April Fools Civilization

     Social Studies was one class that did not go well with memorizing the notes. And I could not figure out why – history does not change, so why was it not wise to give back the facts that the teacher dished out? As I recall, we were doing Western Studies that year – meaning Western Civilization – something that is politically incorrect these days, but I digress.

       Miss Krohn was our teacher. I think she was fresh out of college. And there was a brand new way of presenting the material that year via edict from the district or maybe it was the the state. But the premise was for the instructor to teach a unit, and then as a class, we were supposed to discuss what had been put before us and come up with some statement about the unit – and apparently the statement was supposed to be totally obvious and unanimously come to by every class across the state. When we were asked to do this the first time after the first unit – we talked (well other kids talked, I was silent) but had no clue what we were supposed to come up with – it felt more like a futile exercise in reading some person's mind. Miss Krohn finally read to us the statement we were expected to figure out on our own – it was several sentences long and seemed, to me at least but surely was not so, to come out of left field!

       I don't recall Miss Krohn ever trying to get us to come up with those statements ever again after any further units.

       Perhaps if we had put our heads together a little better we could have predicted that the terms Western and civilization would ere long be considered oxymorons?

       The only other thing I remember about 10^th grade history, besides the class teasing of Miss Krohn about her social life, being single and all, is that on April Fools' Day, when the bell rang signifying class has half over, we all got up and walked out of the room and went to the next room down the hall from us and sat down in the seats that had just been emptied by those kids who went to our classroom and sat in our seats. We had been in cahoots. Miss Krohn thought it was funny once she figured out what was going on – I think she was also relieved to see the mischief did not amount to anything more serious. The other teacher was a very elderly woman – who remained calm throughout – and I admired her for that.

240 20150828 April Fools Civilization

Proofs and Angles

     Well, I had to look up my blog post about third grade before I could talk about sophomore year math class. I wanted to be sure I was not repeating myself – but apparently I did not give the follow-up to the third grade story of the freckle-faced red haired-boy who exchanged love letters with me in the earlier blog, and I get to tell it now.

      Tenth grade math was geometry. And oh gosh, this was the perfect class for memorizing. I loved it! Sometimes the problems had me scratching my head a bit, but once I saw how to solve them, the proofs just came pouring out. It was a beautiful thing. It was one of the few classes I ever took where I didn't really need a teacher – the new material flowed smoothly after what was already known.

      So I was bored in class. And that boy from third grade sat right in front of me. By high school he walked among the popular cliques and it would have been surprising to think of him even talking to me at all. But he turned around when the teacher was giving the day's lessons, and we chatted and laughed. What a pleasant way to spend an easy math course!

      And you know I assumed that the class was as easy for him as it was for me. First of all, geometry was easy, and I thought everyone was breezing through it. Secondly, the freckle-faced popular red-haired boy would not have been spending time talking to me if he was not getting the material, would he?

      It was not until late spring that the teacher was passing back an exam one day when I happened to see that the boy in the seat in front of me had failed his exam!

      “What happened?” I exclaimed.

      And he shrugged and said that's the grade he got on all the exams!

      Oh I felt so terrible! “Am I the reason you are failing geometry? We talked when you should have been listening?”

      “No,” he said he was never going to get geometry – I had nothing to do with it.

      Maybe he was right, but even after all this time, I still feel guilty. How is this angle like that angle? I should have figured it all out sooner!

239 20150827 Proofs and Angles

Basic Chemistry

       Sophomore classes turned out to be a tad better than my extracurricular activities. Regents Chemistry sounds daunting, but actually was one of those classes that kids said it might be possible to get a 100% on the final exam, and Mrs. Gilmore was a wonderful teacher.

         Memorizing my notes for tests got a new twist – I would rewrite my notes in a notebook in beautiful outline form; by the time everything was rewritten, it was in essence memorized; or I guess a kinder way of saying it is that if I closed my eyes, I could see the outline in front of me, and during the test I could see where the answer was in my notes.

      All of my classes got rewritten outlined notes starting in 10^th grade and moving forward through most of college. Regurgitating what had been given to me in class is not the optimal way of learning how to think on one's own. But for some courses, such as chemistry, it was okay. Regents chemistry was just the basics – it takes a whole year to get all the basics down, and they really should be memorized. Advance Placement Chemistry, which I took two years later was a different story, and that is where the beginning of the stuff beyond the basics was taught.

       When regents chemistry was over at the end of sophomore year, I still had some notes that had not been rewritten. And it seemed wrong to have my notebook incomplete. But why would I bother to finish it? - the class was over. And when would I ever look at it again? But how could I leave scrap notes lying around with an unfinished notebook? I went back and forth on this for a while and eventually decided on completing the task of putting my scraps of paper into neat outlined form in my proper chemistry notebook during the first couple of weeks of summer vacation.

       And no, I never looked at it again after that.  But I did keep it around for a few years.

       Missed the perfect score on the regents final by a couple of questions. Would that the advanced placement chemistry final exam in senior year had been as stellar!

238 20150826 Chemistry Basics

Sophomore Futures

    Looking around high school for something else I could join, I opted for the Future Nurses as it was the closest match to my aspirations of medical school at the time. The school nurse was in charge, and in looking at the yearbook now, I see that there were officers – president, treasurer, etc. But the only thing I remember about Future Nurses is that at the first meeting of the school year, the school nurse asked how many of us were sixteen years old – because that was the minimum age we could be for candy-stripers or other hospital volunteers. Getting to learn skills and volunteering at a hospital sounded very exciting, but I was a month shy of my fifteenth birthday!

     There were probably other options for the members of Future Nurses, but I don't recall any – I just felt disappointment that I could not be a candy-striper that year. Someone with more ambition would have researched on her own what else a 15 year old could do but that someone was not me.

     The picture in the yearbook of the Future Nurses has me right there in the second row. But I am not sure if I ever went to any more than that first meeting, and after sophomore year, when I finally turned sixteen, my class schedule was so full that I chose not to continue with the Future Nurses deciding that studying would be better than trying to get transportation to and from candy-striper venues.

       My extracurriculars were not looking too good.

237 20150825 Sophomore Futures

Left Wing

    Our high school held three grades, with ninth grade being in the junior high building. So it was not until 10^th grade that I actually really felt like I was in high school. And then things seemed a little more serious about doing extracurriculars so we could give the appearance at least of being well-rounded individuals on our college applications. The give the appearance phrase was cynically tongue in cheek. I think for the most part we were sincere in our attempts at well-roundedness.

