Where Have All the Heroes Gone?

I have looked the word friend up in the dictionary to find all the forms of the word. There is: friend, friendly, friendlier, friendliest, and unfriendly. Friend is a noun and an adjective but unlike love it is not a verb. You cannot friend someone, therefore, you cannot defriend someone.

There is a reason that friend is not a verb because once one becomes a friend there is no turning back. A spouse can be divorced, but a friend cannot be unfriended. Remember that friend in high school? The one that stole your only true love? That you were sure you hated? Some years later you run into them at the mall, you have a "friendly" conversation, and later the person with you asks, "Who was that?" You reply, "Just an old friend."

You DON'T reply, "Her? Oh, we were once best friends, but she stole my one true love, and I have hated her ever since. I defriended her back in high school!"

I have a friend, Colleen, that I team taught with for many years. I have always said that one needs to choose a team teacher as carefully as they choose a husband or even more carefully, as carefully as they choose a friend. Colleen and I worked well together because we were and still are such good friends. Don't get me wrong we had some doozies of fights. We fought over students, philosophies, and much more. The arguments were usually resolved, and the ones that weren't we overlooked and went on. A few years ago, Colleen moved to Arkansas. When someone would ask if I was planning on team teaching with someone else, I would look at them like they just asked a recent divorcee if she were going to remarry and say emphatically, "No!"

The only intelligent thing I have heard Dr. Phil say is "There needs to be a hero in every relationship." I think Colleen was the hero in our relationship. She overlooked a lot of offenses. If you talked to Colleen, she might say that I had my hero moments. I try to be the hero in my relationships. I am usually the first to apologize or quick shut up.

I recently insulted a dear friend (No, not Cathy-open-mouth-insert-foot-Cunningham). In the process of trying to apologize, I insulted them again (No, not Cathy-open-mouth-insert-other-foot-Cunningham). I have officially been defriended. It wasn't one of those things where someone doesn't call as often, or you just kind of stop doing things together, or their posts on Facebook mysteriously disappear, nope, I was told that this person is no longer comfortable calling me friend. That was it! So long! Adios! Bye-bye! Which is bad for me for many reasons, one being I don't have that many friends.

I am not writing this to try to apologize, poorly, one more time. The friend I insulted isn't a follower. I just want to remind people to "be the hero"! Don't forget to remind someone how much you love them or how important they are to you. Don't forget to bring flowers home everyone once in a while for no reason. Know when to shut up. Say thank you. Be the first to say I am sorry. Remember to forgive and forget.

Paco's Perspective

Hmmmmm, and you wonder why I don't like you.

The Flip Side

I like the treats. I like my bed. I like that lady that rolls on the floor with me.I am starting to like that bossy dog with the accent. I didn't like the shots, and you ran over my foot today. We can't be friends, yet.

Stand Up For Wrangler Butts

In my younger days I have spent many hours in country western bars. My father taught my sister, Caren, to dance. Caren is very competitive, so she has to be the best at everything this includes dancing. Well, to become the best one must practice, therefore I have spent a tremendous amount of time in country bars watching Caren dance.

If one went to a country western bar, one needed to be mindful of the "uniform":Men-tight Wrangler jeans, roper boots, shirts tucked in, belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. (The size of the buckle, the size of one's hand and so forth) Women-tight Rockies, ropers, shirts tucked in, belt buckle much smaller than men's belt buckles. If one chose not to wear the uniform, one was open to ridicule.

Because I am in a wheelchair, I am at a certain eye level that emphasizes my ability to view the Wrangler butt. I appreciate the Wrangler butt. A pair of tight Wranglers can even make a buttless man have a butt. Over the years, I became quite an aficionado of the "Wrangler butt".

It has been a long time since I have been to a country western bar. When I stopped driving I stopped going places. I stopped driving over twenty years ago which stopped my pleasurable journeys to The Land of the Wrangler Butts! I had to give up a lot of things when I stopped driving, but I think the loss of the observation cycle of the Wrangler butt was one of the top ten losses.

I was asked to go to a country western bar with some friends the other evening. I was looking forward to parking myself in my "regular" viewing spot; next to the dance floor where many a butt passes by throughout the evening. Much to my chagrin there were very few Wrangler butts! Oh, there were butts, but not Wrangler butts, and very few people were following the uniform code! Baggie jeans and flipflops?! Shorts! Untucked shirts and tennies?! Who let this happen and why?

Ladies, we must take a stand! There is nothing attractive about baggie jeans. The buttcrack and underwear view is very offensive. Ladies, stand up for your right to see a cute arse in a pair of tight jeans. Ladies, step outside and shout, "We're not gonna take it! We're not gonna take it! We're not gonna take it any more!" Okay sing it, if you want. Stand Up for Wrangler Butts!

