Okay, since one of my best buds, Cathy Jo Nelson, tagged me for this meme, I suppose I’ll take my best shot at it.

1) I’ve been engaged six times. Budge was my sixth fiancee’ and wears the third diamond ring I’ve purchased. Hers is hers alone. I didn’t try to recycle with her. That may be why we’ve lasted so long, going on 13 years as of this writing, while six of the seven other couples married the same year we were have already divorced.

2) I can’t swim AT ALL. Whoever said fat people can float well are either full of poop or they don’t know many fat people. I float like a ’59 Cadillac carrying six rhinos and a baby elephant. Since I can’t swim, I don’t particularly like water, the lone exception being rivers (ironic, isn’t it?), so when I have to attend pool parties or lake outings, I wear the loudest colored neon swim trunks imaginable. That way, when I go under for the third time, I’ll be easy to spot from the surface . . . I hope.

3) In my younger and wilder teenage years, I was involved in a couple of high speed chases in Marilyn, my ’69 Super Sport Chevelle complete with a 396 ci big block engine. One time, I thought I’d gotten away scott free only to sneak home and find the trooper in the front yard waiting for me. He was my mom’s second cousin and knew my car as soon as I went by him at, well, at pretty high speeds. He didn’t even bother chasing me; he just went home and told Mama and the two of them waited for me to get home. One look at how Mama looked at me and he didn’t even write me a ticket, even though I asked him to take me to jail. It’d have been better than what Mama had in store.

4) I was the final recipient of the “Silver Flounder” trophy after my freshman wrestling season. This award was given to the worst wrestler on the varsity team and, believe me, I was the worst wrestler on the team. My record was 1-24 and the lone win was by forfeit because my opponent-to-be tripped getting off the team bus and knocked himself out on the pavement. Other than that, my “best” match was getting pinned in 45 seconds. Most of the time, I didn’t make it past 25 seconds.

5) I have a ginormous indented scar on the outside of my left thigh where a piece of wooden jeep bumper went through my car door and into my leg down to the bone. I was on the way to visit my grandparents when I ran a red light in my ’79 Mustang. My thought process was interesting, but much too involved for such a short blog post.

6) I once rolled my own arm up in the electric window of my wife’s car. She was standing outside the driver’s side door talking to me and anyone who knows me knows I talk mostly with my hands. So I had one arm out the window and was rolling the electric window up with the opposite hand until I realized that I’d pinched my upper arm in the rising window. It was bad enough that I had a red welt all the way around my left arm. Budge maintains it is the dumbest thing she has ever seen me do.

7) I am an ice cream addict. I’ve managed to give up my other, multitudinous vices, most of which wouldn’t do to elaborate on in a family oriented blog, but I’ve not quite managed to kick the ice cream monkey off my back. People ask me what my favorite flavor is, but that’s an impossible question. No such thing as “bad” ice cream exists. ANY ice cream is better than NO ice cream 🙂 Budge knows of the other vices I’ve managed to overcome, some with her help, so she indulges my ice cream habit.

So, there’s seven things you probably could have led a wonderful and fulfilling life without knowing. Let’s see, Cathy Jo has already tagged most of the people I know, so I’ll tap three people and, actually, only one of them knows I exist. Picachu I choose Doug Johnson, the Blue Skunk; Scott McCleod, of Dangerously Irrelevant; and Rob Darrow, of California Dreamin‘. Now, I know Doug is spending the week South of the Border like a good Minnesotan should so he’ll probably get this late. Hopefully, the other two will have something set up that alerts them that they are now “it.”

Well, I hope right now you are either enjoying or recovering from enjoying the celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth around 2008 to 2011 years ago. I shy away from religious discussions like the plague because, regardless of my reputation, that is one sensitive area I prefer not to insult or challenge people with. All I’ll say on the matter is regardless if you are atheist, agnostic, or true believer in something, one could do much worse than trying to build a life around the teachings of the humble carpenter from Galilee. My only wish is that more of the world believed his message of peace, if not his path of salvation.

It’s been a good holiday season here in the grocery store world 🙂 We got the library closed down and cleaned up in time to leave at a decent hour last Friday. Budge and I have been to three wonderful Christmas parties thrown by the various important people in our lives, and last night Mama had the annual Christmas Eve gathering at her house. It was a bit more poignant this year. When Mama started the tradition fifteen years ago, we would stuff nearly thirty-five people into the house. This year, however, we have dwindled down to ten. The rest we have sent on before us into whatever lies beyond.

