My journals reflect my mood and the struggles of life. As I read over the journal entries in the 1979-80 volume I see many references to the difficulties we had with finances. Sometimes those struggles brought on arguments and always frustrations. Some entries chronicle our desperation.
Our worm business and second jobs were prompted by the need for additional income. We also had to rely on bank loans or help from our parents. It is a painful part of life to learn to live within your resources. There were many sleepless nights and lots of prayers.
In reading the journal and reflecting back on it I think I was probably way too involved in other things and not focused enough on solving the problem. We just couldn’t seem to get over the hump. We would think we were doing well and then a car would break down and need to be fixed or replaced. If it wasn’t a car it was the furnace, stove, water heater or something else. We were just plunging deeper and deeper in debt.
If we could have just been able to put a couple thousand in a rainy day fund we would have been so much better able to get along. It is amazing that a small amount like that could make so much difference. Because we didn’t have that we had to rely on credit too often.
Somehow through all of the struggles we remained optimistic even when we had no idea how we would ever get out of the financial doldrums. I think this may be something that a lot of people go through but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Participating in the Southeast Iowa Writing Project (SIWP) set me on a journey that would ultimately lead to more financial security. It was a rocky road but it led me to take more classes, an expense, but that led me to teaching more classes and, of course that led to increased income.
In the spring of 1980, another SIWP participant and I taught an adult education course on writing for Southeastern Community College. It was an interesting experience that I will write about later, but it did provide some income. At the same time I was teaching that class I was also teaching a woodcarving class and taking a required human relations course. They occupied three nights a week. It was a busy schedule preparing for each of those!
On top of those that spring I was teaching adult Sunday school lessons each week, teaching the Red Cross Multi-Media course to groups, and serving on the church session and the board of directors at Hope Haven. Sometime around that time I took on the maintenance of Ernie Haye’s indoor pool. How I managed to do all of that and teach school and be a parent at the same time I don’t know? I couldn’t have possibly done many of them well.
If I had to do it over again I would be much more focused on my family and meeting our financial needs and less on the other stuff. We survived but it could have been a lot easier if I had been more focused on fewer things and devoted my time and energy to them.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Journal Lessons
My journals chronicle events and experiences that first year or so after I took the writing project. Reading some of them sometimes takes me back to the moment or experience as if it just happened yesterday. I am amazed by the experience and find it hard to pull myself away from the entries just the way it is when I read Dad’s journals.
One entry caught my interest especially after a conversation with Becky and Heather. It goes back to the fall of 1979 and happened in an unexpected way. I tell in this entry of helping a friend do some work on his acreage. We cut wood in his woods while Becky and his wife socialized and prepared a supper for us back at the house.
This friend had recently undergone a huge transformation in his life. He had been a “rounder” as my Dad would say. That simply meant he was running around a lot and not faithful in relationships with his wife and others. He “got religion” and was a different person. I was impressed with his change but not so impressed with the zealous way he tried to bring others to Jesus. Many of us had been there all along and were now wondering why he didn’t realize that.
He was several years older than I was. We had grown up in the same church as I had but it must have not meant much to him. His parents were friends with mine so even with the age difference we had a lot in common.
I was a little uncomfortable when he would brag about the things he did before he was “saved.” Somehow that just didn’t seem right. I wouldn’t say he actually regretted it. It was as though he thought his past life gave more credibility to his transformation. I thought he was wrong before and wasn’t sure he was totally legit now.
After the dinner the ladies had prepared for us we went out to the yard and played catch with one of his teenage sons. We each took turns going out for a long pass and snagging a difficult catch.
I was taken aback when the boy missed a long one and his Dad yelled out “woman!” in a very negative way. It happened every time the kid would miss a pass and then the son started calling his father a “woman” when he missed one. I was speechless! It was shockingly and blatantly sexiest. It was strong evidence that this cad was no more respectful of females than before.
To me, being Christian means that you have a profound respect for all God’s creation and using the word “woman” in a disrespectful way was a clear indication of his true colors. I don’t see that guy very often. I do believe he has grown as a person and a Christian since then but, somehow, I still don’t feel he is totally genuine. I guess it is not for me to judge.
One entry caught my interest especially after a conversation with Becky and Heather. It goes back to the fall of 1979 and happened in an unexpected way. I tell in this entry of helping a friend do some work on his acreage. We cut wood in his woods while Becky and his wife socialized and prepared a supper for us back at the house.
This friend had recently undergone a huge transformation in his life. He had been a “rounder” as my Dad would say. That simply meant he was running around a lot and not faithful in relationships with his wife and others. He “got religion” and was a different person. I was impressed with his change but not so impressed with the zealous way he tried to bring others to Jesus. Many of us had been there all along and were now wondering why he didn’t realize that.