       In tenth grade, one of the things I did was participate in most of the girls after school intramural sports teams (that's okay, my parents laughed every time I mentioned it also,) and somehow, the field hockey team turned out to be not intramural but rather we played other schools and the gym teacher was the coach and everything. There were no tryouts. So that meant I was on the team, but only on the field during practice, not during the actual games. I remember the look on the gym teacher's face, Miss Byrnes, toward the end of one game – our eyes met, and she motioned for me to go ahead and get on the field. Her expression was one of pity, and in the game I was pitiful. And that was my sole experience with competitive team sports in high school.

        The intramural stuff was seasonal – basketball for a while and volleyball for a while – those are the only two I remember participating in other than the field hockey. We had our own teams and no coaches. I was a terrible player – and what I lacked in skill I tried to make up for in goofiness, but that was not really appreciated by the others.

        There was a girls sports club that met at night too. One night per month at the gym. If we missed two months in a row we were no longer in the club – and so I would ask my parents for a ride every other month, and yes, again, they would laugh at the mention of my doing anything sports related.

         At the gym those nights I most remember the wrestling room which was in the mezzanine – that was the first time I ever heard the word mezzanine – what was it about the room that made it a mezzanine? The mats that smell like sweat? I wondered. We did not wrestle in that room, I think we did exercises or maybe just sat around and chatted.

      It was not too many months into my junior year that I dropped out of the monthly girls sports club; and even though I enjoyed field hockey, I was careful not to sign up for the next season team.

     Years and years later I have realized I am not much of a team player in any aspect of my life.

       But I do goofy well.

236 20150824 Left Wing

A Hoot and a Holler

       Writing yesterday's post I was reminded of a few sayings I came across in the quotes book. I had gone through the family quotes book recently to look for the you always take a chance with screw-cap wines quote, and I did not find it! This was a serious omission that has since been taken care of! What I am referring to here is my own quotes book of personal family sayings that I started writing in 1993 in a lined hardcover notebook that apparently Sarah had been using and then discarded. Over the years more sayings got added, and now there are over a hundred of them. Many of the quotes have explanations, and of the ones that do not, there is only one that I have no idea now what it is all about. But as you might imagine, when writing a memory-a-day for 365 days, tapping into the family quote book has been an invaluable resource!

       Anyway, this post is about the bedtime quotes that I was reminded about yesterday. When we still lived on Heinrich Road in the two bedroom house, in the earlier years, I slept in the upper bunk of the bunk bed in the kids' bedroom; Clark slept in the lower bed of the bunk, and Eric slept in the bed on the other side of the room after he had graduated out of the crib. When we got put to bed at night, we were not tired, and often we chatted for a while. Mom and Dad did not like the noise if we got too loud. Dad would come to the door, and he would say, usually through the closed door, “No singing, no dancing, no horsing around!”

       We were always tickled by that remark, especially since the boys often asked me to sing! Even back then I had a terrible voice, but I would sing every song I knew the words to – not loud enough to disturb the parents, I thought, but I sang.

       One night when we had been talking, Dad announced at the door, “No singing, no dancing, no horsing around!” And we got to speculating as to who was the dancing and who was the horsing around - because we already knew that I was the singing. And we decided that Denny was the singing, Clark was the dancing, and Eric was the horsing around. After that, I would fantasize about Dad opening the door some night and then the three of us would break into an act where we would each be playing our respective role in the singing, dancing, horsing around trio. What would have been Dad's response?

       When my own girls slept in the same room when they were quite young and I would have to get them to quiet down at night, the door would open and I'd say, “no more hooting and hollering!”

       One night I walked in, and before I could say anything, Sarah said, “Hoot!” followed by Amanda's “Holler!”

       A tear came to my eye. And they knew they had done good!

235 20150823 A Hoot and a Holler

Sh! Whisper! Who Dares?

     On Wednesday night of my stay in Chapel Hill with the Nelsons, Sarah and John went to the Monti – a storytelling event in Durham. Sarah was hoping her name would be pulled from the hat to tell a story, and it was! In the meantime, I was at their house taking care of Virginia and Horatio. They have a routine at night that they are used to, so when I said it was bedtime, Ms V and Mr. H did not put up more than the age-appropriate fuss.

A gift from my brothers when I was in college!

     The kids got themselves ready for bed, and I think they brushed their teeth. I sat down in the reading corner as each picked out a book for me. It then stretched to two books each. I went downstairs to fill their drinking glasses as the kids began to protest actually having to get into bed.

      I told them that once they were lying down, I would sing to them a song that I used to sing to their Mom and Aunt 'Manda every night when they went to bed.

     Well that piqued V and H's curiosity. Soon Virginia was under her covers on the bed which is the same bed her own mother slept in growing up. And Horatio was lying face down on the floor – it is where he usually ends up napping in the afternoons and where he spent most of his nights when I was there. He was on a blanket and pillow, and there were plenty more blankets all around (and his bed) as well as stuffed animals including Horatio's particular attachment these days, a snowman!

     There is a song I used to sing to Sarah and Amanda every night at bedtime after reading a book or a chapter. It is a poem by A.A. Milne put to tune about Christopher Robin saying his bedtime prayers. I have the song on my 4 Sides of Melanie album – I know I would not have been familiar with the poem otherwise even though I do know the Winnie the Pooh stories.

     So I sang Christopher Robin to Virginia and Horatio for the first time, and as I did, I traveled back in time to when Sarah was in that bed at that age, and Amanda was in her bed, (except when we lived in the house in Texas after Amanda turned three and she slept on the living room rug instead of in the bedroom because their bedroom was upstairs and one night Amanda fell down the stairs when she awoke and went looking for her Mom and Dad, and Bodie was not going to let that happen again!) I do not have a good voice, so I think the reason V and H gave my song such keen attention was because I had said it was something special I had done for their Mom and Aunt.

     The kids agreed to go to sleep after that. 

     Was it the words that relaxed them?

     Was it the melody that signaled the end of a beautiful day? 

     Was it the fact that if they closed their eyes and no longer protested the turning out of the light I would stop singing?

     I have come to realize that history is decided by the storyteller – Virginia and Horatio loved the song! And my times singing Christopher Robin will always be special to me!

234 20150822 Sh! Whisper! Who Dares?

