Battle of the Sexes: Soccer

Soccer is not "America's Sport". Having said that, soccer is very popular with kids and parents and leagues like Major League Soccer are seeing a growing viewership. With changing demographics, soccer is becoming even more popular especially in the southern US. That's fine. Soccer is an exciting game and for those who follow the sport, watching any good team is a bonus.

That being said, the US Women's National Team is off base with what I view as a socialist scheme for what they label "equal pay." True, they train just as hard as the men and they win as much or more than the US National Men's team, BUT......

In the end all athletic events are entertainment business commodities events. Compensation translate to fans in the seats and licensed merchandise sold. There's a reason the mediocre Dallas Cowboys are the most lucrative franchise ever (if you believe the reports) and that is because like it or not, Cowboys fans are willing to fork over an obscene amount of money to attend games, buy merchandise and otherwise make Jerry Jones richer. You say "But that's AMERICAN football.....what about soccer?" So let's look at that.

The argument being put forth by the likes of Senator Manchin and the USWNT is that this last Women's World Cup (a FIFA production) earned more than the last Men's World Cup which incidentally did not include the US Men's team. When you cut out the largest and most lucrative viewing segment, you get less revenue. Even AOC should be able to figure that out. But then there's the story of ad revenue. From "Money":

"...Total money paid for TV ads during the women’s 2015 FIFA World Cup on Fox. That’s nearly three times as much as the $6 million in ad money collected by ESPN for airing the 2011 women’s World Cup. Still, it’s a tiny fraction of the $529 million in TV ads paid to ESPN during the men’s 2014 World Cup on ESPN..."

This translates into less revenue for the women due to outside forces that are not controlled by US Men's Soccer. Also, most of the men on the US Men's Team play in the growing Major League Soccer. While there are existing Women's teams and leagues, they do not have the following of the MLS teams.You cannot MAKE people buy tickets. This is not to say womens' teams will never achieve the same compensation as men, but when you go out of your way to antagonize and alienate the people who might actually pay to see you play, it's counterintuitive to growing your brand and attracting fans to buy tickets and merchandise. Right now, there's a surge of people buying USWNT merchandise but down the road this will fade as all bandwagon jumping diminishes. This is why you so seldom see successful pro athletes take controversial public opinion based stances. Rapinoe did more damage to their argument for equal pay that many of these players-and let's remember they are entertainers not politicians-will not recognize until later.

Also, for the sake of argument, I'll just leave this here from 2015 where the same lame arguments were being made by largely the same groups and media outlets:

From: National Review by Tim Cook

"ThinkProgress is in a huff because the real world insists on standing athwart its unicorn paddock:

The U.S. women’s soccer team defeated Japan on Sunday to win the World Cup. For their dominant performance, the team will collect $2 million from FIFA, the international body that runs the tournament. 

The championship prize for women pales in comparison to the $8 million in prize money awarded to men’s teams who lose in the first round. Every men’s team was awarded $1.5 million just for participating.

Gosh, why could that be? Perhaps it’s because there is an entrenched worldwide conspiracy to be mean to women. Or perhaps it’s because the women’s World Cup doesn’t bring in much revenue and the men’s World Cup does. Per the right-wing apology website Huffington Post:

“The World Cup pays for all the 20 World Cups FIFA organizes, the under-17, under-20 men and women, club football, beach soccer all is financed by the men’s World Cup which brings directly $4.5 billion to FIFA.”

The women’s game continues to grow in popularity with next year’s finals featuring 24 nations, up from 16 in 2011, for the June 5 to July 6 at six venues across Canada.

The Canadian Soccer Association said it expects attendance to come in a close to 1.5 million.

COMMENTS

The actual figure was far below that, even after FIFA reduced the price of tickets to try to gin up interest. By contrast, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil attracted 3,429,873 people to the games, and 5,154,386 fans to all FIFA events. Likewise, according to the openly misogynistic New York Times, the Women’s World Cup of 2011 “brought in just $5.8 million, while the men’s cup in 2014 netted $1.4 billion.” Advertisers, the Times confirms, will pay 80 times as much to cover the men’s competition as the women’s.

The women are being stiffed. Stiffed, I tell you."