He was several years older than I was. We had grown up in the same church as I had but it must have not meant much to him. His parents were friends with mine so even with the age difference we had a lot in common.
I was a little uncomfortable when he would brag about the things he did before he was “saved.” Somehow that just didn’t seem right. I wouldn’t say he actually regretted it. It was as though he thought his past life gave more credibility to his transformation. I thought he was wrong before and wasn’t sure he was totally legit now.
After the dinner the ladies had prepared for us we went out to the yard and played catch with one of his teenage sons. We each took turns going out for a long pass and snagging a difficult catch.
I was taken aback when the boy missed a long one and his Dad yelled out “woman!” in a very negative way. It happened every time the kid would miss a pass and then the son started calling his father a “woman” when he missed one. I was speechless! It was shockingly and blatantly sexiest. It was strong evidence that this cad was no more respectful of females than before.
To me, being Christian means that you have a profound respect for all God’s creation and using the word “woman” in a disrespectful way was a clear indication of his true colors. I don’t see that guy very often. I do believe he has grown as a person and a Christian since then but, somehow, I still don’t feel he is totally genuine. I guess it is not for me to judge.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Journaling and Time Traveling
I still have all of the journals that I have filled up over the years. Reading them now transports me back to the time I wrote each one. I suddenly remember a lot of things I had totally forgotten about. It is both good and bad. There are some things you would rather not be reminded of but for the most part it’s good. In just the first three months of the first journal I kept I am astounded at all of the things we were doing.
In all begins around August of 1979. I was about to start my eighth year of teaching. Becky and I were in our 12th year of marriage. Angie was 11 years old and Heather was 6. We were active in their lives and our own.
I was writing about teaching a lot. It included both the preparation for lessons and units of study and reflections on how lessons went. The journal is where my first thoughts about students doing letter writing were formulated. I knew kids needed a reason to write and letter writing could be that reason and editing could be built right in. The bonus was that the kids could get a response from someone and that spurred them to write again.
In those first months I tell about directing traffic for the Police Reserve during Old Threshers. I wrote about Loretta’s visit at the same time. Taking the girls out to the event and working for the church youth group parking cars on the church grounds.
My house painting was finished for the summer with the exception of one job. It was painting a small porch on Mrs. Rockwell’s house south of town. I wrote about finishing up that job.
I wrote about Becky’s back porch craft business that was in full swing at that time. She was busy with that and also doing well doing Better Homes and Gardens parties at the same time. On top of that she was working at Lauser’s again and I was doing picture framing there, too.
I was on the board of directors at Hope Haven and served on the personnel sub committee. The latter required extra meetings at the time because we were firing the chief administrator. It was an ugly time there! I remember going to the administrator’s home with another board member and telling him he was fired and to not come in the next day. That was very hard but it had to be done.
At the same time all this was happening there was much more! I was doing a lot of woodcarving, we cleaned out our basement, we were selling fishing worms, and active in our church.
I was beginning the school year with a student teacher. His name was Bill McKenzie and he was about 6’8” and must have weighed 400 lbs. Having a student teacher was considerable more work than not and always took up a lot of time.
That early fall I was active in the Tri-Area Reading Council and helped shingle Virgil Trabert’s house.
How we found time to do all of this stuff I don’t know? There is a lot more to tell!
In all begins around August of 1979. I was about to start my eighth year of teaching. Becky and I were in our 12th year of marriage. Angie was 11 years old and Heather was 6. We were active in their lives and our own.
I was writing about teaching a lot. It included both the preparation for lessons and units of study and reflections on how lessons went. The journal is where my first thoughts about students doing letter writing were formulated. I knew kids needed a reason to write and letter writing could be that reason and editing could be built right in. The bonus was that the kids could get a response from someone and that spurred them to write again.
In those first months I tell about directing traffic for the Police Reserve during Old Threshers. I wrote about Loretta’s visit at the same time. Taking the girls out to the event and working for the church youth group parking cars on the church grounds.
My house painting was finished for the summer with the exception of one job. It was painting a small porch on Mrs. Rockwell’s house south of town. I wrote about finishing up that job.
I wrote about Becky’s back porch craft business that was in full swing at that time. She was busy with that and also doing well doing Better Homes and Gardens parties at the same time. On top of that she was working at Lauser’s again and I was doing picture framing there, too.
I was on the board of directors at Hope Haven and served on the personnel sub committee. The latter required extra meetings at the time because we were firing the chief administrator. It was an ugly time there! I remember going to the administrator’s home with another board member and telling him he was fired and to not come in the next day. That was very hard but it had to be done.
At the same time all this was happening there was much more! I was doing a lot of woodcarving, we cleaned out our basement, we were selling fishing worms, and active in our church.