Lessons' Impressions

     Yesterday was Pirate Day at the day care where Virginia and Horatio have spent three half-days per week this summer. It was also my first post-retirement-from-the-lab storytelling gig as Sarah told the teachers we would come by for 30 minutes in the morning. I collected a bunch of pirate jokes from a website for grandparents who want to tell pirate jokes, really, and I purposely avoided all the “booty” jokes thinking they might be inappropriate; I put on a Hawaiian shirt and braided my hair, forgoing the peace symbol eye patch, and Sarah and I delivered ourselves to the school.

     I started the pirate jokes, “why are pirates so mean?” answer - “they just Arrrrrrr!” the kids joined in and almost immediately they asked me, “what does the pirate keep in his pants?” answer, “his booty!” 

     Sigh.

     Once the group was back in control again, thanks to Sarah and her calming finger-plays and songs, I told some personal stories about three four-year-old girls – the kids could identify with what the girls in my stories were going through so they kept their attention, for the most part. (The four-year-old girls were Sarah and Amanda and me)

     While I was telling the stories, a memory flashed by of my being at the kindergarten in the town where we lived in Oklahoma – the town where we were advised not to buy a house because the school system had a bad reputation and we bought the house anyway. And I volunteered to read in the kindergarten the year we were there. I went in once a month, and it was for about a half an hour. Sarah was three and Amanda was an infant – they went with me.

     The first month or two I read things I thought the kids would really like – but I could tell they were not paying attention, not getting it. So I tried to figure out how to be more entertaining, and on the third month, I took Dr. Seuss. The kids were engaged – probably because they were familiar with the particular Dr. Seuss stories I had. So I continued with what I thought was a sure thing – reading Dr. Seuss each month with my own goofy flair and hopefully among all the selections there were some they had not heard before but still kept their attention.

     At the end of the school year, the last month I went into the class, the teacher said that I was the favorite reader of all the volunteers the kids had! That was rewarding – to have figured out what the kids liked. Maybe one of them is volunteering in a kindergarten class today.

     When Sarah and Amanda were in high school, there was something called Read Across America Day, and I think it was on Dr. Seuss' birthday. Volunteers signed up to read something to a class. One year I was matched up with an English as a Second Language class – and oh my gosh what could I read to them? I was at a loss as to what the kids would like. And it occurred to me to just read some Dr. Seuss. But I did not want to insult them – if I read a children's book they might think that I thought they were not of high school intelligence – but then again, if their English was not all that polished, perhaps the rhyming words would entertain them for a while.

     Finally, I decided to read the Dr. Seuss books. And the kids responded well – laughing, smiling, eyes lit up. It could be that they were just being polite to the lady crazy enough to think high school kids could be entertained in this way – or maybe it was the perfect choice after all. I don't know, but the next year, I was not asked to Read Across America Day – I thought maybe the high school was not doing it anymore, and then after a few years it occurred to me that, yeah, the high school most likely was still doing it. Maybe a former ESL student is connecting with the kids reading better choices as a volunteer these days.

233 20150821 Lessons' Impressions

Got a Nikon Camera/Love to take a Photograph

       

getting fancy

In the very early years of my first marriage we were at a get-together one night – I think it was a housewarming for one of our co-workers, and another co-worker was there with her husband and their baby who was only a few months old. We noticed lots of pictures were being taken mostly because of the baby, and we saw the nice cameras that folks had. On the way home that night we got to talking about how we should probably invest in a good camera before we had our first child, that way we would already have it – researched and comparison shopped – and would not be making a hasty purchase once the baby arrived when we would be anxious to be taking good pictures.

        See how that logic worked?

guinea pig, Angel in double exposure

        And so immediately, the research began, by which I mean ex-hubby did all the work. He finally decided on a Nikon – I don't know the other particulars – it was long before digital, which meant we used film.

winter outside our apartment

       There was a dark room on my floor at the lab. So we learned to develop pictures – by that I don't mean the ex did it all by himself, I learned too – but he was much better at it. We mostly sent the color film off to be developed, but we did a lot of the black and white ourselves – making proofs and everything. I found an album that is only black and white pictures from those days. It has envelopes with the negatives in them all labeled and dated – who would ever look at them or want them? And there are a few pages of proofs. And some artsy shots of double exposures

on beach in St. Augustine

        At MAS there was a dark room for developing negatives for many years, and one weekend I took Sarah and Amanda in to teach them what I had once learned. It was a fun time, but more for bonding than new skills since the digital world took over soon after that. No more dark rooms, proofs, envelopes stuffed with unlabeled negatives.

the club-house on Zimmerman

        The first camera was replaced around 2000 with another Nikon that had auto-focus because I am the world's worst focuser, and it still did film. Mike eventually replaced that camera with digital Nikons, and of course, our cell phones. Pictures can be played with extensively on the computer – crop, brighten, collages – and color can be made into black and white.

        You know, it is not Momma who took the Kodachrome away.

232 20150820 I Got a Nikon Camera/Love To Take a Photograph

To Let Go

Do you want to build a snowman?

       This is a picture of my grand-daughter, Virginia, from the spring of 2014. I was babysitting one evening, and while I had seen the advertisements for the new Disney movie, Frozen, and I knew that Ms V and her brother had already seen the movie, I myself was unfamiliar with the now very famous songs.

        When I got to the house and Sarah and John left for their date, Virginia announced that she was going to get her rocking chair – the rocking chair that had been mine when I was her age and then was her mother's at that age – and she ran down the hall to the playroom. Virginia returned to the living room with her rocker and put it in front of the window, “I'm going to watch the sunset!” she announced.

        My heart melted as she sat down, rocked, and looked out the window. Horatio, who had just turned two and who idolized (and still does) his sister, ran down the hall to the playroom and got his own rocker and carried it back to the living room to sit and rock next to Virginia and figure out what she was looking at out the window. My heart melted some more. 

        Then Virginia broke into song – she sang Do You Want to Build a Snowman? - from Frozen – instead of continuing to melt, my heart just broke right in two! She sang it with such earnestness – a little girl pleading for her sister to come play with her and not understanding at all why her sister won't come out from the other side of the door – who would make such a movie? Who calls that entertainment? It is just wrong!

        By the time I put my camera on Virginia, all I got was the picture and no video – she was done with the song. And she had completely finished me!

