A Post that was not Posted from a year or more ago

It's been quite awhile since I posted in this blog - but was encouraged to start again by my former high school class mate Linda.  The problem is what to write about.  It's not like nothing has happened to me over the past months, but a good deal of it is not really pleasant.  I guess though we grow through our struggles.  I think I had this crazy notion growing up that as I got older, life would become less complicated and ..... well .... yes I'll say .... easier.  Whew - what a lie that is.

I am pretty sure I have said this before - but you never know when a crisis is going to strike.  In this day and age, having a plan is crucial.  Many of us reading this may be blessed enough to still have our parents, but for those of us who don't or whose parents are not well, life becomes even more complicated.  I think many of us grow up thinking that our parents will always be there and they will always help us when things get rough.  Sadly this is not always the case.

So first - do the best you can to put money away in case.  I knew I had bad knees, but had no idea that at the end of two years, I would be deemed disabled and on disability.  I had no idea that many times walking from the living room to the kitchen would bring me to tears.  I had no idea that taking a nice long walk would no longer be a part of my life.  I was at least blessed to have some income and many friends who came through with support, I would have not survived the two years.  Do whatever you can to put money away.

Winter Guard 2015 - a synopsis

It is true that my last post to this blog was February 2015 - there sure was a lot of road to travel between there and February 2016.  I will slowly begin to catch up as I have gotten back into blogging again and do see the value in it - really -

To be honest I just kind of existed from February through to the Spring.  I teach a winter guard and our plan was to attend the TIA Championship in Wildwood, NJ.  As a result we were working fairly hard to get our act together so we could compete.  Though we did work hard, the young women in the group still found it difficult to really work hard and dedicated themselves.  They did not take correction or direction all that well.  We had some rather dramatic moments with the mental stability of some of the young ladies.  One such incident, sadly lead to one of the young women quitting.  Mental Illness is no joke.  As we all know it affects a large percentage of America, but if we would lighten our culture a bit, it might go away.  We make ourselves crazy.  But I digress.  We had a student quit the week before we were to go to Wildwood, leaving more problems.  Though the show ended up being OK - it was in fact - OK.  The only good thing about this trip was that they were not last in their group.

As the summer began, I was having trouble getting the girls to come to practice as I had done every summer previously.  Many of the girls were now graduated and fending mostly for themselves or were seniors who needed to work to get money for college.  It was discouraging, but I managed.  As cliche' as it may sound,  I finally left in God's Hands - if there was going to be a color guard, then there would be one and I would stop worrying about it until the time got closer.  If there was not going to be one - we last two more years than I could have imagined.

I found myself - still in fairly fragile condition, and constantly worrying about falling.  I was hired to work with a local high school band as a weapons (rifle) instructor.  After a late start because of the application process- I began to work there.

Of course there is much more to the story, which I will relate in another post.  Thanks for reading and again- I intend to keep this up again.  I think it filled the need I had at the moment, but it is always good to write- as a former English teacher, one of my favorite parts of teaching was - the writing process.  I thought I was pretty good at if I must say so! I also enjoyed teaching a course that I continued to develop over the years called Contemporary Man.  Anyway - I sense rambling mode approaching so I will say my fair wells for now - Cheers!