Retirement

I am retiring from teaching.
I am 63.
I should be working a few more years, but honestly I just can't.
I am tired of change for the sake of change.
I'm tired of administrators dismissing the work I do and have done for nearly 20 years, and celebrating the work of others.
I'm tired of being invisible.
I'm just tired.

What's odd is that I am not alone. My principal is retiring. The head of my department is retiring. The head counselor is retiring. I've heard rumors the lead in science is retiring and the lead in social studies is as well. Basically this is the departure of the entire top staff at the school. There's a message there for anyone paying attention, but it is not just about age. This is about what is happening in our schools and our society.

Society at large has become both more permissive and more accusatory. No teacher in their right mind would dare enter a classroom today without liability insurance. Parents, who in earlier times were partners with teachers, now seek loopholes and make excuses for why their kids fail. They don't enforce dress codes, they don't require attendance, if a child fails someone writes a 504 to make the problem go away so they can graduate. I have seen this happen. It should be illegal. It probably is. I know our administrators have been in ARD's every day the past two weeks trying to make the path smooth for seniors who haven't given a damn about achievement to graduate. Why? Why are they doing this? Are there no consequences left in our society?

I've been on here for years first talking about the lack of rigor, the lamenting the invasion of cell phones and the utter lack of rules under the new auspices of restorative justice-a program which the kids treat like a joke. What used to be a good school-orderly, innovative, encouraging and even fun-is now an adversarial division where students roam in packs and engage in provocative behavior which teachers and staff can't control.

There are many contributing factors to the demise of school:
1. Helicopter parenting, not to be confused with parent concern or involvement. We have parents who even with online gradebooks and a system that provides safety nets to a degree not seen before in education, who don't get involved or concerned until their kid is so out of hope of passing that it's impossible to fudge the numbers. These parents are big on lawyering up and pointing fingers. They are also frequently the types who try to get special perks like extra time on the SAT or take kids out of school for vacation the week before scheduled vacations. These people are insane and their kids are basket cases.
2. Cell phones can be helpful, but too many parents, especially after Columbine, mistake them for electronic umbilical cords. Having a cell phone does not insure your child is safe. What is more, like the pagers before them, your child will lie about where they are, who they are with and what they are doing if they think they can snow their parents-which is often the case. It's been estimated that 70% of kids have porn on their cell phones. This includes boys AND girls. These "children" have secret lives hidden on their phones and too many parents (see #1 above) think that looking at their texts and photos is an invasion of privacy. I have found phones with salacious selfies of girls on their desktop left in the room. I've also seen IPhone 10's plugged into the wall and left to charge so that kids who have depleted the charge watching movies and texting in the morning can continue to do so in the afternoon. As I tell my students, technology is a good servant but a bad master. Trying to get a phone away from a student who will not comply is like trying to separate a junkie from his fix. Just try it sometime with a 15 year old girl. Terrifying.
3. Restorative justice is a joke. The kids treat it as such. They know they can make puppy eyes and excuses and be forgiven for even the most egregious actions. I have kids who have missed more than 13 of 45 classes. By state law they should absence fail, but no instead they can sit in a room playing on their cell phone after having missed classes and instruction to play hooky. I had two boys square off in a class the first week of school who I marched down to the office. They came back 20 minutes later with an AP saying " They've gotten restorative actions and they are really sorry..." Needless to say those two continued to be a problem for the entire course. I think society at large is seeing much of the same. Sooner or later you have to stop letting people break rules. The same code applies to laws.
4. The incoming teachers are not trained in the way they were before. They seem to be full of social justice memes, but short on true depth of knowledge in their subjects. They call kids pet names, something that I was warned against as a young teacher. They try to make kids their friends, make plans to meet for shopping and coffee-things which I have never wanted to do and things that I would find suspicious if my own kids' teachers were trying to do. I keep my private life private. I think that teachers must be separate from the students, but our young teachers don't seem interested in being part of the faculty and instead socialize at lunch and after school with students, which sets up a strange chemistry. These same teachers don't want to teach entry level courses and have been very manipulative in getting our young, and somewhat clueless, administrator to go along. The result was that as department lead next year I would have had all entry level courses because they new teachers claim they can't teach them. One of them refuses to teach watercolor. They other only teaches portraiture. They are big on making scenes and signing up for events that they then dump on others-most often me. One has complained every single day about being on a cart. I was on a cart for eight years teaching just entry level classes. I guess millennials don't want to learn on the job and insist on starting at the top. Whatever happened to paying your dues?