Singing at 2014 Recital

        Virginia then announced that she was going to sing another song from the movie – and she burst into the now ubiquitous Let It Go! I got some video – although I can't seem to find it right now – the video includes little brother H getting bored with the whole sunset thing and putting his rocker upside down and standing on top of it and smiling at the camera while V continued her second heart-wrenching song of the evening.

        She sang Let It Go throughout 2014 along with every other little girl across the land, and Virginia was Elsa for Halloween.....along with every other little girl across the land.

        This week I am in Chapel Hill hanging out with the Nelsons. Virginia is a typical five-year-old and every once in a while she will express a fit of temper because she wants to do one thing and Mom wants her to do something else, or Horatio has done something wrong and has not been properly punished for it, or life is just not going the way her logic thinks it should be. And I soon discovered that if I broke into the chorus of Let It Go whenever Ms V puts her displeasure to angry words, she momentarily calms down – what else can she do? It's her song!

       In years to come, Virginia will probably never forgive me for that.

       But it is turning out to be good for me – stresses of the past and present keep coming to the surface of my everyday life, and I start to feel like Virginia feels, and as the stresses bubble, my brain starts the chorus from Let It Go – let it go! Let it go! and I give myself the same smile that Virginia gave me.

V today teaches Sugar to Let it Go

       And it lets go!

231 20150819 To Let Go

An Ouch By Any Other Name

    While reading a book about discovering your inner Minion to my grandchildren at quiet time this afternoon I came to the part where it mentions that Minions say “oh oh” often. And so it did not take me long to find my inner Minion. But something else also came to mind.

     So I stopped reading and I told them a story about the Spanish teacher I had my first semester of college. One day the professor said that he had often wondered if people who speak a language other than English say something other than “Ouch!” when they get hurt.        And the opportunity to find out arrived when an exchange student from Spain came to live at the teacher's house for a year.

     One day the teacher walked up to the Spanish exchange student and stuck him with a pin!

     Did he say “Ouch!” ?

    No.

    He said, “Ooooo Eeee!” if you pronounce it phonetically you will get the sound the teacher was describing to us.

    So apparently ouch is not necessarily universal in every language.

    This experiment would work well if one were wanting to know some cuss words in another language – wouldn't it? The professor is lucky he just came away with Oooooo Eeeee!

    The grandkids, even though they were fighting the onset of nap time, were not too impressed with the story, but their Mom was amused.

230 20150818 Ouch By Any Other Name

Screw Cap Wine

Taking a chance

    Talking about Egor, the Radio Shack computer, got me to thinking about Radio Shack, the store. The first hubby and I did not have a car – we were saving money by walking or taking the bus, except for those few nice months the first couple of years when the ex drove himself on a moped to the lab and back.

     This helped us save, not only on gas/car insurance/auto repairs – but we only bought enough groceries per visit to the store that were not too heavy to walk home with. And although we could take the bus or go out with friends/family to go to the movies or the mall – our spending was definitely curtailed with the absence of an auto.

      There was a Radio Shack, however, that was within walking distance – near the Boulevard Mall. It was probably 2 to 3 miles from the apartment. I remember us walking there one Saturday in the winter. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground – the snow on the sidewalks had been stamped down already by previous pedestrians – and once we started walking, it was not cold at all.

      We were probably at the store to add something to Egor. So I was just browsing up and down the aisles while hubby shopped for the computer accessory.

Gotta get a picture when I see a screw cap wine

      There were two other shoppers, men, in one of the aisles having a conversation, and from what I could hear, they were talking about wine. Then I heard one of them say with a tone of utter snobbishness, “Oh you are always taking a chance with screw-cap wine!”

      Well that just tickled me so much – I mean, really? This guy has nothing better to do than to be in a Radio Shack on a snow-filled Saturday afternoon, in the middle of Buffalo, and he is putting on airs about wine?

      And the fact that I was being judgmental about him being judgmental just added to the irony, of course.

      Since that afternoon, over thirty years ago now, I can't see a screw-cap bottle of wine without leaning over to whoever happens to be closest to me – husband, child, complete stranger – and saying in a hushed, condescending tone, “you know, you are always taking a chance with a screw-cap wine.”

229 20150817  Screw-Cap Wine

Egor Presents

     

Me with Egor

We had a personal computer before most folks did. His name was Egor – with an E and pronounced with the long E sound. It was a Tandy TRS-80 from Radio Shack. Ex-hubby had it before I came along in 1980 – a monitor, keyboard, and funny little printer. After I was in the picture, we got a word processing program and a slightly better printer so I could get comfortable with and use Egor too. We had tried getting me to learn how to write software (all the programs that come with computers today or are easily acquired were non-existent and not really anticipated back then) – the only thing I could think of that would apply to my life was a checkbook balancing program, and after working on it a while, we realized I'd be happier just writing everything down and doing the math myself, like always. So much for my binary DOS education.

One of the Cookbooks

       When we bought the Radio Shack word processing program, it was a much more successful, better fit for me. The first thing I did was to put all the recipes I had into the program and print them out onto index cards that I then hole-punched and we created Egor cookbooks for gifts for Christmas. Eric still uses many of the recipes such as the spaghetti sauce and of course Mother Des Soye's Delicious Variation of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans. I go through the Egor cookbook myself these days for the cream cheese frosting recipe, the pistachio nut swirl cake, and all the Christmas cookies that Mom used to make every year, and the tips for baking that I put together after my failures and successes at making the same cookies such as don't let the butter get too soft, or decrease baking time as batches of cookies continue.

       After that we got a modem and then an even better printer. Floppy disks replaced cassette tapes. Ex-hubby wrote his thesis. I started writing more – even a journal of sorts for our first-born.

       When Sarah arrived in July of 1984, Sarah's dad declared that she needed to have her own computer. I thought he was kidding until he came home with a computer system for our infant daughter.

       We named the computer Bertha. I think it was an Atari – it had a keyboard and the monitor was an actual television. So we had a second tv – but we never used it as a tv until many years later after we were living in Texas and the girls were able to use Egor for computering and knew how to hook up Bertha if they wanted to play Atari games.

Bertha, Sarah, Amanda

       There is a picture somewhere of the toddler Sarah sitting on her father's lap in front of Bertha and seemingly paying rapt attention to what was on the screen.

       Last week Sarah said she had put both of her kids in their room in the afternoon to take a nap, but three-year-old Horatio was making a lot of noise and keeping his sister from sleeping, so Sarah put him in her bedroom, told him to take a nap or just be quiet, and she shut the door. A few minutes later she checked in on Horatio who was being a little too quiet – he had found Sarah's ipad, knew how to use it, and was watching a movie!