Paco's Perspective

You have made me wear some really ridiculous stuff, but never a pair of tight Wrangler jeans. I could be jor leetle vaquero!

Hide-and-Go-Seek Mishap

I have a tendency to get in some tricky predicaments with my wheelchair. Sometimes I don't realize what my chair can't do, or I'll forget I am in my chair. For example, I have bent over to fix my shoe while still driving and rammed my head in a wall. I think my wheelchair can fit in and go places it can't. For example, I have been on hiking trails that have signs posted that say, "Not suitable for wheelchairs", and the sign makers are right they aren't. Another time I got stuck while playing hide-and-go-seek. I am embarrassed to say it didn't happen when I was a young child. This summer I got stuck while playing hide-and-go-seek, even more embarrassing, I was playing with Paco.

When I am in Montana with Caren we usually go everywhere together, I even "walk" the golf course with her every day. When I do stay home alone I usually stay outside. I don't like to stay in the house alone because if anything happened I wouldn't be able to open the door. If I could open the door, I couldn't get off the porch. I don't mind staying outside; that is where I spend most of my days in Montana. I chase the sun around the house and read books.

One day Caren and her husband, Darrell, went golfing at a course that I can't "walk". It has too many hills and no cart path. I decided to stay home. I made sure I had a pile of books to keep me busy, and I had them leave the garage open, so I could get out of the rain. In Montana storms build, burst, and blow over within minutes. It takes about four hours to play eighteen holes of golf, so I had to keep myself occupied about five hours.

Eventually, I got bored with reading. Paco was being weird barking at everything. My sentry was "on guard", so he had to let everything that moves know that he was in charge and ready to attack anytime. I noticed that when he went off to bark at something he would stop barking if he couldn't see me, and look for me. I wanted him to stop barking, so whenever he would start to bark I would move out of his line of sight, and he would look for me. Well, one thing led to another, and I was playing hide-and-go-seek with my dog. I, a fifty-three year old, fairly intelligent woman was playing hide-and-go-seek with a dog!

Paco knew all my hiding places: the garage, behind the boat in the garage, behind the woodshed, behind the car, around the corner of the house. It was time to find a new place. Darrell has a small red trailer that he usually stores in the garage, except when Caren and I am there during the summer. At that time he stores it off to the far left of the driveway. I decided it would be a great place to hide.

Paco ran across the property to bark at the wind, and I went to my "new and improved" hiding place. I haven't spent a lot of time in that area of the driveway, so I didn't know that the gravel was loose and deep. Paco, after checking all the regular places found me rather quickly. I proceeded to move from behind the trailer and my wheelchair like a car in soft mud sunk into the soft gravel. I continued to try to work my way out, and I continued to dig my chair deeper into the rocks.

It was about time for Caren and Darrell to come home, so I thought I would just wait for them. That would have been fine, if my chair hadn't started tipping to the left in my last attempt to free myself. The trailer was parked on the edge of the driveway, directly next to a eighty degree drop into a ravine filled with bushes, fallen logs, spiders, snakes, mice, and many other creepy crawly things just waiting to attack. If I went over the edge I would tumble into the ravine never to be found again, I was sure, and besides it would hurt.

There I was teetering dangerously on the edge of a precipice and a storm was rolling toward me. I decided to call Caren and Darrell and check on their arrival.

"Ummmmmmmmm, Caren when do you think you will be home?" I asked nonchalantly.

"We just got done golfing. We had to wait for the storm to blow over. Right now Darrell just went into Home Depot," she replied.

"Oh, God, not Home Depot!" I thought.

"Why do you want to know?" she inquired.

"Well...... I am kinda stuck," I confessed.

"Where are you stuck?" she asked.

"Behind the little red trailer," I sheepishly replied.

"Behind the little red trailer!"raising her voice. "What were doing to be way over there?"

"I was plamabayahideandbobeepwithPababa," I mumbled.

"What? I didn't hear you. Say that again," she demanded.

"I was plamabayahideandbobeepwithPababa," I repeated.

"I don't know what you are saying, but if we leave right now, we still won't be there for about forty-five minutes at least. You are going to have to call Grandma, and ask her to come over and help," she informed me.

Grandma is Darrell's eighty year old mother. She lives about three minutes away, five if the only traffic light in town is red. So, I called Grandma and she came to my rescue. Paco led her directly to me. Grandma might be on in years, but she is made of good, strong, farm stock. She got me out of there with some work. After I was safely away from the dangerous precipice, she asked, "What were you doing to get stuck?"