So I am done. I will travel. I will paint. I will renovate my home.
I am sad. I had hoped to end on a high note, but in the end even the senior show got sabotaged by one of my teachers who refused to tell her students.

Of course, she tweeted and posted about HER students' show in the library Friday.

On that alone I would be ready to leave. Combine that with new administrators, construction and what looks like a collision of events of which I want no part.
In closing I leave you with this:The Way

Graduation Inflation

Graduation inflation is definitely a problem. Because so many state base school ratings on graduation rates, schools are often unwilling to enforce rigor in the classroom. I saw this happen when Texas began the "four by four" scenario designed to make all students take four years of Language Arts, Science, Math and Social Studies. The fear of having low income or minority students face hard classes that would limit their graduation rates drives this-which in and of itself is racist since it assumes such students cannot succeed. In the meantime, administrators at every level use cosmetic solutions like screens and gadgets to give the appearance of solving the problems, when that often just makes it worse.

I can tell you from first hand observation, that the students I have now lack the vocabulary and reasoning skills to do what the same level of students accomplished just five years ago. They are not prepared for college. They have little self-reliance because the main message they get from parents and administrators is that they can always go back and do things over with no penalty. I see terrible trouble ahead and it's all in the hands of educational bureaucrats who are more concerned with keeping their jobs than educating our kids.

Read this

Why Schools Cannot be Social Justice Incubators

Read this first

Many of the problems experienced in schools today is due to the social justice imperatives placed upon them. Schools in earlier times were strictly places of learning. There was no discussion of social issues or bending on the idea of merit over identity. Fast forward to current times and a plethora of mandated moves have muddied the waters on what is education and what is indoctrination.

Take the example of the story listed. Those who teach high school have most likely encountered a number of students who claim gender fluidity. This may or may not be with full knowledge of their parents. In one class there is a student who looks, acts and dresses as a girl, but the student's parent state they are male. In the same class are two girls who have shaved their heads, dress like boys and have to be reminded not to grope each other in class. It is very fashionable, especially among the groups that embrace animé to act out in public ways to express their individuality by dressing and acting like the opposite gender.

In terms of ethnicity, there is blissful ignorance that even within the defined by the Fed ethnic groups, there are divisions. My students from South Africa, Ghana and Haiti do not understand the angst of the BLM movement and tend to avoid the various step teams and other designated "black" groups in favor of NHS and various Asian groups. The Hispanic students whose parents are professionals don't hang out with the kids from the trailer park. The Korean kids don't hang out with the Vietnamese students. So rather than the modest list of divisions listed by the Fed, we have a puzzle of ethnic populations divided more by wealth than image. When you have the offspring of professional athletes who drive BMW's to school, I don't think they have much in common with kids whose single parent lives paycheck to paycheck in subsidized housing. And yet in all regards from college admission to discipline, the treatment is based far more on ethnicity than ability.

I am not sure where our public school system is going in coming years. Like the news media, it has allowed itself to become captive to a group of politicians far more interested in using the access to groom adherents than in actually educating the student population. This is why too often the state bureaucrats err on the side of making course less rigorous and allowing our kids to slide thanks to a slope of well meant, but misguided actions.  Years ago, when Texas mandates the Four by Four programs-where high school students would be required to take four core classes each year in order to graduate-I predicted that mandating all students take Calculus and Physics would result in watering down classes and/or the creation of innocuous easy classes because much of the student population would never graduate.

Because we have chosen to water down serious courses, we have students in remedial courses at major colleges. This should NEVER happen. I guarantee it doesn't happen in China, Russia or India. Remedial classes should be reserved for community and junior college consumption. Instead it is offered at major colleges because our students are simply not prepared for the independence and rigors of college. There are ways to break this cycle. Schools could take away screens and start insisting students read books and study from books. Schools could ban calculators until high school, requiring students to develop the logical constructs that math offers. Schools could stop shoving political dogma as fact down the throats of kids not old enough to vote.....but then again we get to the cycle wherein politicians get technology for schools and then pretend they are making things better.

