Going Back to School

Yesterday I read the children's book I wrote (and Husband so beautifully illustrated - if I don't say that, guess who will pout?) "The Crow and The Wind".

I read to the first grade in two different classes. May I say I haven't had that much fun in I don't know when!

I made sure each child had a book to hold, telling them if they took really good care of the book, I'd give them a little surprise at the end of class. Needless to say, the books came back as good as new. 

I loved watching them as I read. Their little heads were bowed, their pointer fingers following rapidly, underlining each word as I read it. 

After I finished the story, we went back to the front of the book and talked about some of the bigger words. (This is a middle school book, because of bigger words and symbolism) We talked about the significance of some of the pictures.

These kids asked some really intelligent questions. One little girl asked  how did we get the pages inside the book? I explained that a machine did it, not us. But it gave me the opportunity to talk about the process of creating a picture book. They  listened intently.

We talked about the reasons Crow has a tear on his face at one point in the story. You could tell how they identified with the boy in the story, and his goodness. You could see the alarm in their faces that the snake could have eaten Crow when he was a baby and had fallen from the nest. You could see them put themselves in the boy's place when he was saving Crow and putting  him back in the nest.

The last class thanked us, and wanted to give Husband pictures they  had drawn.

One little boy came up to me, solemn faced and said. "Thank you." I asked him did he want to write a story someday, and he said yes, but he couldn't write it yet. I said for him to keep using his imagination, and in a short time he could start writing them down. I told him I wasn't able to write a short story until I was in fifth grade, because it got easier for me to write down my ideas then. He nodded his head, as serious as ever. 

But the funniest thing that happened was at the end of the second class. I was handing out "The Crow and The Wind" bookmarks, (their surprise) for them to take home. For some reason, one of the bookmarks had my name and telephone number written on the back. The little girl to whom it was handed brought it back, a frown on her face.

I apologized and told her I'd swap it for a "clean" one. One of the little boys was watching and stepped up. Eagerly, he said he'd swap with her, he wanted that one.

Suddenly the one with my name and number became a hot item, and she decided to keep it.

As we chatted with the adults in the room before we left, a strange thing took place.

We looked at the suddenly quiet children. They all were at their tables, bookmarks turned over, each child carefully copying down my name and phone number on the back of their bookmarks. 

My brother suggested there would be a suspicious parent wanting to know what their child was doing with some stranger's name and number on the back of a bookmark.

 I imagined the GBI showing up with a Fox 5 camera behind them.

"Well, hey, Head of GBI," I would say, "Is your wife (my friend) with you? No? Um, say, what's the TV camera doing behind you?"

Well, that didn't happen.

I didn't get any phone calls either.

Maybe tonight. 

Let It Snow!

For two nights running I have dreamed that there was snow on the ground.

I figure the third time is the charm, and if I can swing a dream like that tonight, we might have snow in October.

It won't be the first time. I can remember snow in October many times throughout my life.

And don't start whining about it, you know even if we got a snow in October it would not be deep nor would it last.

One of the dire predictions around these here parts is we are gonna have a terrible winter because there are squirrels/bears/deer/turkey and everything else you can think of running amok amongst us in more numbers than anyone has ever seen.

What, are they doing last minute shopping at Wal-mart before they get snowed in?

I don't know why lots of them being seen would have anything to do with upcoming weather - but hey - I'll pass it along.

I'm more fer it than agin it.

I admit to having a skewed memory of excessively cold snowy winters. To me it was all about missing school, playing outside until I couldn't feel my feet, coming in, thawing out and going back out for more. And eating snow cream in between.

I wasn't the one laying in the snow putting chains on the tires, or laying in the middle of the living room floor covered in soot trying to unstop the chimney so the heater would work.

That would have been my cussin', tool slangin' daddy.

I don't know what Mother was doing, maybe in the kitchen making snow cream.

Of course I prefer my cold snowy winter with electricity in my house. It isn't as much fun when the power is out and we are camping out in the living room with a smelly generator roaring outside so we don't lose everything in the refrigerator/freezer and can flush the commodes.

For now, I don't want to look at the nasty realities of a hard winter. I want to dream and romanticize it.

Crackling fire, cozy quilt, good book and snow falling gently outside my window.

Let it snow!

Watch It Now, Watch It now! Here It Comes!

Yeah, right.

We have heard the weathermen cry wolf so many times, the next blizzard will catch us by surprise. We'll be out in the yard raking leaves in our bikinis and the bodies will be found come spring, when the 27 inches of snow melt.

Of course, tomorrow, the ice will really come. That's because my husband and I have tickets to the play, "Driving Miss Daisy" up in Blue Ridge. We are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary come the 28th of January, and thought this a good way to start up the celebration.

I love snow. I'm careful who I say that around, because rank strangers will either leap up and yell, "So do I!" and give you a bear hug. OR a rank stranger will give me the evil eye and  mutter curses under their breath.

I've always been told to never speak to a stranger, and I guess that's why.

My childhood was full of snow. Every winter we had some "good" snows, that being two inches or  more. I didn't have to walk up hill both ways in the snow to school, because they called school off.

I do remember in seventh grade it snowed so much and we missed so much school that we had to go to school on a Saturday. I was horrified. I kept waiting for some level-headed adult to say, "Sadly, we cannot do that. It is against the law."

At least we only had to go till noon that day.

Another winter, I think I was in third or fourth grade, the school superintendent called everybody who lived in town and asked for those children to walk to school the next day so it could count as a school day, as we had missed so much already.

There are downsides to living in a small town.

I went to school that day. It was so cold, those old radiators didn't work too well, so we sat in semi-circles around them with our coats and gloves on. I think the entire attendance of third and fourth grade fit in those two little semi-circles in one room. Mrs. Dover read stories to us all day.

Maybe it is childhood selective memory, but I have lots of them of snow in my childhood winters. Snow cream, snowball fights, snowmen, trying to figure out how you could go up the sidewalk to visit a friend without splattering yourself all over said sidewalk, because it was so slick where people had packed the snow down into a hard, solid surface.

I remember one snowy day our oil heater, which was the only heat in our big old house, stopped up. My Daddy was lying on the living room floor in his undershirt with his arm shoved up the stoves innards. He was covered in soot and his hair stood straight up. He was saying words that should be reserved for barrooms. I was trying not to laugh; valuing my life, and all.

It took days for our house to warm up after the heater started working because it was so cold. And of course, there was no such thing as insulation in the walls.

Beds had so many quilts on them, it was a concentrated effort to turn over during the night. And you didn't much want to, as you'd lose your warm spot if you weren't careful.

But I loved it. If ice comes I hope it brings snow too, not wimpy freezing rain. That's just dangerous and no fun. We'll stay home on our mountain, maybe build a fire in the fireplace. I've got flannel and wool and quilts and four cats.

Insulation, the old fashioned kind.