I dipped my head and quietly confessed my stupidity, "I was playing hide-and-go-seek with Paco."

She squinted her eyes, titlted her head to one side, smirked and replied, "Oh, don't you just hate it when the dog finds all your good hiding places?"

Paco's Perspective

I am the king, I am the king, I am the hide-and-go-seek king. You think I didn't see you when I went to bark at the deadly intruders.

The Sentry Alarm is on Duty

I enjoy being alone. Because I am handicapped I am unable to be totally alone, so I relish the time when I can be alone. I always thought if I wasn't handicapped, I would be one of those reclusive old ladies that lives alone in an isolated cabin in the woods where I would, talk to the animals, read books, and bake bread.

Janet always worries when she leaves me alone. She leaves an arsenal of snacks and drinks on the table that resembles a Salt Lake City pantry. When she leaves she always tells me to call if I need anything and I always reply, "The body will keep and the Sentry Alarm is armed."

The Sentry Alarm keeps the bad guys out guarding the doors ready to let out a shrill cry, if the doors are compromised. No one can can come within fifty feet of the house without me knowing. I only have to give it a snack every once in awhile. The Sentry Alarm is not the house alarm system; it is my chihuahua, Paco.

When I am in my bedroom Paco feels it is necessary to lay right by my door. I have to let him out every hour so he walk the perimeter of the property looking for bad guys. He scoots under the gate, checks the backyard, scoots back under the gate and comes inside. It is serious business while he is on duty. He refuses to eat or drink until Janet comes homes.

One might be thinking, "Ooooo what a brave little dog!" Paco is afraid of the dark. The darker it gets the shorter his perimeter walks get. When it is bright and sunny he checks the backyard, but as the sun starts to go down he walks just to the end of the driveway, and when it is completely dark he only goes as far as the kissing rock which is right outside my door. Paco and I together in the dark are like two teenager in a horror flick we are always jumping back at shadows, and barking at the wind. I bet if anyone did show up, Paco would probably grab one of his toys to share with the culprit, run in circles, pee on the floor and whine.

Paco may only be a brave "sunlight soldier", but I appreciate his effort. He won't let anyone get near the house without me knowing. Paco is a committed soldier; he doesn't eat, drink, or sleep while on duty. Paco stays at his post at all times and he won't leave until Janet gets home. Sometimes I think he loves me.

Paco's Perspective

Just a note of warning: Don't confuse love with instinct.

Scatter My Ashes on the I DA HO Border

I am a lover of tradition. That could be why I love holidays so much because they are filled with tradition. Summers in Montana have become such an important tradition in my life. I can't imagine NOT spending a summer there. Although the drive there is long, there is no other road trip that is more enjoyable.

Over the past fifteen years, most of my trips to Montana have been with The Snack Nazi, Caren, driving. She always has her eye on the prize, the destination. We only stop for gas, and if Caren could figure out how one of those tanker planes that tranfers fuel in mid-air could do the same for us, we would never stop. You might think that a road trip with someone that will barely stop to let one pee let alone stop for food would be as enjoyable as a bee sting, but it is quite nice.


We have established road trip traditions: making up word games, me being the book on tape, and NOT doing any sight seeing. We play some of your ordinary travel games like flags, but we love to make up our own word games with our own rules that change regularly throughout the trip even throughout the game. We have even played the games with occupants in other cars with walkie-talkies. We don't waste our money on audio books. I am the audio book. My favorite tradition is NOT doing any sight seeing. Just north of Panquitch, Utah is the Moqui Cave and every year I say, "Hey, Caren, we should stop there someday."She always replies, "Yep, but not today." This conversation is repeated throughout the trip. There are many magnificent places we have driven by: The North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Moqui Caves, Bryce Canyon, an opal mine, Deere Lodge Prison gift shop, Hoover Dam, Vegas, Chief Yellow Cloud's roadside stand just to name a few. But we can't stop now, it's tradition.

Another long standing silly tradition is when we get to the Idaho border we shout, "Who da ho? I DA HO!" We shout this to each other. We walkie-talkie it to friends in cars following, we text friends and family at home. A silly tradition, but it's ours.

When I die I want all my sistahs to take a roadtrip, and don't let Caren drive. I want my sistahs to STOP at all the places I have never seen and scatter some of my ashes. I want my sistahs to STOP at the Idaho border, get out of the car and as they scatter my ashes shout,"WHO DA HO? I DA HO!" It's tradition.