In just a bit, we are on our way to Budge’s family dinner and then we’ll finish our Christmas obligations for this year at my daddy’s house for supper. Hopefully everyone will be in a good mood and the day will go smoothly, but experience has taught me that this is not guaranteed.

In any event, wherever you are, Merry Christmas from Budge and me. Thank you for reading this modest little blog for the last few months and I hope the new year brings with it all the joy and promise you could ever hope for.

And of course, since this IS Christmas, wash your feet, y’all.

Love to you all, peace on Earth 🙂

This post arises from a meme, Paul C at Quoteflections “respectfully” began this meme: Life is One Big Top Ten (2008). Doug Johnson and Cathy Jo turned me on to it, so I had to come up with something of my own. I picked mysteries. I am facinated by what cannot be explained and the following is a list of what interests me most, in no certain order.

I’ve added a link for each, but the links are by no means exhaustive. Enjoy and debate if you will. I love this stuff and half the time, I can’t tell you what I believe about them from day to day.

The 1908 Tunguska Event. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/04/tunguska.anniversary/index.html

The Nazca Lines http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html

Coral Castle http://www.coralcastle.com/

Crystal Skulls http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_6_1.htm

Ark of the Covenant http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ark.html

Cryptids http://www.cryptozoology.com

Easter Island http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/rapanui.html

Roswell Incident http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/roswell.htm

Supernatural Entities http://library.thinkquest.org/27661/docs/supern2.htm

The Marianas Trench http://www.marianatrench.com

Wait’n on a train and that train may be about to hit us square in the mouth.

That train has a name and it ain’t “The City of New Orleans” or “The Orange Blossom Special.” It’s a freight train of budget cuts, recession, and assorted other economic woe. It’s headed this way and it’s moving at express speeds.

So, in light of this coming misery, I’ve got another one of those nasty questions for y’all to ponder, namely, how likely is your program to go under? Think about it very rationally and dispassionately for a moment. Throw all the studies out the window. Get your nose out of Information Power for a minute and go over to Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog and read the memo he just had to send out to his constituents.  If that doesn’t chill you with a Minnesota blue norther, check out Rob Darrow at California Dreamin’ and see that the Left Coast libraries aren’t faring much better than the Midwest or the South.

I don’t care if the pundits on Wall Street don’t have the guts to say it . . . I do. We’ve passed “economic slowdown” and are firmly in a recession and if things don’t get better pretty fast, well, I’ve always loved the stories Papa and Granny told about the 1930’s. Looks like I may end up with some of my own. Take a look around, folks. As my beloved Waylon Jennings used to put it, “This here outlaw bit has done got out of hand.” Read this article from the Associated Press about the latest on the government bailout of the banks. Over $700 BILLION of our money is going to try to act like Liquid Plumber and unstop the credit clog that has effectively shut down our economy. I may not be popular for saying so, but I’m all for it because if we have many more crashes like WAMU or Wachovia, well . . . I don’t know what’ll happen, but it sure won’t be good.

Oh yeah, now there’s this little matter of the Big Three car manufacturers asking for a bailout as well or they are going to have to file bankruptcy and most likely go under themselves. That is going to draw another massive amount of money — I’ve seen figures from $8 billion all the way to $25 billion. Should the government refuse to bail Detroit out this time, the recently released 6.7% unemployment figures for November will be a pleasant memory.

So what does all of this mean to us in libraries, especially school libraries? Simple. When the well runs dry them what depends most on the water dies first. I’m already hearing reports from colleagues in other parts of my home state that funds have been frozen. One librarian posted on our state association’s listserv that, “I’m not planning on being able to buy ANY books this year.” The district where my wife works (incidentally one of the richest in this state) has suspended all travel and professional development conferences indefinitely. Budge and I always attended our state technology conference together as sort of a working vacation, but not this year. I’m lucky our state’s association conference is near enough for me to drive to every day so I can stay home or I wouldn’t be going to it.

