.

This other job offered me a simpler world. I would not be one of three; I would be "the only". Discipline is tight, test scores are good, and the community is firmly behind this other school. As I sat in their office waiting to talk with the principal, I saw not one sad face, not on the office workers, not on those who were there to pick up their children, not even on the faces of the children who were coming in for some form of discipline. It was like another world. Nobody was out of control or sullen, adult or child. I cannot say it's not a tempting environment.

After long prayer for guidance and a conversation with my current principal, I came to my decision Friday. I cannot leave my current school. I've already met those 26 AP students, given them their summer reading, started them on the path for next year. I've even had somebody volunteer to be my TA for next year. There's so much I believe my school is capable of becoming, and although we have a LONG way to go before we are like the other school, I want to see us get there. I still have to call the other principal and turn him down, but I will be staying at Podunk High for better or for worse.

As soon as I'd made my decision, I felt a weight lift off me. While I know lots of my readers and my friends are never going to understand why I've made this choice, I feel a happiness and an optimism about next year. There is a chance for things to change radically next school year. I am hopeful that the problems of this year will be taken care of so we can begin to rise. We have pretty much hit the breaking point, so up should be the direction of choice from this point forward.

Crash

After an exceptionally long day travelling to Hoover, AL to see their high school as a part of our own school's attempts at redesign, I was on my way back to Podunk. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before because I had a chance to visit with somebody who I don't see very often, and we stayed up late talking. I was coming over the top of an overpass, and suddenly, the car in front of me slammed on its brakes. I hit mine, too, and slid, but I managed to stop in time.

Unfortunately, the twenty-something kid behind me didn't. The back fender of my poor little car is crunched. It took out the tail light and the curve of the PT Cruiser fender. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, he had insurance, and the car is still drivable. I'll be dealing with the insurance mess today, but it was NOT the way I wanted yesterday to end.

Roux Injured

Yesterday was odd. I had no students except for 6th period's tiny bunch of juniors, and I also had to leave campus to go to a meeting at the CO, so my routine was totally blown.

I finished out my senior grades, took care of several chores in the room, finished up my reading of The Crucible for this year, and just generally got things done. I still have to clean up the room and batten down the hatches for summer, but mostly the big things are done. Since I've been able to get so much finished, I was able to leave school at a reasonable hour. It was still daylight and everything.

On the way home, the eastbound lane of I-20 was blocked completely by a multi-vehicle wreck. I saw a Neon with the back wheels of an eighteen-wheeler sitting on top of its hood. Traffic was backed up for about four miles and was steadily piling up. By the time I got to the Podunk exit, traffic was already stopping there, too. I remember thinking how glad I was that I wasn't any reason for me to have to be headed back toward the east.

When I got home, Roux didn't meet me. She always mugs me first thing when I get home, but even when I called, she didn't come. I walked down to the road calling her, and by the time I got back to the house, she was slowly dragging herself around the side of the porch. I knew when I saw how she was moving that something was wrong. When I got her inside and checked her, she had a hole in her abdomen.

After having a minor freak out, I realized that I had only about five minutes before my vet closed. I called them, loaded Roux as gently as I could into the car, and headed for the interstate only to find that the wreck was so bad that they had actually reversed traffic on I-20 East to come off the Podunk exit through Podunk and to a local road that runs parallel to the blocked highway. I think the fastest we moved until we got through Podunk was 15 mph.

Roux was just leaning against me. She wouldn't lie down. Once I got her to the vet, they looked at her and put in six staples. Apparently, she stabbed herself on a broken stick or limb. I can't imagine how she managed to do that, but I'm just so relieved she's okay. They gave me some pain pills and antibiotics for her, and I brought her home.

Today, she seems okay. She's not moving around very fast, and of course, trying to get these pills down her is NOT fun. To have to be more stubborn than a pit bull twice a day isn't easy. She'll take the pain pills okay because they dissolve in her mouth, but the gel coated antibiotics are another nasty matter. She spit this morning's out twice before I managed to throw it to the back of her throat, clamp her mouth shut, and rub her neck until she had to swallow.

Hopefully, she'll be back to her old self soon. I'm just so grateful that it wasn't worse and that she didn't puncture a major organ.

Random

Today, my AP students took this year's edition of the AP English exam (bing...welcome College Board cyberpolice....). I saw a couple of them afterward, and generally, they said they felt pretty good about the test. I'm looking forward to getting their writing prompts back so I can a)see what the prompts were and b)see if they marked the pages well. I was extremely hyper this morning as I was setting up the snack table for them. It was good that I was running around up and down stairs to carry stuff. It helped burn of some of that excess.

I also got to use one of my vintage tablecloths today. I used the one that had all the four leaf clovers and other good luck charms on it. It seemed appropriate. It's nice to be able to use these things I collect.

This school year is grinding to a close. I've got almost all my grades ready to turn in, and I've got most of what I have to prepare for next year done. That only leaves the AP Audit materials and a couple of other small projects. It's a nice feeling. I came home this afternoon, lay down on the couch, and the next thing I knew, it was almost dark. I guess now that everything is done, my body is simply going to TAKE what it needs by way of rest.

In other news, Dad just shot a snake in my yard. The dogs were going insane, and when I looked outside, I saw a copperhead coiled and striking at Roux and Yelldo. I got them to run away, and Dad came down to take care of the snake. Snakes are one of those things I have no intention of dealing with on my own. Had it been a king snake, I'd have let it go. Since it was poisonous, it had to go.

I'll try to write more later, and maybe that effort won't be so disjointed. Right now, it's bedtime, I think.

Witch Trials

I'm teaching The Crucible to my one tiny class of juniors right now, and we just wrapped up the history portion. It had been a long time since I'd even thought about the Salem Witch Trials. I guess it's not the sort of thing that is really common in the everyday mind.

I did a lot of research to make sure I had my facts straight before teaching it, and the deeper I dug, the more amazed and afraid I was. How did an entire group of supposedly sane and rational people suddenly decide that, with absolutely no proof other than the clever acting of a couple of disturbed teenagers, twenty five people deserved to die?

I keep thinking of Giles Cory lying between those two stone slabs and watching the dour, self-righteous faces of his judges as they placed another stone and then another on his chest until he simply stopped breathing. Who thought up the idea of "pressing"? What person woke up one morning and said, "This is a just thing to do to another person"?

There have been so many examples of hysteria like this, though. It's all too easy to look back from a twenty-first century viewpoint, feel superior, and scoff at the credulity of the Puritans, but we've certainly seen it since then. How else does one explain abominations like the Holocaust? It gets closer to home in the 1950s with McCarthy's crusades, and more recently, the same putrid vapors of mass panic have been scented in regard to terrorist attacks. Who knows but that tomorrow we may be calling in this generation's Cotton Mather to legitimize whatever fear is currently bearing evil fruit.

I am of two minds about going to Danvers. Part of me would very much like to see the place where this part of American history happened. Another part of me, though, feels like it's a desecration to those who lost their lives that tourists traipse through Witch Trials Wax Museums, buy "magic" souvenirs, and get their pictures made with the Bewitched bronze statue in the middle of town. Maybe, though, as long as they and the total breakdown of sanity that caused their deaths are remembered in some form or another, their memories are honored.