Letter from June 1, 1990 at the end of first year teaching

Hello from deep within the pit,

However there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Only fourteen more school days and it will be June 15th  and we will never again have to be first year teachers.  All year long we have had colds, fevers, sore throats and so on.  Everyone says first year teachers always catch everything that any of their students come to school with, but how many other couples do you know who have been on antibiotics for nine months straight?

I know we were extremely lucky to both find jobs, in the same school district, for our first year after graduation. But I don't know if it was good luck or bad luck which made us both first year teachers for the same year.  Only a first year teacher could understand the total one track conversations, the getting up at five, spending ten hours at school and bringing work home, then going back in on weekends and holidays to make, "just one set of copies' and staying for four hours without finishing all the jobs you keep remembering as soon as you walk in the door.  we understand, and agree, when one of us says, at 7:30 PM, I'm exhausted, I'm going to sleep.  Bu if one of us had even one years experience, and materials already made or stolen from other teachers, then maybe the dishes would be washed more often that every Saturday, and maybe we'd have energy to cook meals, or write letters, or do more than survive from one weekend to the next.

     We till have Christmas cards taped to our kitchen wall waiting to be answered. We haven't sent out a letter in months, yet every day before we collapse on the couch we check our mail eagerly, looking for proof that someone outside of the Del Norte County Unified School District even remembers that we are alive.  And seldom are we disappointed.  We have such wonderful friends and family, and we truly want to thank you for the many times that a card or letter has arrived just when we needed a reason to smile again.  We really need to apologize for these form letters, but when you owe over sixty letters you have to take some major shortcuts or completely give up.  How could we give up when something as simple as a few sheets of paper and a 25 cent stamp can deliver so much love and carry so many good memories and fond wishes over so many miles?  (See 25 cent stamps and No Facebook, text messages or Cell phones.  We were waiting for after 7 PM or all day Saturday or Sunday before 5 to call, when the long distance rates went down)

We have managed to pay off several of our major credit card, hospital and student loan debts, as well as buy a used car for Greg, and three birds.  We are now the proud parents of a 10 month old blue & gold macaw, Becky, a rare red-bellied miniature macaw who is ten years old, calypso, and our eight month old cockatiel, Ivory.  They have our landlady extremely worried because they eat wood to keep themselves entertained. They cost us one $2,000 or half our pre-teaching annual income, but they are fun. Lovable, and the answer to a long-time dream of ours. (My Dad's sister, my Aunt Rachel said it was displaced maternal instinct and I was offended but she was right)

We just had our 6th anniversary, since our district allows each teacher one day off with no questions asked, we gave ourselves a three day weekend up the coast in Gold Beach. We watched the Sea Lions, and walked the beach, and pretended we were not teachers after all.  It rained most of the time but it felt so good to be able to go into a restaurant without hearing, "Mom, There's Mr. Goode, come See!"

Actually this letter reflects a lot of exhaustion, as it should, but it shouldn't sound like we don't like our jobs.  It has been both a long and an incredibly short year. The work load has been massive.  We both love our students though and had a lot of fun getting paid for being with such fascinating people as kindergarteners always are.  We have been introduced to such exotic creatures as the Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles. We have seen Santa Claus and the Easter bunny and shared the excitement of that first lost tooth.  We have had to find out the grim truth that "my Dad's really, really old!" means he is four years younger than we are.  I have been told by an amazed fourth grader who saw us together, "you have a twin husband!"  I've been bitten, hugged, and loved deeply this year. Sure we're busy but starting someone off on their exploration of life has to be a busy job and we both hate and love it, are overwhelmed by the responsibility and fascinated by the mystery, and renewed by the energy.  A child's weld is a privilege to share.

This coming summer promises to be busy. We are going back to Wyoming for Greg's parents' 40th anniversary. It doesn't make 6 years seem like much more than a start.  (I wish I had know then what I know now, that my parents 30th anniversary that year, which we didn't make a big deal out of, was only 6 years before Dad would die, but that my in-laws would be coming up on their 64th this year. We should always celebrate the present instead of assuming we have time)

Then we're meeting up with some German friends to go camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota. After that we will go to Illinois and Pennsylvania with Dixie's family to visit relatives. Then we return home, maybe going back to the Easter Seals camp in August. Then up to Oregon for Brett and Shannon's wedding in Salem. (We didn't meet up with the German's or get to Hawley Lake again but the rest happened, instead we brought Lance back to Crescent City with us between Pennsylvania and Brett's wedding) Then back into our second year of teaching. I think we have forgotten how to enjoy just doing nothing at all.

