Hobbies and Imagination ...

I had a zest for art, colors, and music for as long as I can remember.   I have already mentioned many things I loved to do, but as I write this blog more memories pop up that I want to record here.  

I remember when we used to get the JC Penney Christmas Catalog and even Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs.  When I was a kid I would go through them and write down what I wanted Santa to bring me for Christmas.  There always was a Crayola art set on my list, sometimes a doll, but mostly art and science stuff.  

When I got older and didn't really have a mile long list of of things I wanted, I got a little more adventurous and used my imagination.  I would pretend that I had $1 Million dollars and I wanted to fill my dream home with things.  I would go through the catalogs, not the Christmas ones, but just the regular ones and write down things I would like to furnish my home with or things I would like to have....in my closets and just every room of the house.  I'd write the article and price and how many of each...even colors if I wanted various colors of the same thing.  It was a fascinating way for me to use my imagination, and THINK of what things I wanted that would actually fit my taste and the size of home I would have.  I never finished the list....I knew that my wish list was just a dream, but in the beginning it was fun to go through the catalogs and dream...

When I was in High School I often got books on handwriting analysis, personality analysis, and all kinds of things on arts and crafts.  I taught myself calligraphy and always had the pens to do that sort of thing.  While working at the library, I would check out books on all sorts of things.  I learned to macrame hanging basket holders...made a few for my Mom.  I read many different fictional books, mostly stuff from Judy Blume and V.C. Andrews.  Sometimes I read about psychology and sometimes I got books on poetry. 

I used to write poetry a lot.  I know I have most of it in storage but I don't ever get it out anymore to read what was in all those poems.  I loved poems to rhyme.  I tried writing limericks, they'd get silly.   I tried writing haiku's, but they don't necessarily rhyme, and they are so blasted short for my taste.  I read Edgar Allen Poe's poetry, and my sister and I spent time together one season memorizing his poem "Annabel Lee,"  It was easy to learn because of the rhyme and meter to it.  I have no idea why we both thought that was a cool poem to memorize.  I tried to remember the stanzas of "The Raven" but that one was a little too long for me.   Dad liked that poem.  I believe I kept the book on Edgar Allen Poe's works, it reminds me of Dad, and one good memory of my Sister, and his stories, though creepy, were interesting to me. 

I got a Kodak Disc camera when I was in high school, and took pictures all the time.  I loved going to the park and taking sunset pictures.  I would mail my pictures off to York Color Labs and pay a lot less than at the stores that did the same thing.   It would take longer to get them back, but I loved doing it nonetheless.   That little camera was my closest friend and took 15 pictures on the round disc it used for film.   I never did learn how to use a 35mm camera, the ones with the bells and whistles and different telephoto lenses and all that.  But it was always on my catalog wish list.  LOL

Think of a gizmo that kids played with, and I probably played with it.  My all time favorite gizmo was the Rubik's Cube.  I got really really good at that thing.  I still have one somewhere, but I would have to read the directions again to memorize the different moves to get a piece in a position to the side I wanted it to be.  It can be complicated at first, I got so good with it, I liked to show people, if they had the time and patience to watch me do it.  My friends Shan and Tricia, their Aunt's Sara and Theresa, would love to watch me do that thing.  I have a Christmas card from them in the past 10 years where they mention that too.  So funny that they remembered that one thing from my past.  Good memories those two!

And when my stuff was boring to play with, I would go tinker with my brothers stuff.  He had an Erector Set and I loved to help build stuff with that.  Heck I loved playing with Lego's, Lincoln Logs, and even now mentioned recently to my husband about finding some Lego kits and building stuff with them like I used to do.  He always looks at me funny when I mention playing with TOYS, but I just shrug him off.  I think toys are fun no matter what your age.  The building sets are good for manual dexterity, 3d imaginings and they do have all those lovely bright COLORS!

.....when you have nothing else to do, you can always use your imagination and play, and be a kid for a day!   Parents and adults sometimes forget that all this play and dreaming is calming on the nerves and serves a body well....and keeps you young.  My life needed more of this fun .... but it would be a while before I got back to it.  

Finishing The Readying ....

My Senior year was by far the most fun I had in all 4 years of High School! I took one semester of College Composition (for college credit), Math Analysis (precursor to Calculus), Teacher's Aide class, Drawing & Painting, Commercial Art, Computer Programming, my most favorite Spanish I and my least favorite Chemistry.  