Paco's Perspective

I like tradition: riding in Caren's purse on the way to Montana, snacks, our walks to the end of the road, snacks, eating ice cream with Dave every night, snacks, spinning three times before entering a room, and snacks.

I Am a Book Lover

I am a book lover. I am a carry-a-book-everywhere-I-go,-read-any-chance-I-get,-don't-look-at-my-amazon.com-bill book lover. My love for reading oozes out of my pores and drips off of me like honey from an overflowing honeycomb. Like honey, my love for books is sticky and sometimes gets on others, if they sit too close. I want my students to be great readers, but most important of all, I want them to be Book Lovers.

As a child I was not a book lover nor was I a book reader. The saddest part of all is that no one expected me to read. Not my parents or my teachers. I was an excellent reader, thanks to Dick and Jane (Yikes, now you know how old I am). I can only remember one teacher reading aloud to me, Mrs. Morris, my fourth grade teacher, and to this day I remember the books she read: Brighty of Grand Canyon, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, Misty of Chincoteague, and The Secret Garden. I took a Children's Lit class in college because I thought it would be easy, and that is when I started reading and I haven't stopped. In that class, I learned what I had missed, and I made a solemn vow on a stack of children's books to never let anyone I cared about miss out on the joy of reading a good book.

As a teacher of thirty-one years, I have never been much of a basal reading program user. I never understood why children that lived smack-dab in the middle of a blistering inferno should be convinced to make a connection with a story about sailing. My first two years of teaching I used the basal because I didn't know what else to do, but deep down inside I knew it wasn't using the basal reader. The years to follow I devised my own reading program using "real" books. About ten years ago, I tripped over the reading workshop philosophy of teaching reading. I had finally found MY true philosophy. It felt comfortable like a soft cushy couch that you sit in, get swallowed up by and wonder if you will ever be able to get out without someone throwing you a life-preserver.

I am always asked how I get kids to love reading so much. My answer is always, "I don't know." It may be the oozing-honey-sat-too-close-to-me-and-got-some-on-you theory or magic. I am kind of pulling for the books are magic theory. I expect my students to be "real" readers. I read to them. They read to me. We read together. They read on their own . . . . . . Abracadabra . . . . . POOF . . . . sparkling fairy dust . . . . . they love to read. Believe me, I would love to take the credit for it, but I can't. It's not me. It's the books. Try one, but watch out for the sparkling fairy dust; it can get in your eyes.

Paco's Perspective

I can't read, but I do enjoy the sound of your voice, especially, on our trips to Montana when you read to Auntie Caren. Your melodic voice puts me to sleep. Wait a minute . . . . . . I like naps, therefore, I like the sound of your voice.

The Snack Nazi

I loved spending time with my Aunt Co. She had a sharp wit. She was always laughing. Oh, Aunt Co wasn't perfect, she could be snarky, but she always made me laugh. The best part about spending time with Aunt Co was she insisted we plan our day around when and where we were going to eat. My Aunt lost her battle to cancer a few years ago, but when I think of her I always smile.

She came to mind today because my youngest sister, Caren, is in town, and I am going to a conference with her this weekend. My Aunt Co called Caren the Snack Nazi. Caren doesn't let us eat. She does not plan her day around food. Don't travel long distances with her unless you plan on smuggling snacks and you're comfortable wearing a diaper. When Caren is driving her destination is her goal, and she let's nothing get in her way.

One day last spring I got a call from my oldest sister, Chris, Caren, and "our sistah from anothah mothah", Rhonda. They were traveling together in Texas. Our conversation went like this:

"Caaaaathyyyyy, Caren won't let us stop to eat!" whined Chris and Rhonda.

I calmly said, "Caren, let Chris and Rhonda stop for lunch."

"We don't need to eat! We are almost home, and we are going to have dinner at the house," demanded Caren.

"But it's noon. We are not eating until seven. Can't we stop for lunch," begged Rhonda and Chris.

"NO!" shouted Caren

"Is Caren driving?" I asked.

"No," they replied with some confusion.

I rolled my eyes and hollered in the phone, "Chris, Rhonda, I am thinking you can take her! She isn't driving, she's little, and she's is probably weak from not eating!"

So, this weekend is my weekend with the Snack Nazi. I know my Aunt Co is up above looking down and laughing. If she was here, I know what she would say. As we were heading out the door, she would turn to me and whisper out of the side of her mouth, "You smuggle the Cheez Whiz in your bra, and I'll hide the crackers in my jacket."

Paco's Perspective

I never got to meet Aunt Co, but I know I would like her. She liked food . . I like food. She liked cheese . . . .I like cheese. She loved you . . . .uh, uh, never mind.