We do live in a very beautiful place, Not Crescent City so much, but the ocean and the Redwoods around the city. We are always glad to have company, except maybe during the first part of september when the new school year consumes all of our attention.  Just let us know if you plan to come so that we can plan to stay at home. Also we always welcome mail, even tacky form letters like this one. Please stay happy, healthy, and in touch. We love you!

Dixie and Greg

Me and my first two Nephews, and Greg's sister (Mom to the oldest nephew)

Greg on our trip to PA, we went through Niagara Falls

Mom and I in Illinois

Lance at Three River Stadium in Pittsburgh

Dad, Me, Shannon, Brett, Greg, Lance and Mom

Our home in Crescent City

two macaws and Greg

our school pictures

Greg's siblings at the 40th anniversary

If I remember correctly, this was the year that I drew pictures of Carousel horses and printed them out on card stock and Greg and I colored them, addressed them and mailed them as Christmas postcards with a small handwritten note on the back.  We managed to do this because we were spending hours each Saturday at the local laundromat waiting for clothes to wash and dry so we could fold a weeks worth at once.

And All I Got was a Crummy T-Shirt

My ______ went to ________, and ALL I got was this Crummy T-Shirt!

Sunbonnet Sue quilt my Grandma Grace made from my Mom's childhood dresses for my crib

I have mentioned before that I come from a long line of pack-rats and one of the problems is that we are a close, and busy family with a connection maintained between extended family in many parts of the world, and the firm belief that some of the best memories might be lost, FOREVER, if we lose the physical thing that triggers the memory.

I grew up in a time when t-shirts were the normal prize for participating in something and the standard souvenir of any trip, and I have a bunch of t-shirts, of course.  My favorites, unfortunately, are the ones which become worn to shreds, the arm pits get thin and then give out, the belly picks up coffee and spaghetti stains.  The ones with no memories attached stay safely in the back of my closet.

I thought I had the perfect solution.  My maternal grandmother, Grace Slack, made beautiful quilts that I still cherish, from my dresses and her dresses and my brothers pearl snapped cowboy shirts.  I wanted to make a quilt of 18 inch t-shirt blocks with a border from old denim.

On minor issue.  I do not sew.  Oh, I can thread a needle and replace a button, but when I got into weaving, I ended up with yards of material I had to pay someone else to hem.  My bathroom curtain is still a beach towel, push-pinned to the wall.  So the squares piled up and eventually I had enough I could have sewn quilts for India, if I could have sewn.

This DQ was only open in summer, and my brother, Lance, with Down's syndrome, talked them into staying open through his Oct. 24th birthday each year.  The MTNs, are Cedar and Rattlesnake and the statue of Buffalo Bill is on Main Street.
I love the DQ because eery day of summer, my Mom, Grandma, brothers and I would go there in the afternoon and get a milkshake to take to where my grandpa sold Antlers and Jack-a-lope to tourists by the hot Yellowstone Highway

 What can I do?  I write, and I take pictures and sometimes paint.  Now, if I weave, I make tapestries.  I will never sew a quilt.  So I am sharing some of the stories behind the T-shirts.  And then the pile will be gone, well diminished anyway.

My Mother-In-Law was really sick, for 6 weeks we stayed in a travelodge in Rochester, by the Mayo Clinic and spent the days in the Hospital, thinking we'd lose her.  The one fun day, we took our sons to the Mississippi and to Cabela's to see the dioramas ad eat elk sandwiches.
I also smile because that was 2006 and we STILL have her.

We went to Disneyland when the boys were 9 and 10 and to medieval times for a chance to watch jousting and tear at chicken with our teeth and fingers and feel like royalty.  Our yellow knight was the best!

My husband is a Music Teacher, and he started a Community Children's Choir.  Both my boys were in it and the shows were awesome and I was so proud of my guys.

Being a Cody Bronc was partly torture, but also there were great moments.  I'm glad I don't have to relive those years but I am who I am, and that is partly because I survived the bad and good of high school.

Nothing was more fun than watching the Broadway version of the Lion King, but after we came home, my youngest son wanted to sleep in on a Sunday, and I made him get up and go to church.  He was 5 and made his opinion clear by stomping out to the car wearing this.

My husband taught here, I subbed in every grade level, and both boys attended.  There are a lot of good schools but Pine Grove was FAMILY!

Ahh, Keiko.  Loved the "Free Willie" Whale and spent many times standing face to face cross a glass pane, watching the gentle whale move his flipper when I moved my hand

The incredible, lion faced Golden Tamarins are the creatures which inspired my favorite characters in my novels.  

Growing up in Cody, I loved the Rodeo clowns, and this t-shirt was illustrated by my brother's Mother-in-law

My husband grew up near the Flintstones of Custer, South Dakota, and I had loved to stop there when we were on road trips, so now we still stop for a sherbet twist cone when we are in the neighborhood.  Plus, I was born, a redheaded baby girl, the season Pebbles was born, and my mom dressed me in fake leopard print too long.