       Today a TRS-80 is on display in the Smithsonian Museum – an example of the dinosaur days of computers. Our own Egor is in the cubby downstairs, Googling today says Egor is worth between $25 and $250 -I'll hold on to him a while longer. I do not know what kind of system I am typing on today or what software program – just glad it works without me having to cuss at it too much or without losing an entire document because I tried to hyphenate.

       If I have any problems or questions, Mike, my daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren can help me log-on, retrieve what I have lost, or even watch a movie when I should be napping!

228 20150816 Egor Presents

Probably Not What Jesus Would Do

     One day in Buffalo, early in my first marriage when I was a lab tech at Roswell Park and my hubby was working on his PhD, we went downtown at lunch time – I can't remember why. It was a nice day, and as we were looking at the buildings and the people, a man with wild hair and even wilder eyes approached us. He was skinny and had the very appearance of someone who was about to ask us for money.

     “Excuse me, Folks, I just got off the bus from Fredonia. It dropped me here, but I need to get to the Police Station and I need bus fare to get there. Could you spare some change?”

     I don't remember if it was Fredonia he said he was from – it was someplace out of the range of the city buses, implying he had come into town on a Greyhound bus and suggesting he did not know his way around.

     So of course, I'm buying into this story – and I started to point down Main Street, “The police station is only two blocks up that way – you could walk.”

     “No, I need to take a bus if you have any change.”

     I don't remember why he said he needed to get to the police station, but it was something I also bought into – like he was looking for his sister and the police had some info.

     “We could walk with you, really, it is only a couple of blocks up this way.”

     “I really gotta have the bus fare,” and I think he was also at this point asking for money for food – the ride into Buffalo had cost him everything that he had.

     The Hubs and I were getting leerier and leerier of his story and finally we told him we did not have any change and were about to walk away when the man got a tad frantic....

     “Look!” he said, and he pulled up his shirt to reveal his bare skinny torso and a flat shaped empty liquor bottle sticking out of his waistband!

     “I'm an alcoholic, and all I need is $3 to get a new bottle to get me through the day. Can't you spare me $3 for a bottle?”

     The bare torso, the empty bottle, and the exposure of his lie about needing bus money put me into a momentary state of shock while my husband said to the man, “Alcohol is bad, you shouldn't drink.”

     And we managed to make our escape.

     Since then I do not believe most strangers who approach me with a tale of woe. And it is easy to say no if I have no cash on me – but these days I make sure my phone is visible and I can offer to call the police for anyone telling me a strapped-for-cash sob story.

     And the spare change I give to the street musicians.

227 20150815 Probably Not What Jesus Would Do

LIfe's Purpose?

Retirement on Tap

      When my daughters were born, I reveled in their every milestone – rolling over, sitting up, the first tooth, sleeping through the night (!), crawling, walking, running, solid food, the first words (oh the so many stories I will share over time about their early conversations), potty training, phonics, and then reading. When my younger daughter started to read, I felt a sense of peace come over me – I had fulfilled my life's purpose: have two kids and raise them to the point where they can read. Once they could read – they would succeed – and my work would be done.

       When my younger daughter started to read, I felt a sense of emptiness come over me – I had fulfilled my life's purpose: have two kids and raise them to the point where they could read. Once they could read – they would belong to the world and would be fine whether I am in the world with them or not.

       This feeling that I was cheating the world by continuing to breathe its air traveled with me for a while when one day I heard, completely unsolicited by me mind you, that still, small voice you read about in the Bible, and that still, small voice said, “you need to be a good example.”

       “No, Lord! Take me now! My purpose is not yet fulfilled? Giving birth and making sure they can read is not enough? I have to be a good example? That's too hard!!!”

       And the voice said, “yeah.”

       How could I ever be anything but a good example of a bad example?

       After my younger daughter learned to read, I got a job in a lab. A good job – we served each other well. The hours were flexible, and I went in very early in the mornings while the girls got themselves ready and off to school. So I could come home early – taking them to piano lessons and orthodontist appointments and other after school activities. And I worked and got paid for lots of overtime to pay the bills and the extras.

      When the girls went to college, each in her own time attended UGA on the HOPE scholarship. Each wondered what she should major in, and I wistfully told them to spend their fours years following their dreams – afterward they will have a piece of paper that will either let them keep following their dreams or else get them a job that will pay the bills and at least they had those college years to give those dream-job pursuits their best shot.

       To my surprise they took those words to heart and today Sarah and Amanda are living their dreams!

       And so this past year, my twenty-second year at the lab, Mike and I have talked a lot about retirement. Wouldn't it be nice to retire now and have some years of good health left to begin another venture, another career? We flip-flopped often on whether or not to do it – you know, a steady paycheck is very attractive.

       During this past year, each daughter in her own turn has sat me down and said, “You know, my mother once told me to follow my dreams – perhaps it is time she took her own advice.”

       So with the girls' encouragement and Mike's blessing, on August 3^rd I gave notice at the lab that I would be leaving, retiring to pursue my storytelling interests and see where this new journey will take me.

       Upon my announcement, I felt a sense of peace – I felt so light, free! 

       And it lasted for all of about 12 hours.

       My co-workers, as they heard the news, congratulated me, told me how happy they were for me, and how they envied me – how wonderful it must be to have the means to begin a new life. I was touched by their good wishes.

       But the sense of peace was gone. And the still, small voice was back. It said, “you need to be a good example.”

       I have to show everyone a great life after retirement? Show them it is not too scary to follow their dreams too?

      Dang!

      Because, you know, my default plan was to merely catch up on all the sleep I have missed all these years.

      Today, August 14^th, was my last day of employment at the lab. I walked to the edge of terra firma and stepped off. I'm in the air now – sometimes I will be a good example of a bad example, but mostly, I'm going to fly!

226 20150814 Life's Purpose?

Each One's Paris

       A co-worker announced on a busy August day that she had just given notice she was leaving the lab, she and her husband were getting on a plane in two weeks and moving to Paris! They were going to live there for one year and after that decide if they wanted to stay, move somewhere otherwise exotic, or come back to Georgia and family. That was four years ago, and they are still living in Paris – traveling throughout Europe, sending back the most gorgeous pictures, eating well, and once a year coming home for a couple of weeks to visit family.