I know lots of you are in the same boats. What are your plans? Like I said before, look hard at your program. Can you justify it? Can you even justify your job position in the face of massive budget cuts across many boards? (Our state funds were slashed 3% at the beginning of the year and then by 3% more six weeks later.) Put yourself in an administrator’s shoes for a bit. The DO has been informed by the state DOE that X% of funds are GONE. Since poop has always flowed downhill, the DO goes to the principals with the message, “cut deep and cut now then plan on cutting more soon.” How safe are you in your library office? Can you REALLY put together something for your principal or school board that will sway them enough to keep you in business when every dime counts double?

Let’s face it, huge chunks of our jobs that the public sees can be done by someone else for cheaper. We don’t want to admit it because that’s just the way we are, but lean times have a way of punishing the type of hubris I’ve seen in many of my colleagues. Aides can open and close the library and check out and shelve books. A computer lab monitor can take care of the lab and, whether we like it or not, the teachers can teach research and information skills. I know I taught all the facets of the research process in my ten years as an English teacher. I had to because my school’s librarian was a Library Dragon who seemed appalled by the sight of children near “her books”.

Answer this question HONESTLY, brutally honestly, What do you do in your position that, given the present economic circumstances, NO ONE ELSE in the building can do? What makes you INDISPENSABLE? Don’t even bother saying something like collection development because if the district and the state are broke, nothing is going to be available to develop a collection with. Face it, our specialties are not tested on NCLB high stakes tests so in these lean times, our programs are dangerously close to being considered very expensive luxury liabilities.  Say I am a traitor to our profession. Call me a rank pessimist if you wish. Just remember that pessimists are very seldom blindsided since we always expect the worst.

Speaking of “the worst”. Let’s talk “Worst Case Scenario.” Your principal comes to you and says, “Ms. Smith (or Mr. Jones), I’m sorry, but we can’t afford a full time librarian next year. The budget cuts are just too much. Your aide will run the day to day library next year. Since you have so many years of service, we’d like to offer you a position back in the classroom. You’ll be teaching _____ next year.”

What do you do? I’d collapse into the fetal position and cry since one reason (far from the only and definitely not the most important reason) I became a librarian was to leave the classroom and still be able to help children and students. I haven’t had to deal with testing pressure and the daily grind of grading essays, checking homework, and lecturing and planning three ninety minute blocks of instruction in four years. To have to go back to that would be, for me, horrible to contemplate. Of course, I wouldn’t have a choice since I’ve grown accustomed to running water, inside toilets, and hot food. I certainly wouldn’t like it. It would be an emotional blow. How about you? Could you stand losing your office, your position, your program? If you don’t think you can, you’d better find a way TONIGHT to make yourself and your program so valuable AND so COST EFFECTIVE that you can weather the storm when the budget axe starts to fall. Otherwise, it could be a long road ahead.

Wash your feet while you’ve still got a tub to wash them in, y’all.

I submit to you a simple question . . . is any other profession in the world as rife with frustration as being an educator of any stripe? Do lawyers and doctors ever want to go home and bash their own foreheads repeatedly with an aluminum baseball bat? Do clerical workers or truck drivers go into paroxsyms of despair at the sight of a certain name on an email or a caller ID screen? Most of all, does any other profession’s accomplishments and standards of excellence depend so much on THINGS COMPLETELY BEYOND THEIR CONTROL!!!!

I spent six hours yesterday with an auditor from the state department of education counting the textbooks in my building. I recommend this experience to everyone! It is slightly less invasive than a routine pelvic exam and about as pleasant as a colonoscopy performed with a six D-cell MagLite and a 25′ garden hose with sprayer nozzle. Come to think of it, when she finished totaling up the deficits in our textbook inventory, I actually felt as if the aforementioned sprayer nozzle might have come unthreaded and been left behind.

It wasn’t so much the audit itself or even its unfortunate outcome that frustrated me the most. What basically burned my biscuits and bacon was the assumption that keeping up with every single textbook was “easy” so long as we “insisted on holding the students accountable for their actions.” This from a person who has neither taught in a classroom . . . ever . . . nor had any children of her own to raise. It was the kind of well-meant but slightly clueless remark that hits me right at the coccyx and runs in a cold electrical frenzy up my spinal column to sink its frozen fingers of condescending smarminess right into the core of my medulla oblongata and in the process awakens all those sleeping dwarves of primitive rage that reside therein. However, my new-mommy-to-be AP had asked me to be very nice, so I blinked the dwarves back into a managable state of impotent inquietude and breathed long and deep before I replied.