In the last five years I have seen the impact of personal technology on the classroom. It's not good. Our kids are distracted and learning less than they learned a decade earlier. I have tried to use the same syllabus since 2001, improving the lessons as I go. This year my students did three fewer projects than just five years ago. I have tried pushing and pulling them across the finish line. They have no concept of deadlines or of requirements. Often on essays, they simply throw everything on the page, just hoping it answers the stated question. This is in my AP class. These our are best and brightest students. I just don't know that they can function as adult without some serious intervention going on.

Giving Thanks

There are those in our society who reject Thanksgiving because they claim it was a precursor to the disenfranchisement of the Native Americans. They are entitled to that view, although they might want to look at how the Native Americans were living beyond the Noble Savage ideal they promote. For all the hype, Native Americans were living a Neolithic lifestyle without many upsides to the story. Nevertheless, the contrarians on the Left insist on removing the key element of Thanksgiving from the holiday-and that is the THANKS.

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. While other nations have similar days, none celebrate the concept of gratitude as much as the United States. That is because this nation was largely founded and organized on the Judeo-Christian concepts of gratitude among the many other desirable traits of honesty, fairness and self-reliance. Those early settlers were grateful. They invited others to join them in a celebration feast as a show of that gratitude. For all the historians who want to try to sully the reputation of the holiday, or for God's sakes, rename it, that would be a travesty and a lost chance to teach key lessons to our children.

I'll admit, I'm tired of the creeping of Black Friday. I don't like that some people have forgotten that Thanksgiving is beyond football and food. I'd love everyone to have a Norman Rockwellian Thanksgiving, but in reality, few do. Some folks have to work and God bless those doctors, nurses, first responders and others who sign up to do that. Some folks have no family and I would hope others would reach out and make them a part of their celebration. Some folks will run in Turkey Trots, like the one in Dallas. Others will join families in front yard football games. Others still will meet with friends to dine on turkey while they watch football. However people celebrate, I hope they are GRATEFUL because no truly successful society exists without some appreciation for what they have achieved.

For those on the progressive Left who want to make this about politics and soy turkey, they are free to do that. But I think they indulge in negatives at the risk of their soul. Sometimes it's better just to take things at face value.

The End

As a teacher who will be leaving the education realm this year for the second time (the first time was 30 years ago....) I have to add this caveat: Don't stay too long at the dance. Many times, humans seek to adapt and put up with situations for far too long under the hope things will get better. Barring an act of God or a complete change in the personnel, they usually won't. I have stayed far longer at this job than I had planned and while the money did help keep us out of the poorhouse during the eight years our economy was in failure mode, for which I am grateful, I feel that much of the last five years has been more about paperwork, corralling special needs students and being volun-told to take on more responsibilities than I could reasonably handle.

I hate to sound bitter-I was the teacher who tried to make things better by decorating the workroom, bringing holiday treats and remembering birthdays. But in the end, it simply didn't matter because whatever small measures I took were overwhelmed by the general culture infesting my school. After 20 years, I am leaving. Retiring from teaching, but not from work, because who can afford that? What is more, while our school likes to make a big production out of the teachers who are leaving, I don't want to even be there for that stuff, because honestly for all the years I've been there, all the kids I've taught, all the sacrifices I've made, I honestly don't think anyone will care.

The drumbeat message from my administration is "This is JUST ART" and Just Art is a class for the kids who fight with band directors, who have failed other classes or who simply need a placeholder class until something better comes along. I've tried very hard for a long time to change that and I wish I could have had some impact, but frankly when you stay too long, you get taken for granted. I wish art jobs were easier to come by because I truly am good at my job and have kids who have graduated from top level art schools like RISD and SAIC who began in my class. But I'm exhausted and I've simply run out of ways to capture the attention. The straw that broke my heart not my back, was last week when two teenaged boys squared off to fight in my class. I marched them to the office and asked they be dealt with. Twenty minutes later, an AP shows up with the boys, saying they had received restorative measures and were really really sorry. This has become the norm in my so-called "good" suburban school. So heed my warning and avoid ending up like me.