       Oh my gosh, the lab was astounded as each of us received the news! We had known that they liked to travel, having gone to Italy a couple of times in the years that we had known them – but to actually up and move to Paris? That was beyond a lab rat's sense of reality.

       But it did get each of us to thinking.

       If it was possible, and clearly this couple was proving it was possible, where would each of us go in the whole world if we could move there?

       What is our Paris?

       Of course it would be different for everyone.

       For Mike, the answer is easy – if you know Mike at all, you know that if he could pick anywhere in the world to live, it would be Brantley, Alabama – the place where he grew up. And it is very much his Paris.

       But what is mine? I thought and thought and thought, and could not come up with a place. Foreign cities would be lovely and exciting, but I have no desire to live in any of them even in my wildest fantasies. My own home town would be all right to live in, but I do not feel the lure, not like Mike feels for Brantley. So did that mean I wanted to stay right where I was, be right where I was, working and saving the money for the someday Paris that I did not presently know the whereabouts of?

       And then I realized that my Paris is something that I have often talked about for years, probably forever. It is just that it is not a single place, but more of a journey. What I would like to do, what I fantasize about, is to take to the back roads of this country, of which I have seen so little and know to be so beautiful, and chat with the people, collect their stories and tell them mine.

       With Kay and Scott's wonderful example, I have come to crystallize my own Paris and to realize that it is do-able, perhaps even soon, maybe even with its foothold in Brantley, Alabama.

       One question I would ask of folks is, “what is your Paris?” Because I know the answers will be surprising and their stories will be wonderful!

225 20150813 Each One's Paris

The Story Board

Sarah's 25th Birthday & cat Socrates

     When Sarah was four years old and had mastered her phonics, I put a small chalkboard on an easel by the dinnertable, and started putting sentences from McGuffey Reader on the board for Sarah to practice at mealtime. After a while letters from family, postcards, and photos were attached to the edges of the board with clips, and other messages would be written on the board in chalk – like “Happy Birthday” or “Have a Great Day!” or a familiar saying that we could discuss – like “Hitch your wagon to a star!”

       So the chalkboard on the easel was actually for all of us – we would look at it upon sitting down to eat – to see what had been added since the last time or what we might have missed before. Often there was a calendar attached to keep up with our schedules. Over time, school papers and report cards were posted. And when Amanda was four – more McGuffey Reader sentences went back up on the board.

Christmas 2010 

      Every December I covered the chalkboard with a red flannel sheet, and the pictures that arrived in Christmas cards were taped to the flannel; personal notes and the newsletters (the ones that many people don't like to receive at Christmastime that I not only love and look forward to but also write myself,) were also attached. And when the last note was received and prominently posted – usually a few days past December 25th, a picture was taken of the entire collection – a memento of that year's Christmas.

      With only Mike and me at the house now, and the fact that we hardly ever eat at the table, the sunroom would look better without the chalkboard and easel. So I put them away.

      For a few months.

      But who am I kidding?

Out of retirement for retirement August 2015

      Our recent decision for me to retire has prompted some creative planning – we will have more meals at home, at the table. And our schedules are crazy – perhaps a calendar nearby with times and dates filled in on where we are supposed to be – yeah, our phones can do all that – but to gaze at the easel while we are eating and talking – that would be helpful too.

       So the board is back up. It has postcards and letters attached with clips along the edges. Photos and the calendar block most of the chalkboard.

       But Virginia and Horatio do come by to visit – so some fresh chalk is going to be purchased and the McGuffey Reader is going to be dusted off and sentences will once again find their way to the board on the easel by the table.

224 20150812 The StoryBoard

Cider House Garp

     The only book by John Irving that I ever liked is Cider House Rules. It is the only one I still have on my shelves – Hotel New Hampshire and Prayer for Owen Meany were given away, and after Owen, I decided life is too short to spend time on any more Irving creations. But Cider House Rules – why? The characters, the abritrary rules which are consciously or even unknowingly broken – the parallels to all our lives – the doctor – even the movie version is good, and that's hard to do!

     And why do we keep books on our shelves these days, our libraries, after we have read them? There are very few I have read more than once. (And as an aside, I highly recommend reading Wuthering Heights at least three times in your life – first as a romantic teen, second as a weary parent, and third as the parent of teens – quite the experience with totally different emotions each time!)

     But I had always wanted a library of all the books I had owned so I could access it anytime for quotes or enhancements to conversation – like I could be quoting Heathcliff right now if I wanted to. I also wanted the well stocked shelves to look like heaven to my children and grandchildren and to entertain them with all their pages!

     So of all the books and all the years, what did I ever pull off of the shelf, other than reference materials to illustrate a point during dinnertable discussions with my daughters?

Cider House Rules, of course! And for the most bizarre reason. I don't know how the conversation got started, but somehow or other I got to telling the girls how you can kill someone with a razor blade and leave little outward sign of foul play. They thought I was making it up – and so I went to the bookshelf, pulled out Cider House Rules and actually managed to find the page where the teenage girl killed her father in the same manner that he himself had killed people – with a razor blade. Sarah and Amanda seemed both impressed and disturbed. I know I was. John Irving continues to unnerve me.

     And, there was Garp.

     The World According to Garp is a John Irving novel that came out when I was working at Roswell Park – before children, before marriage. The book was so popular – everyone was talking about it. I resisted reading it – I felt it was too overhyped, and I always avoid hyped books and movies. If it was really good, it would pass the test of time, and I thought I would read The World According to Garp after all the popularity died down, at least a few years later.

     But people were talking, and talking about it. Mom read it – she said there were some chapters that she would read the first page or so, realize where it was going, and she would skip it – knowing the chapter would be too disturbing for her and also knowing that avoiding it would not leave a gap in the main plot at all. I think what she mostly meant was that there were chapters where Garp brought all his fears to life and played them out as if they were real, but they were only in his mind – so skipping those pages was all right.

     Other people talked about the book, and when they realized I had not read it, assured me that I should – that I would really like it. And when they recommended Garp, I told them I would read it when it passed the test of time.

     And there was my boss.

     He and I were doing an assay in the lab one day and chatting. I was probably spouting off one of my idealistic philosophies, sincere but usually from left field. Which prompted the boss to say, “You are just like Garp's mother!”