In the course of our conversation, she had expressed a desire to be an accountant so after I’d calmed myself considerably I interrogated her opinions along those lines by way of analogy. “Ma’am,” I said, “suppose you were a first class accountant in a nice office. Then suppose one day the head of the firm came in to your corner office and said that you were going to be in charge of a new, very important account. You’d be psyched, correct?” She nodded and I continued, “Now, imagine that your boss then told you that your performance would be judged by how well the three accountants working on the project with you performed. Oh, and you can’t pick your team and the ones the client has picked for you are the three worst accountants in the history of accounting. But YOUR JOB depends on their performance.”

She looked puzzled so I went on, “One of the accountants is a reckless gambler and a night owl. He sleeps when he should be working and is always preoccupied with what he’s got planned tonight. The second member of your team doesn’t show up much so you don’t know about him. Strangely though, he always manages to stumble in on the day of the big presentation just so he can take part in something he knows nothing about. Finally, your third colleague’s wife has cancer and his house is being foreclosed on. Now, do you have a good mental picture?” She smirked and said she did so I finished up my parable with, “You can guide these three. You can choose when and where y’all meet to work on the project and total the figures, but you can’t actually write anything down. They have to do all the work. You can’t fire them, you can’t cut their pay, you can’t reduce the number of breaks they get or increase the hours they work. All you can do is try to help them so you can try to look good to YOUR boss. If they screw up the account, they keep their jobs and move on to work for the next project manager, but you get FIRED. Would you say that type of accountability is EASY?”

She just shrugged so I gave up. It’s not her fault. She’s just doing her job and with the present climate of budget cuts in my state, it’s a job she may not have much longer. But her reaction is telling in so many ways. People outside of education seem to think we have it made and our jobs are soooo easy — especially with those THREE WHOLE MONTHS OFF in the summer! What they don’t realize is those three months are the reason anyone with an iota of sense teaches or librarians or does anything else in education. How many times have you heard a coworker say or maybe you’ve even said it yourself “Come June, I’m done. I’m going to do SOMETHING else because this was the worst year I’ve ever had!!” See, that three (more like two) month vacation gives our brains time to forget the horrors of the previous year just enough so that we don’t all quit before the middle of August rolls around and we think, “Aw, it wasn’t so bad I guess. Besides, what else would I do? I’m a teacher,” and we come on back for another round of “Once more into the breach.”

Nothing about being an educator is EASY, least of all accountability in anything. Take those textbooks. Okay, you know little Johnny is a high risk of losing or damaging beyond recognition that brand newly adopted $65.92 math book. If that textbook gets gone, that nice auditor lady is going to charge your school $65.92. BUT, the law says Johnny has to have a book even though the prospect of him doing any real work in that book is slim to none and slim is leaving town at sundown. So you give him a book and he promptly loses it. What do you do? Charge him of course. If he doesn’t pay? What then? We cannot legally hold his records or prevent him from moving to the next school or grade. Mama says she doesn’t have the money for the book. Take away a privilege? Well, we can try, but Johnny isn’t very involved in much of anything the school has to offer so he’s not likely to care what you take away. Detention? No recess til the money’s paid? The legal waters get murky there as well. In the end we all know what’s going to happen, you eat the cost of the lost book and $65.92 that could have gone in the library collection goes to the state department.

Is it just me or do parents who don’t have the money for books or gas to come to parent conferences always seem to have the money to keep a lawyer on retainer to sue the school district? THAT’S the kind of frustration I’m talking about. We can’t make our student learn, we can’t make them care, we can’t give them lives good enough so they would WANT to care . . . and yet our salary, our careers, our promotions, and, let’s face it whether we want to admit it or not, a great chunk of our self-esteem rides on and depends on those students learning and caring and passing a test that is totally irrelevant to their lives at present. Then, to make matters worse, we get gigged by people telling us how easy our jobs are as long as everyone is accountable. Frustration.

It’s enough to make a body not want to wash his feet forever!

Well, for reasons I’m not totally clear on myself, I got the urge to go out and check on some of the bargains in yesterday’s paper. So about noon today, I saddled up the Element and headed out. That was a stupid idea.