I initially signed up to take Physics, because I thought it would be fun.  It was full, and so I decided on Chemistry instead.  It was tough, and because it was my last class of the day, by then, I was usually tired and just bored out of my mind.  And the silliest part, I didn't have to take a 6th class my entire Senior Year because I had enough credits.  I could have gone home an hour early but silly me wanted to give it go. 

I had Mrs Thiel again for College Comp class.  If I had taken the 2nd semester of this class I would have had a completed composition written with footnotes, and so forth, but I only took the 1st class and had to just write and rewrite and have a working composition in order.  That was kind of interesting in itself for me.  I did learn a lot about different writing styles, and Mrs. Thiel was on her A game the entire Semester in my opinion. 

I had Mrs Caples again for Math Analysis.  This was a lot different than Algebra and definitely different than Trig.  What I remember of this class was it being really heady and having to write out proofs.  Prove that 0 didn't equal 1, for instance.  Well what really does that mean and doesn't everyone already know that?  But in Math things like this aren't what they seem.  It's easy to say 0 doesn't equal 1 or 2 or even -1 or absolute 1, but when you use the same idea to explain space or nearness to things, then you need to understand what Math Analysis is and does in the real world.  I did okay in the class, but I knew it was the next step towards taking Calculus, and I wouldn't touch that class for several years, until I went to College.  More about that in a later post.

My Teacher's Aide class was my favorite class after my art classes.  Mrs. Hillemann was the director of this, but we didn't meet with her to learn how to be Teacher's Aids, no we got to pick which teacher and class we wanted to teach and had to get that Teacher's permission to do so.  Our job had a few criteria.  To observe the class and record our observations.  Both the students activities and behaviors and the Teacher's.  To teach 3 lessons on our own from the Teacher's handbook.  That was my favorite part by the way.  And to create some activities on the bulletin boards, hand out paperwork and pick it up, and take attendance.  I chose Mrs. Caples and her Trigonometry class.   (Oh I said I had that in my Junior year, my bad, I had that in my Senior year.  I remember this now, because I had my Trig class early in the day and had my Teacher's Aide class later in the day.)  On the lessons I had to prepare and teach myself, I did really well when I did it in my own Trig class.  It was a bit weird but I told Mrs Caples it helped me learn Logarithms really well.  At the time I could teach anyone about Base 2, Base 10, and any other Base of counting.  I don't know that I remember enough of it to still do it, but it was really fun at the time!   One of my awesome quirks, to learn as I go and turn around and teach it to someone else practically in the same day. 

I had Mrs Craig for Drawing & Painting.  I loved this class!  We painted still life, had to learn perspective drawing and shading in pencil medium which is probably my favorite medium we used.  And weekly we had to draw with pencil in our Sketch books anything at home and show we understood use of space and shading on the page.  I loved the notes Mrs Craig wrote on the back of my pieces.  I do have that Sketch book still.  I have a lot of the stuff I created in my Senior year.  It all meant a lot to me.  I also met one of our Exchange Students in this class, her name was Anki short for Anne Christine in her native Sweden.  Very lovely person.  I didn't pay much attention to her skill in the class.  I was then and always have been a sucker for learning new cultures and meeting people from other lands and who have learned English and can tell me their life story.  I don't remember Anki's full story, but I know she liked being an Exchange Student and had a lot of admirers in our school the year she was here.  

My other art class was completely different and that was Commercial Art, with Mr. West.  He was my most favorite art teacher in the department.  He kind of reminded me of Grizzly Adams with his thick beard all over his face.  We learned some calligraphy and stylized print for advertising posters, and also stenciling, and screen printing on Tshirts.  I am almost sure I was teacher's pet in this class.  I was given a lot more freedom in the class than some of the others.  Mr. West always struck up conversations with me about college ideas, really encouraged me to continue taking art in college.  I was so afraid to do that, because when he told me one of the classes involved drawing the nude human figure, I freaked out and said I couldn't sit and look at a nude body and draw it.  He laughed, he said it was no big deal, and usually you spent a lot of time on learning to draw one section of the body, not the entire thing.  I was naive and immature to say the least then.  If I had to take an art class and drawing a nude body was part of the coursework NOW, I wouldn't be freaked out about it at all.  That's actually funny thinking about my reaction then on this subject.  LOL    The human body is gloriously made, and nothing wrong with putting the sight of it into art work.  It's been done thousands of times by many of the great artists. 