     Since I was unfamiliar with Garp's mother, he had to explain. Jenny was a nurse. One day she climbed on top of an unconscious wounded soldier in a hospital bed for the purpose of getting pregnant! On the soldier's pocket were the letters T.S. Garp – so that was what she named her son!

     What my boss meant by comparing me to Jenny was that I seem to go to extreme unconventional means to get what I want – and for the most part, I could get what I want without being so weird about it.

     In other words, we are both strong willed.

     Neither a compliment nor an insult – but closer to the latter than the former . Aside from the fact that my own pregnancies were a tad more routine than Garp's conception – Jenny and I probably are a lot alike. Sometimes doing things the hard way by myself is preferred to asking for a little help from my friends.

     I haven't heard anyone talk about Garp in years. But the book might still pass the test of time. So maybe I should read it after all – which by now has been 37 years! Of course I'll have to get a copy in large print – or perhaps download it on the kindle where I can enlarge the print to a readable size. I won't have to keep a copy on the shelf afterwards even if I discover I like the book – if ever I should want to reference it or clarify a passage in the future, the answers are at our fingertips - with the Internet, we can get excerpts, reviews, quotes. I can google right now and tell you that the T.S. in T.S. Garp stands for Technical Sergeant.

     On second thought, I think I'll wait still a few more years for Garp – and in the meantime give Cider House Rules a second reading.

223 20150811 Cider House Garp

The Cheesemakers

      There have been a few facebook postings lately about Monty Python - perhaps another reunion or another anniversary. It is surprising, the memories this stirs up – and surprising to realize that Monty Python has been such a big part of my life. I remember watching episodes of the Flying Circus on PBS on Friday nights back when I was in high school. I vividly remember the man who walked into the tobacco shop and was waited on by a topless female salesclerk – he did not notice her because he was distracted with boredom (bombs were exploding around him and robbers were lurking also – and he did not notice – he was only anxious to get to the office to sit back and read his comic book!) - when the Comedy Channel ran episodes of Monty Python in the days since then, the topless portion of the salesclerk is blocked out, but when I saw this for the first time, on PBS so long ago – she was naked! On TV! And it was so funny.

      So many moments from those first viewings have stuck with me throughout the years: the play Julius Caesar in flag semaphore, Dimsdale the hedgehog, Michael Palin as Cardinal Richelieu, feeding the birds in the park by throwing cans of food at them, Michael Palin as a delivery milkman being lured into a house by a scantily clad woman only to find himself locked into an upper bedroom already filled with other hapless milkmen.

      And then there are the classics, of course – the dead parrot – is there anyone who hasn't heard the phrase he's not dead, he's just pining for the fjords! Norwegian Blue, beautiful plumage! Or the school for silly walks – arguments are down the hall! How about Been shopping? Yes, bought a piston engine!

      And lines from their wonderful movies – it's just a flesh wound; I vomit in your general direction; but what have the Romans done for us?; Just a thin mint?

      One of the facebook postings this week said what are those penguins doing on the telly? Oh my gosh, it was just like being back on Zimmerman Road once again – somehow that skit had tickled us so much then that a penguin collection was begun – one that fit on the top of the telly – it was Mom's collection – relatives and acquaintances gave her penguins for any occasion – silver, crystal, crochet. The penguins soon spilled over into other items that did not sit on the telly – Christmas tree ornaments, lamps, linens. It was an awesome display which brought a smile to everyone – and to think it all began from a silly Monty Python skit with some silly men in drag!

       My brothers could and probably still can do Monty Python skits, and this family tradition continued to the next generation. One time when Clark was visiting our house in Georgia – the girls were about 9 and 7 years old – the sunroom suddenly got quiet. Clark looked around, and Sarah and Amanda walked in, one with a rag around her head - they were re-enacting the my brain hurts routine from Monty Python just for him! Clark seemed a little stunned – it just came from out of no-where! I know I was stunned. And a tear came to my eye – I was so proud!

       One could go through life, I suppose, without any Monty Python at all – and I guess we might all be a little less twisted. But I contend that every one of us needs a little Monty Python and I thank them for what they have given to the world. Blessed are the cheesemakers!

222 20150810 The Cheesemakers

Brightest Bulb in the Tulip Patch

       When Dad was almost finished with the new kitchen at the house on Zimmerman, he and Mom went shopping for a new floor. They picked out linoleum that would come in one piece – no seams, and they were excited about it. Well, it must have been during the summer school break when the floor was going to be installed, and it turned out that I was the only one who would be home that day.

         The workers arrived and I let them into the house while I stayed outside pulling weeds from the garden – not the only time in my life when I've pulled weeds but clearly this was just an excuse to be out of the way.

         Their job did not take long and soon a new floor was in the kitchen.

Mom and Dad were not pleased when they came home.

         “Why did you let them put the new floor down on top of the old floor? Isn't it obvious to you that they should have put a sub-floor down before laying the linoleum?”

If it was not obvious to the installers, why would it have been obvious to me?

         Looking down at the floor, I could see the outline of the slats from the old hardwood floor beneath.

         “Didn't you hear us talking about the plywood floor they would have to put down first?”

         If I did, what would make Mom and Dad think that I would have interrupted the guys from what they were doing and insist they were doing it wrong? No, I assumed the guys knew better than I did how to install a new kitchen floor.

         My Folks considered this another instance of my not having any common sense – but even after all these years, I do not think I was in the wrong this time.

         They called the store, and a few days later a layer of plywood was put down on top of the new linoleum and then another layer of linoleum, seamless, was put down on top of the plywood. The store blamed the crew for the mistake and it cost my parents nothing for the fix.

221 20150809 Brightest Bulb in the Tulip Patch

Baked Alaska

        Well, it would be truly wrong to write about the cakes without also relating the most famous story of them all. It goes all the way back to the beginning. S is a dear friend, but he begged me not to make a cake for him. I explained that everyone got a cake – I couldn't pick and choose who to make cakes for – and besides, the birthday person really isn't the center of attention – the gang just wants an excuse to visit with each other for a few minutes and eat cake. S had no choice but to give in. However, he tried to suggest difficult cakes to make.

        One year he asked for a peanutbutter cake. It was the late 90's, a time before the internet was readily available to all - I went to the local library to look up recipes for a peanutbutter cake. There are a few, but I was afraid none of them would work well in the big pan – I made something else for him instead while offering apologies.

        The next year S requested Baked Alaska! All I knew about Baked Alaska is that it is something fancy and fire might be involved. Yeah well that was not going to happen. I decided to just bake a regular cake with a plain frosting and call it the anti-Baked Alaska.