I stopped at Staples and picked up a digital frame and that went easily enough. The store was busy but not full. Once I finished there, I went to PetSmart. Again, not too bad. Busy and more crowded than Staples, but not packed. Still, I was feeling a little faint. Normally, I don’t go out in big crowds or traffic alone. Budge almost always goes with me and as long as she’s with me, I do fine . . . sort of.

This would be a good time to tell y’all that I suffer from recurring panic attacks and some pretty nasty claustrophobia, to the point that even crowds can trigger an attack. Right now, I was doing okay. I was looking for a new tank for Comet, our five year old painted turtle. Unfortunately, my mind started getting a little “spinny” so I figured it’d be a bad idea to try getting what I needed right then because I’d ended up spending too much. So I headed for the next stop . . . Best Buy.

Now THAT was a real genius move for a claustrophobic panic attack sufferer. I finally found a parking place after a white knuckle drive of one hundred yards. Walking into the store was like wading through a river. The temperature inside had to be over 90 degrees. Budge wanted a new pen drive so I steeled myself and swam back to computers. I couldn’t go three steps without bumping into someone. I felt like a pinball.

Well, I found the pen drive she wanted and tried to find me a case for my iPod and a few DVDs that Budge mentioned wanting for Christmas. I couldn’t. Too many people. Thought my heart would beat out of my chest. Yep. Full blown panic attack city.

I sucked it up and went to the checkout line. That’s where I almost gave up and fled. Everyone was bellybutton to behind for three laps around the checkout stands. I felt nauseated, lightheaded, and really clammy, but I kept on. It was the longest fifteen minutes of the day. The most excruciating part was the final turn where I was backed into a corner, no air, and no windows. Again, I almost broke and ran, but I finally got through and hustled out to the Element.

I’ve never been so happy to get home in my life. I fixed a bowl of soup tonight rather than go out into traffic again. Budge will be home tomorrow evening and we may go get some shopping done. Until then, no way am I venturing out. I’m going to do my shopping online!

Well, it’s about time for me to turn in. Budge just called from my brother-in-law’s house where she helped put our brand new nephew (born Monday) to bed. I’ve been batching it for the last two days, which is a scary thought, but someone has to take care of the fuzzy babies.

In any event, I wanted to take the time to give thanks to everyone who reads B,B,&GSF . . . all 3 of you 🙂

I’m also thankful for the usual things that too many of us take for granted like family, friends, and freedom. It’s good to be a librarian in this country. I’m thankful for Budge, Mama, my brothers, and the rest of my family. I ate Thanksgiving dinner with Mama and Pa tonight and the crowd around the table has thinned considerably over the last few years, but I’m thankful for the presence of those who I still have with me and I’m thankful for the legacy and love of those who have begun their journey to the great unknown. This old life of mine has endured its share of ups and downs, but taken as a whole . . . well, as the movie says, it’s a wonderful life (not that I’ve had another life to compare it to, but hey.)

So now I and the fuzzies will head off to bed, probably to awaken early enough to ride out and see the insanity at the local shopping centers. I just go for the fun of watching. No sale is good enough for me to brave those hardcore shoppers who have camped out all night. One thing I missed about Budge not being home with me today was we didn’t get to ride by the nearest Best Buy and look at all the fools, um, hardy shoppers camping out in the cold to get one of the two cheap computers on sale 🙂

In any event, the holiday season is upon us and here’s wishing each and every one of you a happy holiday season, whatever holiday you may celebrate. Love y’all, and remember . . . wash your feet :)!

True story from today.

Okay, so I’ve never had an author visit my school, either as a librarian or as a teacher. Now two years ago, we had Mrs. Marion Blumenthal Lazan, a renowned Holocaust survivor, visit the school and speak to our parents and our students, but even though she did publish her memoir, Four Perfect Pebbles, with the assistance of author Lila Perl, Mrs. Lazan does not consider herself an author. She is a repository of memory and, incidentally, one of the most precious ladies I have ever met, but I digress, as usual.