One other noted story about art from this point in time of my life.  Sometime towards the end of the semester in Mr West's class, there was a fire that broke out under the theater, I think under the stage, and it was on the same floor as the art classes.  Although none of the classes I reported to had any fire damage, everything that was exposed to the general air in any room, got smoke damage or soot on it, and my favorite art piece from the class, a poster for the Fall Play, "The Pink Panther" was ruined.  It smelled like soot...and if I still have it in my portfolio, I am sure it still has a sooty smell to it to this day.  No one was injured in the fire that I know of.  But it really upset me that people's hard work got smoke damage, something nearly impossibly to remove from paper or other similar types of fibers.   My poster was used as the main poster on display outside the theater entrance on the nights of the play's production.  I was honored to say the least.

I was in one of the first Computer Programming classes my school district had.  This was 1984, and Apple was already a known computer entity.   But we used Radio Shack computers, called TSR80s.  We studied "Basic" programming language, and from then on, I was hooked on computers.  Blame my school district for lighting that fire, if hadn't been exposed to it then I might not be writing online and posting this blog.  My instructor was Mr Beltz.  He was absolutely the nuttiest teacher I had.  I remember programming a bowling game, and he helped me with one part of the code to get my program to work.  Some of the real geniuses in class came up with some clever extras to their program, and I being witness to what different things one can do in writing programming code, always kept that idea in the back of my head.  It is still there.  I would for years practice with lots of code in other classes in college and learn how to do it outside of class and tweak things as I learned ideas not in our textbook.   I loved that I had found another creative outlet besides drawing, painting, and music!!

And then there was Spanish I class.  My all-time favorite class that had nothing to do with my general academic requirements.  I simply took it because it was fun.  And Senora Murdock made it so much fun.  She was my 3rd mentor in high school.  And I would keep in touch with her for many years after I graduated.  She is a dear friend and mentor to me.   My name was Susana in Spanish class.  My friend Lori was in the same class, her name was Louisa.  We had to use our Spanish names, and Senora Murdock only called us using those names.   She made that class so much fun....learning another language was integral to my personality.   I realized midway through that year that I should have taken more Spanish than Chemistry and Typing.  But 20/20 hindsight just taught me to consider everything the next time a situation arises. 

When I joined the Spanish crew, I learned that there was a Foreign Language Club, and so I decided to join that.  I had so much fun in that club!   We got out of class a few times during the school year, and most memorably during Christmas season.  The Latin, German, French and Spanish FLC members went carolling in our respective foreign language.  We sang many well known Christmas carols and some that were only known from in the language they were sung in.  Being a Catholic girl I already knew the Latin hymn Adeste Fidelis (O Come All Ye Faithful).However, I think the French speaking kids sang some stuff I had never heard of.  I don't remember what we sang in Spanish....I just remember it was the most fun I had....and skipping class was fun in itself, but doing something with others with the joy in our hearts, that was just so much fun and memorable. 

Two other things I remember doing with the FLC group.  Going to Jaycee Park and having a barbecue and being so close to home, and hanging in the park I grew up playing in, that was really cool.  The other was going to Brentwood and ice skating on a rink there.  I tried hard to figure out how to stand on ice skates, failed often.  I tried to skate on the ice, fell often.  I finally got up and held onto the wall of the rink, got half way around and cut my finger nearly in half on some sharp metal thing sticking up I didn't see.  I bled like a stuck pig, and ended my skate journey.  But I had a lot of fun.  The drive to and from the rink was fun, with a bunch of girls being silly. 

.... we all have a life journey, and in our life journey are many shorter journeys, to different places, in different spaces, with different people, and with different modalities. We learn about ourselves, we learn how to interact with others and society at large.   We just scraped through the first 18 years of my life, get ready, there's a lot more about which to tell.  

  

Readying For The World ....

May 1981 was the last year there would be a Freshman class at the Junior High.  The 8th and 9th graders all were leaving TL Hardin Jr. High behind and moving up to the Senior High school together.   1/2 the school in August 1981 was new to the High School.  Was that ever strange. 

I went from Jr. High where all the classes were under one roof, to the Sr. High where there were 3 main buildings for the main academic classes, and a 4th building that was the Shop.  I never was in that building.  In between Buildings A, B, and C was what was referred to as the Quad.  I remember a pep rally or two there, but first thing every school year, all the clubs were out there to garner new members.  In my Freshman year, I don't believe I joined any clubs.  I wasn't sure which ones to join, nor which would be fun, plus I knew just about no one at school except my friend Lori, but we didn't share too many classes together.   I think we hooked up more at lunch time if our 4th hour classes had lunch at the same time.  