        But then an idea came to mind. I took the white frosting, and in freehand, I smoothed the frosting across the top right corner and over to the middle of the cake kind of in the shape of the state of Alaska, including, somewhat, the archipelago. I liked the result – so then I took the rest of the frosting and added blue food coloring and painted the rest of the cake with the blue ocean to the west and south of Alaska. Again I liked the results. I did not know if anyone else would “get it” but at least I had amused myself.

        When S came into the breakroom after cake had been announced, he took one look at it and said, “it's Baked Alaska.”

        One of the finest moments in my life!

        S moved out of town not too long after that – across the country, and even for a while he lived in Alaska. For a few years, on his birthday, he would call me at work and mention again the Baked Alaska. You can't imagine how much that meant to me. Two years ago, S invited Mike and me to his fiftieth birthday party – living these days in South Carolina – in the midst of all the great food and alcohol, the Baked Alaska story was mentioned at least once!

220 20150808 Baked Alaska

Pistachio Nut Swirl

       After a year of making cakes for the crew at MAS, I bought a bigger pan so as to accommodate around 20 employees and possible guests in the building. The pan is 18” by 18”. I had learned through experiment that my co-workers enjoyed cakes made from a mix just as much as cakes made from scratch; the mix cakes baked better in the big pan while the homemade cakes took longer to cook through the middle and then the edges overcooked. That made my decision making a little easier – box mixes.

         The recipes were tripled for the cake in the big pan and usually two cans of frosting. That meant three boxes of cake mix and nine to twelve eggs; and I always used whole milk instead of water and sometimes butter instead of oil. Last year I started adding a fourth box of cake mix while only tripling the rest of the ingredients and found the cakes rose higher and were even moister. I do not purport to be a cake decorator, and again, the respondents did not seem to mind – but I did like a variety, so often I mixed Cool Whip with a can of frosting, or just the Cool Whip with a layer of cooked, not instant, pudding underneath. Sometimes we had fruit topping or sprinkles or chocolate chips. And for Mike's birthday, I would make cream cheese frosting from scratch – because life is not fair and sometime I do play favorites.

       There are so many anecdotes I could mention about the cakes over the years.

       I used to stay up late the night before a birthday to make a cake – my daughters soon came to realize that a cake for work was one of my top priorities. One year one of the girls' birthdays was coming up and I was running out of time getting a celebration together. I casually asked, “how about an ice cream cake from Publix?” the daughter just glared at me and then I realized that a homemade cake for my own children should take precedence over the cakes for the lab. The past few years I've gotten up extra early in the morning to make the cakes – and they were still a little warm when served – somehow that was even more special – so another precedence was set.

        Ben and Bill have birthdays one day apart in October, and one year Ben said that he really does not care for cake, even though I had a picture on the wall of him putting a forkful of birthday into his mouth – and so I proposed a Ben and Bill Birthday Barbecue Bash wherein the celebrations were combined and a potluck was served – everyone brought in a dish for lunch and I made a layer cake (instead of the big one) of Bill's favorite and special request cake – German chocolate with coconut pecan frosting. Ben was famous for his deviled eggs – so everyone looked forward to the Ben and Bill Birthday Bash every year. A few years ago, Ben moved on to another job. Bill said he still wanted his potluck bash. So we still have it, and Ben often joins us, bringing a dish of deviled eggs with him.

Birthday 2014

        On my own birthday, a couple of times someone has offered to make a cake from scratch, but usually it is a Kroger or Publix cake – complete with a birthday tablecloth, napkins and plates – often with flowers and sometimes even with ice cream. Co-workers would tell me afterward that they prefer my cakes to the store bought – but I was very happy to have a cake and the appreciation for the cakes I make for them.

        Today I made my last cake for MAS because I will be retiring next week. By request, it was my pistachio nut swirl cake – four boxes of yellow cake mix, twelve eggs, three boxes of instant pistachio pudding mix, milk, oil, and almond extract; then there is the swirl – sugar, cinnamon, and chopped pecans. No frosting or topping needed – just the swirl.

        A fitting finale – my hope is that someone who experienced the cakes will pass along the gesture I learned from Ms Ada, and in her or his own way, pay it forward.

219 20150807 Pistachio Nut Swirl

Pay It Forward

Chris' cake January 2015

       The summer before Amanda started kindergarten, I quit the day care job so the girls and I could hang out together for a few months – who knew when we would have that luxury again? And after school began – this was August of 1992 – I started answering want ads and sending out resumes to find a lab job – which I finally got in April of '93.

       The birthday policy at MAS at the time was that every once in a while when the office manager got a craving for sweets, she would go to the grocery store and order a cake and have the names of everyone who had had a birthday since the last time she had gotten cake written on the top – and we would celebrate in the breakroom. Everyone did get a card on one's birthday – signed by everyone else and put into one's mailbox. It was nice to have birthdays acknowledged, but I got to thinking how special Ada's way of doing birthdays was and it didn't take that much more effort.

Nancy and Anthony and Honey Bun Cake February 2015

        A year after I started at MAS, the office manager's birthday was coming up, and I asked another admin if someone was doing something for the impending birthday? The admin said that she would purchase a cake this time, but she was dang well not going to do it and have everyone thinking it was her job to get cake for every birthday – not gonna happen. It was said with a lot of attitude. The memory of Ada again came to mind, and my mouth opened, and I said to the admin, “How about you get the cake for the office manager, and then give me a list of everyone else's birthdays, and I will do cake for one year.”

Paul with spice cake and caramel frosting

        She had the list to me by the end of the day.

        A one year commitment gave me an out if I found it to be too much for me to squeeze in to a hectic schedule – but at least I could try to be Miss Ada for one circling of the sun.

        That was about four hundred cakes ago.

Mike cutting his cake April 2015

        Everyone has told me how wonderful I am for being the cake lady. But they do not realize, they have no idea, that I am the taker here, not the giver. To be in control of the birthday cards that have somehow been so on the mark (honestly, the cards jump off the shelf at me and turn out to be perfect!), to be the one who has put the lights in the eyes when folks walk into the breakroom after cake has been announced, to have the privilege of passing on this Ada tradition – has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life!

        And I thank MAS so very much from the bottom of my heart - for allowing me this indulgence!

Epicureans all!

218 20150806 Pay it Forward