As I said, never had a bona fide author come to a school where I taught or librarianed. I figured I would attempt to change that this year and so I cast about for who to invite, or rather try to invite. Well, my wife is a huge Twilight fan, my principal is a Twilight mom, and well over half the girls in my school are little rabid Twilight groupies. [Just to throw in a little factoid here, I am relatively certain I could stock less than twenty titles in my library and please over ninety percent of my clientele provided fifteen of the titles were the Bluford High Series from Townsend Press and the other four were the four Twilight novels.] Anyway, with being surrounded by all these Twilight people I figured, “ahh, what the hey, I’ll call and see if Stephanie Meyer will come speak to us.”

Now, I’m not insane or stupid. I do happen to know that she has a MAJOR movie premiere tomorrow night at midnight and personally, I’d love to go to the midnight showing at our local theater just to see who and what shows up. Midnight showings are what my right hand Chris calls “exquisite movie going experiences.” I mean, I attended the midnight showings of all three Lord of the Ring movies and I saw elves, orcs, and at least two Nazgul at each one, and let’s not even talk about the three Star Wars prequels Budge and I scoped out together. Grown men as Darth Vader and Stormtroopers, anyone?

Anyway, so Stephanie Meyer has the movie event of the fall if not the year on Friday, she’s authored the most wildly successful series since another certain seven book series I won’t mention, and she’s rolling with celebrities and possibly even royalty. But hey, Daddy always said, “Son, if you’re going to bother to dream, you might as well dream really big.” I didn’t have anything to lose by calling. So I looked up some contact info on her publisher and gave them a call. As soon as the nice lady on the other end of the phone recovered her composure at my audacious request, she graciously informed me that Ms. Meyer is on sabbatical from the speaking circuit for the foreseeable future. Well, I was bummed but not totally surprised. I hadn’t told anyone else of this flight of fantasy because I wanted it to be a surprise.

So, I was sitting at my desk scratching my head and generally feeling sorry for myself. Looking for a bit of sympathy I leaned back and spoke across the office aisle to our school tech coach and Chris about my failure. At the same time, one of my little Whamsters was cutting out some display pictures right in the path of our conversation. When she heard of my thwarted plan, she turned to me and, putting one hand on her hip, said with that utmost confidence that only a sixth grade can possess, “Well, duh, Mr. Wham, she has a mo-vie coming out Friday and she’s only like the richest writer in the country. She’s not going to come here! We could never afford to get her here!”

Well, I thought, “Out of the mouths of babes springs forth wisdom.” So I asked my ertwhile aide who she would suggest that I call up and try to get to come speak to us. Who did she think the students would appreciate seeing? Again with the hand on hip, again with the el supremeo confidence, this time with an added extra air of authority, she says,

“Well, if it was me, I’d call J.K. Rowling and have her come speak! She’d be great.”

If you go to see Twilight at the midnight showing, don’t forget your garlic and crucifixes (yes, I know her vampires aren’t bothered by those . . . I’m not totally obtuse), but most of all, don’t forget to wash your feet, y’all 🙂

What is a Whamster?

My first year as a librarian, my assistant left less than halfway through first semester with a torn rotator cuff in her shoulder. I was by myself in a midsized middle school and I’d never been in a middle school before. I also had never been a librarian before. I was pretty clueless myself and needing help to do heavy lifting, massive shelving, gathering textbooks. I was learning everything from scratch and generally making it up as I went along. In that fashion, I muddled through fairly well (although some teachers who remember that first year might have a different opinion) until late April. Then it was time for textbooks to be returned. Okay, this was a huge hairy bearish deal. I had to pick up the textbooks from all the teachers, get the textbooks checked in, and, worst of all, get all those books down three flights of stairs to the “dungeon” — our basement textbook storage room. Also, the whole time this was to take place, I still had classes coming in to check out books and do year end research projects. I had NO ideas on how to get it all done alone.

That was about the time a young boy named Tim and a young girl named Summer showed up in the library bored, finished with a test one day, and wanting to help me. They were regulars in the library already and I knew them to be pretty reliable, so I gladly accepted their offer. The rest became the stuff of legends and spawned a continuing tradition. Every spare minute they could find or weasel out of their teachers, they spent in the library helping me. The two of them worked harder than a couple of galley slaves from that scene in “Ben Hur.” I never could possibly have imagined two eighth graders could do all that they did, lots of times without me directly supervising. Still, even though I wasn’t always right over their shoulders, the two of them didn’t mess up a book the first time. They got all sixty-three blue gagillion textbooks checked in, CLEANED out (I didn’t even ask them to do that), sorted, ordered, and put away in the Dungeon in two short weeks. In all that time and during all those unsupervised trips, I never once had a teacher complain to me about their behavior.