I was beginning the school year with a student teacher. His name was Bill McKenzie and he was about 6’8” and must have weighed 400 lbs. Having a student teacher was considerable more work than not and always took up a lot of time.
That early fall I was active in the Tri-Area Reading Council and helped shingle Virgil Trabert’s house.
How we found time to do all of this stuff I don’t know? There is a lot more to tell!
Saturday, April 05, 2008
More On Writing
A couple months ago, near the end of the “Becoming a Better Teacher” series, I wrote about I told about my initial participation in what was then called the Southeast Iowa Writing Project. That was really only the beginning to the transformation I was to undergo as a teacher.
Lately, I have looked back in a folder that has many of the pieces I wrote during that time. They are pretty much horrible and I plan to destroy most of them after I finish this piece. Don’t worry you aren’t missing anything. I will keep the all of the journals I have written and there is plenty of lousy writing in them, too, but there are also little seeds of pieces, a turn of a phrase, or a provocative thought so they will still be around. Don’t take any of the journals too seriously, though.
I will describe a few of the pieces before they disappear. I do have to say that for me (a save everything guy) that it is hard for me to throw things away. That is not the case with these!
Included is a rambling treatise on my early thoughts about the class and hunting fossils. I don’t know why I went that direction but I did. Another is a short poem:
Yard Sale
Slightly used
Grown out of clothes
Shade less lamps
Some who-know?
A delicate teacup
Without a saucer…
Hmmm... Ok, I think I just ran out of ideas or energy on that one. There are some more attempts at poetry. None any better than this one.
The folder includes a hand written draft of the first major piece I wrote, Beautiful Big Thompson. It is about us being involved in the catastrophic flood in the Big Thompson Canyon during one of the summer trips. It still has all of the positive response to it that the members of the class wrote on the attached piece of paper. I’ll keep it for that reason.
There is a piece of paper titled “Random Thoughts.” Nothing much to them except maybe one thought, “Maybe we don’t write often enough to speak or speak often enough to write.”
There is an attempt at describing the experience of climbing Longs Peak and a rambling tongue in cheek piece about night crawlers. There is the mention that I should use letter writing in my classroom. I ended up doing that and had tremendous success! I’ll tell more about that later.
“And retreating to more tested ground, I have lost what I had found.” Don’t remember what I was thinking with that one?
More poems and prayers and promising ideas. And, finally, typed on a cut out piece of a paper grocery bag:
Confused by the complexities of the cornered conscience
I search and sort and tabulate
And again I cannot find the word that eludes my mind
And so I sort and calculate
And find the rhythms wrong.
So what? You say did you do next
To elevate the absurd?
I left out the word.
Maybe I should have left out a lot more words? I will tell you a little about journaling next time.
Lately, I have looked back in a folder that has many of the pieces I wrote during that time. They are pretty much horrible and I plan to destroy most of them after I finish this piece. Don’t worry you aren’t missing anything. I will keep the all of the journals I have written and there is plenty of lousy writing in them, too, but there are also little seeds of pieces, a turn of a phrase, or a provocative thought so they will still be around. Don’t take any of the journals too seriously, though.
I will describe a few of the pieces before they disappear. I do have to say that for me (a save everything guy) that it is hard for me to throw things away. That is not the case with these!
Included is a rambling treatise on my early thoughts about the class and hunting fossils. I don’t know why I went that direction but I did. Another is a short poem:
Yard Sale
Slightly used
Grown out of clothes
Shade less lamps
Some who-know?
A delicate teacup
Without a saucer…
Hmmm... Ok, I think I just ran out of ideas or energy on that one. There are some more attempts at poetry. None any better than this one.
The folder includes a hand written draft of the first major piece I wrote, Beautiful Big Thompson. It is about us being involved in the catastrophic flood in the Big Thompson Canyon during one of the summer trips. It still has all of the positive response to it that the members of the class wrote on the attached piece of paper. I’ll keep it for that reason.
There is a piece of paper titled “Random Thoughts.” Nothing much to them except maybe one thought, “Maybe we don’t write often enough to speak or speak often enough to write.”
There is an attempt at describing the experience of climbing Longs Peak and a rambling tongue in cheek piece about night crawlers. There is the mention that I should use letter writing in my classroom. I ended up doing that and had tremendous success! I’ll tell more about that later.
“And retreating to more tested ground, I have lost what I had found.” Don’t remember what I was thinking with that one?
More poems and prayers and promising ideas. And, finally, typed on a cut out piece of a paper grocery bag:
Confused by the complexities of the cornered conscience
I search and sort and tabulate
And again I cannot find the word that eludes my mind
And so I sort and calculate
And find the rhythms wrong.
So what? You say did you do next
To elevate the absurd?
I left out the word.
Maybe I should have left out a lot more words? I will tell you a little about journaling next time.
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