A LITTLE MORE BRAGGING HERE

We went to Maryland last weekend to see our son Alex graduate from his ten month stint of public service with Americorps. Here is the short version:

In many ways our son was one of those lost kids. He did very poorly in high school (by choice) and made a lot of bonehead decisions by the time he was 18. He was lost, had no direction or knowledge of his potential. His values were confused, etc., etc., etc. We knew there was a great young man buried deep inside him because we knew him from an earlier time. But in many ways he had lost touch with who he was. We also knew that it was necessary for him to get away from us and into some meaningful environment in order to re-discover himself.

Americorps = Public Service

Holy Sh*t! What a change. We could not have hoped for more. His emergence did not go unnoticed in Americorp either. He came home literally covered in awards...and not just participation awards. There are leadership awards and commitment awards and contribution awards. Of the four big awards they give out at the end of the ten months, he got one of them and almost got a second. (This is out of 160 team members.) Only one of the 160 young people got more recognition during their ten months. Nobody wants to read a bunch of details...so I will spare you. I will simply finish with another profound....Holy Sh*t!!!! And "thank god".

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"Twenty Years From Now.......

......you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did do".

I didn't make that up, I ran across it somewhere. But still.....

Short Fairy Tale

My sister sent me a little Fairy Tale. I have changed it a little bit. Here it is.

Once upon a time, a guy asked a beautiful girl 'Will you marry me?' The girl said, 'NO!' And the guy lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and went fishing and hunting and played golf a lot and drank beer and scotch and had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up and farted whenever he wanted AND SMOKED CIGARS IN THE HOUSE
The end

Oh My God!

The weather has been glorious. 70 -74 for days now. Just wonderful.

For the 3rd weekend in a row, I will be bagging leaves. That guarantees that I will get outside to enjoy the weather. (Gotta love these old neighborhoods.)

Yeah, I am reduced to blogging about the weather.

H1N1, etc.

I had a student out sick for 2 weeks. When he came back to school, I mentioned that he must have been really sick.

He said he had:
> H1N1 (swine flu)
> Strep Throat
> Pink Eye, and
> Tonsillitis

Is that even possible?

I am used to the kids all suffering from "hormone poisoning", but this whole germ thing is disturbing.