I wasn't a Trek fan until I was married and it was long into re-runs, but sharing them with my husband, led to sharing AL the novels and games and finally being in a movie one day at universal studios.

Just married, 1984, we spent the summer as counselors at a wheelchair Camp outside Susanville, CA where only jeeps could haul the campers from the inner city.  Easter Seals Rocks!

We bought 14 parrots and I painted this to wear while teaching art to preschoolers.

Powell Wyoming Junior College where I met the Man I have loved these last 30 years.

Enough said!

This on-line community jump started me and led me to write both my published novels and start a couple more still "In Progress"

The best school for kindergarten in out county, I do believe, largely thanks to Mrs. LaFazio

Where I attended the second half of my college years and learned to love the coastal redwoods on spring break.

We went to Copenhagen as part of a choir tour.  It was strange to see the sun set and come back up in one smooth movement at 3 AM.  Tivoli Gardens and the City were beautiful and a couple redheads felt right at home there.

Pittsburgh!  My Dad Grew up going here on school field trips, and one of my best days ever was when it poured rain, most people went home and we rode all day, with no lines and a lot of soaked laughter.

This just says, "Home" plus my Sister-in-law was a mail carrier when it was issued.

Thyme began in a garden, the Gardening Angel

My husband loves his Tie dye and my birds
and I love him

Judy, the toy I told all my secrets too, sports a t-shirt my baby brother wore which was a gift from a pen-pal I had in London when he was born.

OK, that is all I am up to for now.  Nostalgia is exhausting and there is much to do in the here and now.

Wyoming and Black Hills, Summer 2010

Our annual trip back to the area where my husband and I grew up, had a lot more adventure than we had bargained for. This year we drove just over 4,000 miles and along the way we were nearly struck by lightning, had a brother-in-law suffer 3rd degree burns, My Mother in Law broke her hip - twice, the brakes went out on my car and my son was almost swept off in a flood of hailstones and rainwater, there were tornados but also a 105* day when my Mom burned her feet on the side of the swimming pool. There was a white water raft trip, with only a little white water but enough to get me bruised when my son's oar whacked my arm. There was also the news that my Mom needs a deep squamous cell carcinoma removed from her hand in a surgery that is predicted to take 2 1/2 hours.

The beginning of this trip was a plan to celebrate my in-laws 60th anniversary with a family re-union at a 4-H camp (Rentable for private groups) in Custer State Park in the Black Hills where my husband and I had worked during our honeymoon in 1984 at the Black Hills playhouse. Just before we arrived Mimi broke her hip and had surgery to pin it, but the day we arrived she broke it a second time and was ordered to no weight bearing for 6 weeks. So she would not be coming to her own anniversary celebration even though everyone made it in to see her at the hospital - just wasn't the same. Growing old is not for wimps.

We camped in the Columbia River Gorge on the way there, and in Bozeman, Montana after getting stuck in the I-90, no motel or campground madness we finally set up tents at 1 AM, to the joy of the people trying to sleep near-by.

The Black Hills portion of the visit was lovely of course, and the campground and cabins and kitchen were a delight. Seeing my 10 year old niece for the first time since she was 7 was a shock. Hiking in the hills was perfect. But as we gathered around a bonfire, the lightning got closer and after it exploded overhead the dog ran away and my BIL fell into the bonfire with his hand between two flaming logs. The next morning we heard that 16 people had been struck by lightning in the Tetons, and we were all closer than we ever want to be again.

Then back at my in-laws in Newcastle, WY My son (17) borrowed Grandpa's truck and left to use his 3 day fishing license when the tornado sirens started blasting, and before he was home the truck was lifted on a stream of hail until it wedged in a cattle guard.

Going around the Bighorn Mountains to show my family one of my favorite spots in the Pryor Mountains we found my brakes dead and the Dam at yellowtail closed anyway "Permanently for National Security Purposes"

In Cody to visit my Family, and over to the Hot Springs in Thermopolis on a 105* day, then up through Yellowstone to the amazing Hells-A-Roarin outfitters to be their guests at a lovely cabin and treated to a BBQ and Campfire and trailrides. Oh, Amazing place, Gorgeous Views, gracious and friendly family running it. Never can say Thanks enough.

Homeward bound we had two vehicles given to our two teens and so we drove the final 1,400 miles in a 3 car caravan and now my 16 year old thinks he can drive anywhere now that he has driven through Portland.

Family is worth every adventure they bring your way, but we arrived home, limp and exhausted - just in time for the fair and band camp.