My Freshman year taught me a little of everything:  English, Geometry (I had Algebra I in 8th grade), Probability and Statistics, Physical Science, Art, PE, Civics and of course my least favorite, Missouri History.   None of my teachers struck me as all that interesting, except maybe Mr. McCoy the Science guy.  We got to work in 4 fields of Science.  I loved playing with the Chemistry set, but not so much liking to have weird funky smells come from the lab.  I had two different teachers for English, due to my schedule I had to switch teachers after the 1st semester.  Neither impressed me much.  The one memorable thing I remember making in my first art class in High School (and I cannot recall the teacher's name) was making an item solely out of construction paper and a minimal amount of glue that you could stand on and not crush when you stood on it.  It was like mixing physics and art together.  Think of a box with many partitions on a level, and several levels...to hold Christmas ornaments...but miniaturized version.  I did it and it worked.  I wish I still had that thing!

My Sophomore year was again a little of everything: English, Algebra II, PE, Health, World Geography,  Driver's Ed, Gen. Business, Typing but NO History!  This year though I decided to open up a bit, get to know some people and enjoy my 2nd year in H.S.  I met Lisa C. in World Geography class and we hit it off.  Hung with her every Friday night during Football season.  I really enjoyed going to the games and hanging out with Lisa and other friends who cheered on their rival teams.  I was never on the Pompom or Cheerleader squads.  I was not into that frilly stuff or getting up in front of people.  Dare I say I about passed out when I had to give speeches in Mrs. Hodges' English class!  She was one of my first mentors in school.  Absolutely loved her!  We read one of my favorite novels, "To Kill A Mockingbird" in her class.  I did well in her class.  But speeches I detested. 

My other favorite mentor was Mrs. Hillemann who I had for PE.  I had a very huge crush on her oldest son Charlie who is a year older than me.  I never told her that, but my friends knew I think.  He dated my friend Melissa's older sister.  They were high school sweethearts, got married in the early 1990s.  I got to go to their reception and enjoyed the whole thing.  What's really wild is that many years later I would run into him again, for a financial reason, and he looked SO different!  He was still married to his high school sweetheart, and that I always love to hear! 

The Algebra II teacher I was assigned to ended up having to take a leave of absence the whole year, due to some illness.  I don't think she ever returned to teach.  The teacher that replaced her was Mrs. Rosenberg.  The first Jewish person I had ever met!  I didn't know it then, but this would be a seed to my interest in religious studies.  Charlie and Michelle were in my class and we all sat in the same row.  I spent more time looking at him than paying attention in class.  LOL  But I did well in Algebra II.  I loved math and decided I would continue to take more Math classes the rest of my years in High School, although state law only said I had to take 2 years of Math to graduate.  I just really enjoyed numbers.  

My General Business instructor was Mr. Dave Williams, he was a hoot.  We got 18 inches of snow that February or March and it took forever to melt.  He told the class to silently write down the last day the snow would be on the school campus and whoever guessed the closest would get 50 extra credit points.  I didn't need any extra credit, I was carrying a solid A in that class.  But as luck or the universe would have it, I indeed guessed the closest date, somewhere in the middle of April, and got the extra points.  I was impressed with myself.   I should have asked if I could give the points to someone else but I don't think that was an option and I don't think I thought of it at the time. 

I got inducted into the National Honor Society that year.  That was really interesting.  Had to go to monthly meetings before school.   This was a true honor, as they had a special ceremony one evening and I know my parents came to that.  Had to dress up in a dress, YUCK, and go through this particular procedure to officially get inducted and say an oath I think.  Very cool for a 16 year old to go through.   

Ah, and that reminds me, I learned to drive in my Sophomore year.  Mom's car was a Plymouth Volare..  One of those dorky cars that you really didn't want to be seen in....it was like your Grandmother's car.  My Driver's Ed teacher Mr. Cheves didn't much care for girls.  We called him the chauvinist guy.   He did like Denise, who along with Rick (the guy who got baptized at the same Church and time I did) and I all made up the team in the car that we had to drive early in the morning to practice driving before getting tested.  He let Denise drive more, I think.  I got an A in the class and a C in the driving test, and landed with a B overall.  Not bad, but I waited 6 months before I got my license barely passing that darned driving test the state makes you take.  The woman tester had me doing things we never practiced in class....I nearly failed.  What a shock to me.   I can attest to this day I have never been cited at an accident for failing to do anything.  I have only gotten 3 speeding tickets and they all were over 20 years ago.  I have been in my share of accidents, just none were my fault.  We'll probably write more on this in a later post. 

