A Solution & a New Year's Resolution

            This fall, my Denver sister visited after a nun reunion at Briar Cliff and reacquainting with a woman she knew in the novitiate. During her career, this nun was posted in various cities and towns across the system. Cascade among them.

            She stated simply and frankly: “…the meanest place I taught 40 years.”

            When I recounted this to friend who grew up elsewhere and married a Cascade guy, she replied she is routinely appalled by the stories the hubby/his buddies tell about their dirty tricks.

            A Bernard friend shared this: She waitressed at the 12-Mile House for many years, and the proprietor donated money to every school (Senior, Hempstead, Beckman, etc.) but not Aquin. He explained that he put the $ in a “Repair Fund” to fix the damage Aquin High kids typically did when they showed up en masse.

            In November, this dishonorable tradition got me removed from the sub list (fired) at Cascade High for nothing more than demanding correct English. To ridicule me, a boy videotaped me hecturing a class of freshman and sophomores whose papers I had refused to accept until they fixed elementary errors: “your” and “you’re,” misspelled “ex(c)ercise,” and missing caps and periods.

            Thinking I had been falsely accused of something else, when I asked the principal he told me he simply did not want to expose me or the school to it.

            Then take away their cell phones.

 There is mounting evidence from research that cell phones undermine the concentration of even a well-focused adult. The French have barred them from schools totally. They don’t need them for research. We taxpayers have provided a slew of computers.

 And the “Nasties,” giving the decent people of this berg a bad name, need to make a New Year’s resolution to clean up their acts.

Copious & Profound Apologies

for scandalizing the universe by hanging out my clothes on Sunday. However, on a sunny, breezy, and perfect wash day like this, when they are predicting snow for tomorrow, I thought "carpe diem" (seize the day) was a better strategy than considering running the drier.
The Ancients never thought about the environment when they formulated their "keep holy the Sabbath thing."
Of course, nobody had automatic driers then either.

Wooden Legs and Getting Laid--Recalling Frank Zappa

I got a sample copy of Funny Times in the mail this week, and a story recounted in it may prompt me to subscribe. It happened in 1968, a year infamous for the demise of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King

Apparently, Rocker Frank Zappa agreed to appear on Joe Pyne’s talk radio show. A curious decision from the get-go, because Joe was the Rush Limbaugh of his era, and Frank one of the edgier rockers leading a band, The Mothers of Invention aka "The Mothers."

            Frank, had long, “hippie” hair of the era, and when he walked the studio, Joe took one gawk at him and said, “With that long hair, you look like a girl. Are you a girl?”

            Nonplussed Frank replied, “You have a wooden leg. (He did.) Are you a table?!

More of Zappa’s irreverent wit at https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/22302.Frank_Zappa

i.e.: “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”