Well, while they were schlepping carts up and down the halls and toting stacks of books up and down steps, they got noticed a good bit. I called them my library helpers, but one of my ELA Goddesses (we had an all female ELA faculty that year) started calling the two of them “Mr. Wham’s Whamsters” and the name just stuck. They also helped me do inventory and get the shelves straightened up for the next year. Unfortunately, they both were eighth graders, so I lost them after one year. I missed the two of them mightily . . . still do. Tim used to stop by on his bike every now and then to check in a load of books “just for old times’ sake” but then he discovered all young mens’ first love — a car — and I don’t see him so much anymore.

Luckily, the next year, I got Chris as my assistant and Lord knows he was (and is) amazing to say the least. Still, we discovered that textbooks were still a bear for just two people. Then, a few students showed up and just like Tim and Summer, they threw in to help out at a time when I really needed help. I called them “My Whamsters” whenever I sent an email about getting books back and once again, they did yeoman’s work getting the textbooks back and put to bed for the summer.

So a Whamster is someone who has helped me in the library, not as a library helper or as part of a class, but out of the kindness of their hearts and a desire to do something for someone else. I’ve had many Whamsters over the years and I couldn’t get all the things I need done if I didn’t have them. They’ve always shown up, just in time, when the work needed doing.

Well, last year, I missed about six weeks with an ailment and Chris had the library to himself. Just like I was that first year, he was overwhelmed. Now, he hit upon the idea of recruiting Whamsters, which was something I’d never considered. By the time I got back on my feet and back to school, he had a force of about six or seven students running the library like a well-oiled machine. These youngsters changed the announcements on the computer scroll, shelved books, cleaned computers, read shelves . . . they were little junior librarians. I told Chris I should just go on back to bed and let him and the Whamsters run the place.

He didn’t think that was funny.

So this year, he and I actively recruited a group of students for the first time. I sent out “try out” letters and about forty five students took the time to fill out the application packet, answer a short test, and talk to me or Chris for a bit about why they wanted to work in the library. At the mention of “work” about half the applicants fled like scalded cats. The rest stuck around and we selected seventeen of them to be this year’s Whamster Corp.

Looks like we’ve got some great ones in this bunch as well. One tremendously welcome addition was our seven sixth graders. They’ve been extremely enthusiastic about coming in before school and at lunch to help with the library chores. With a little luck, maybe I can hang on to them all three years!

So, my Whamsters are part library helpers and part library mascots. Looking back, I don’t know how I’d have made it without their willing help over the years. My only hope is that I’ve been a good role model for them and that they have good memories of the library. With any luck, maybe the seeds of future librarianism have been planted in one or two of them and they can carry on the Whamster tradition in their libraries. I can only hope . . . and try to keep my feet washed! 🙂

Today is Veterans’ Day.  This day is set aside to honor those who have given their time and their service to protecting and defending their country. Some have given more than that . . . they have given their limbs, their eyes, their peace of mind. Some have given what President Abraham Lincoln called, “The last full measure of devotion,” their very lives. Today our men and women in arms are fighting shooting wars in two countries and those wars are not popular among all people. If you disagree with our country’s reasons for fighting these wars, in fact, if you disagree with anything the government of the United States of America does, that is your right. I have watched several videos on that greatest and most reliable of networks, YouTube.com, where men and women have shown catagorical disdain for this country, our government, our leaders, our flag, and those of us who they term “flag-waving patriots.” Once again, this is their right. I am compelled to remind each and every one of you — Democrat, Republican,  Independent or Other; Gay or Straight; Black, White, Red, Yellow, Tan, or Multicultural; Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, or Other — ALL of you owe your right and freedom to disagree as well as every other right you have and freedom you enjoy to the men and women of the armed forces past, present, and future.

If you disagree with the wars they fight, that is your right, but please — I beg you — please do not allow your distaste for why they fight to discolor your opinion of who they are and the service they give. They did not choose their wars, but they chose to serve and they deserve our respect and honor for that reason if for no other.