I got a job at the City library and worked every night after school.   Mrs. Lowery, the school's track coach really wanted me to join the track team because I was pretty good at distance running back then.  I had to turn her down because I needed the job and couldn't make practices after school.  It's one huge regret I have from back then.  I used to blame my Mom for pushing me into working and keeping me out of things I wanted to do.   It really wasn't her fault, things were what they were and we needed more income to offset what was not coming in since Dad was still out of work.  I learned a lot about the public and I loved working with the crew at the library.  That job ended right before my Junior year started.  The program I was in wouldn't let me work past age 16, for whatever reason.  I tried to get on as a regular library employee but couldn't. I was hugely disappointed because I really was part of a big deal.  The Kathryn Linnemann branch used to be in an old 2 story house, and they merged that branch and the original branch I started working in into one new K.L. branch.  My name was on the plaque that was displayed for years as the people that helped bring that new branch together.  I always was proud that my name was on something especially in a library, where the public could see it, and a place where knowledge was in a book, magazine or video.  That was one awesome year!

Well that was my first half of High School. It came to end with Lisa C. moving away. I was heartbroken again. She forgot to leave me her new address, so I never heard from her again. How disappointing too. She was a very interesting gal. I believe her family moved to Germany, because her father's job moved him there. I still was friends with Lori, but we didn't hang together outside of school. Not since the 8th grade.

..... the journey in life sends out into the real world, with real people and real events that shape every facet of our being.  Sometimes we cringe at the things we run into, and we avoid many situations out of fear or ignorance.  Sometimes we find new and fascinating people and things to do that changes us forever! 

 

 

 

 

The Pythagorean Theorem

 

 

 

 

Education's Where It's At ....

My favorite teacher at Blackhurst Elementary School was my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Hettich.  She was a wonderful teacher, she was pretty, and she made learning fun. 

She let me draw things, not part of the regular art classes we had during each month, but just different things and she'd hang them on the wall in the classroom.  I loved to give her stuff.  It got displayed and I felt happy she enjoyed them.  I don't remember any of the specific things just that she let them be hung on the wall.  That gave me such a warm feeling inside, to know my favorite teacher did that. 

Her daughter went to France for her senior year in high school and Mrs. Hettich had her come speak to us about her travels and what she learned over there.  When we were allowed to ask questions, I raised my hand in the air so high, and when she called on me,  the only burning question I had in my head was "do they have popcorn over there?"   And she said "no."   I quipped back, "Well I don't think my Mom would enjoy that then, because that is her favorite snack."   What a silly thing for a kid to ask, yet it pointed to who else was on my mind at that moment, my Mom.  This would not be the only time my Mom came up in something I discussed or worked on in my school projects. 

We found out early on in the school year that Mrs. Hettich had hypoglycemia - probably because kids liked to bring in stuff for her all the time, and she had to pass on the sweets.  They would make her blood sugar go up and then crash later.  We all remembered this at the end of the school year.  

One day when she was still on her lunch break, all of the class discussed what we would like to do for Mrs. Hettich as a going away gift.  One of the kids said his Dad worked at a place that makes trophies, and so we decided to give her a trophy for the World's Best Teacher.   And for 11 and 12 year olds, somehow we came up with the money to have that made.   I suppose money from allowances or kids' parents was how that happened.  Where there was a will, there was a way.  

We also decided we would have a party, and bring foods she could eat and enjoy, not just all the snack, sweets and junk kids like to eat, though some of that would be there too.  I couldn't tell you what I brought, but I do know she was so surprised and overcome by all the attention, and the trophy I think made her cry.  She was a marvelous teacher, and like in some movies I have seen over the years, we kids repaid her for her loving care and concern for us and our education.  

I realized somewhere along the way that she belonged to the same parish my family went to.  I would always search her out at Mass and sometimes I would see her and a big grin would come across my face.  And other times, she wasn't there.  She was the first teacher I really cared about and was one of the reasons I had teaching as an aspiring career goal.  But that goal never materialized, and it would take me many years to figure out why.

                  ..... teachers were not the only people that impressed up on me as you'll see soon enough.