My school honored our veterans with a beautiful ceremony earlier today and as part of that ceremony the winners of an essay contest about “Why Veterans Should Be Honored” read their essays before the assemble student body and guests, guests that included several veterans. Many of those present and I were touched by the sincerity and the power of their words. I have obtained their permission to reprint their essays here each in its entirety. The essays are verbatim and uncorrected and I think they are amazing.

The Sacrifice We Should Honor by Rachel L. 7th Grade

“Huge flags billow slowly, their huge folds settling on the air, half-heartedly riding the wind before falling back on the pole that holds them. They stand sentinel over thousands of white crosses, watching over the ones at peace that are below them. But why are they there? The answer lies in the cloth of the red, white, and blue flag. It stands for the freedom the individuals who lie below them won. The ones who are alive know this; the ones who survived the terrible bloodshed understand this well.

‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ John Kennedy spoke these words that have rung throughout history, stirring emotions in everyone. Soldiers especially take these words to heart. Freedom is what they fight for and they ignore their own safety as they struggle onwards towards the goal of peace and justice for all. Their patriotism is touching and inspiring to all who do not take this freedom we are blessed with for granted.

We should honor these soldiers, and those who survive to come back home. America is built on their blood, sweat, and tears. Without our veterans, America would have collapsed long ago. Veterans are the warriors that have carried the burden of America on their backs.

Although some veterans might not be physically hurt, their minds bear burning scars that haunt them the rest of their lives. Still others are physically wounded, with missing limbs or terrible wounds caused by shrapnel and bullets. They they have to live out their lives, with a disfigurement to remind them of the price they paid to preserve the freedom of the country they live in. We need to take special care of these people who have seen the horrors of war.

Too many people in our country complain about unimportant things, while soldiers overseas are dying to give them that freedom to complain. The very people they fight for often ignore the ones who come home, the veterans. We should honor these men and women who so openly throw themselves in combat to protect our freedom and our lives. Think about it. You never know if the person you see on the street or in a hospital is a veteran that saved your life.”

Why Veterans Should Be Honored by Rachel K., 8th Grade

Veterans are much more than just citizens of America. They are national heroes of America. Veterans sacrifice everything to fight for our freedom and safety. They care so much about us that they are willing to fight for their country.

Veterans should be honored because they sacrifice their lives for us. These soldiers are brave and strong enough to enter territories in which the conditions are beyond our imaginations. The men and women of the army are prepared to die for their country on behalf of freedom.

Veterans should be honored because they are forced to leave their families behind. A family soldier could have died in the war with their family clueless. Some soldiers are afraid that everything will have been changed by the time they make it back. This is one of the most tragic reasons.

We should honor veterans because of the terrifying and heroic experiences they have had. Some soldiers were captured and held captive for over five years. They have suffered major injuries, abuse, starvation, and many have died. These are only a few things that veterans could have suffered from during captivation. Only the bravest people are willing to go through these harsh obstacles for our country.

Veterans cared enough about each citizen in the United States to go to war and try to make peace. Soldiers have embraced their ability to serve and to honor. They work hard enough to try to make our country the best and safest it can be. How would you like to have been a great hero for your country, and not be recognized? Veterans only ask for remembrance, is that so hard to give them?

I hope that every American citizen will honor and appreciate every veteran with the highest and up-most respect that they can offer. These soldiers deserve all of the honor and remembrance that we, as Americans, are able to give.

I appreciate these two young peoples’ sentiments. I’ve known some to say that we shouldn’t fight. I agree that we shouldn’t always fight, but sometimes . . . well sometimes the only way to get people, especially bullies, dictators, and tyrants to listen is to fight. Always, ALWAYS remember that it is not the soldier, sailor, or marine’s decision who, what, when, or where he or she fights. Anytime lives are on the line, disagreement will follow. Some of you might even be interested to know that, even after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the vote to declare war on Japan was not unanimous.

What I’m saying is not every threat to our country is as real, as obvious, in the public mind as the Kaiser’s Germany or Hitler’s Nazis or Tojo’s Japan. No matter the threat, however, our men and women in uniform go to meet it. Each and every one of them swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against ALL enemies” They do not have the luxury of deciding who that enemy is. So please take time today to say thank you to veterans you may know because you need to remember, “if you can read this blog, thank a teacher and if you are FREE to read this blog, thank a veteran.”

Wash your feet y’all 🙂

Semper Fidelis