Mindfulness

I am tired of the push for "mindfulness."
I hear it at work, in the media, in the news I read and hear.
My sisters in law live by this invisible mode and some of my children adhere to it as well.
They believe they are being thoughtful-a sort of spiritual worship of all the hands that have touch every single product they encounter.  I honestly don't know how they make it through the day, much less a meal.

I am appreciative of farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, packers, butchers, cooks and people who give us the ability to live such abundant lives. That being said, I do not want to spend my life contemplating the meaningfulness of every single aspect of my life. I don't want to make choices based on agendas. And if I should choose to wear mismatched sock, dowdy sweaters or a silly hat, that is MY choice.

Frankly all this mindfulness strikes me as a rebranding of narcissism. "Ooh look at me, I'm choosing my gluten free cruelty free organic soap" So what? Does it work? If it doesn't, it's a waste of time AND money. And if we are really "mindful" shouldn't wasting energy and materials to produce a substandard product count as NOT being mindful?

Let's apply this to cars. Environmentalists have pushed for measures to make car more fuel efficient. To do so, manufacturers have to make cars more streamlined as well as lighter. This means less metal, more thin metal and plastic. It also means making cars smaller. This wouldn't be a problem if we all had these cars, but we don't. Many of the larger SUV's are so raised off the ground that their bumper level is at the head level of new smaller cars. That means what in earlier generations would have been a mere fender bender will now be an accident with serious, perhaps fatal, injuries. People rant over possibilities of medication and procedures which are far rarer than the fatalities causes by the disparity in size of vehicles. Shouldn't this require mindfulness to either stop insisting new cars be smaller or at least all cars should have bumpers the same height?

Mindfulness goes far beyond this. There is a book out there talking about how you should get rid of all the things in your life that you do not love. So how's that going to work for married couples or large families? Can Mom simply throw away all the laundry? Can Dad donate his lawn mower? Can the kids jettison all the old records and yearbooks from their parents previous lives? I personally believe having to deal with things you may not love builds character. Nobody was promised a perfect life and I don't think individuals should be forced by the nature of "mindfulness" and then false doctrine of perfection to avoid those irregular things in our lives.

I will admit I am more absent minded than mindful. I may have, at times, worn mismatched socks and possibly I've worn some sweater backward. Does that change me as a person because I am less than perfect? Indeed this is the crux of mindfulness, helicopter parenting, cooped up bored kids sentenced to a lifetime of computer screens over the outdoor is an unreasonable fear of being less than perfect. We have to let our children learn to fail in small ways or we risk as adults seeing them fail on an epic level with no possibility of a rebound.

Friendships

I envy people who have lifelong friendships. I've never experienced that situation. We moved a great deal when I was a kid and as a result making friends was a frustrating experience. I remember when I was in fourth grade we moved from Metarie LA to Dallas, TX. I had been a long time Girl Scout and my mother had been a scout leader. The troop at my school wouldn't even let me in. I moved in the middle of the school year and when I tried to have a birthday party in the spring, only two girls came. Nobody called, nobody let us know. That pretty much set the tone for my teen years.

I tried to make friends. I wasn't as willing to risk getting in trouble as others, so I was often left out as the goody goody girl. Every girl I knew either made up gossip or stabbed me in the back. One girl I knew from seventh grade would wait until she knew I liked a boy and then deliberately go after him. She even tried that our senior year with my boyfriend, who is now my husband of nearly 40 years. But I tried. I did the things they did, wore the things they wore, went to the parties and dances, although not my prom. But I was always on the outside of things-wallpaper in the room.

College came and due to my family's financial situation, I had to stay in town and go to community college. Sure, I wrote to my friends who went to Austin and Lubbock and other far away schools, but nobody wrote back. They would come to town and never call me. I would run into them by accident listening to their feeble excuses. They were more than willing to ask me for a favor, but not so much to treat me like a person.

As an adult it was more of the same. I don't play those games so many women use to tear down others. I never did. Yet more than once because I was trying so hard to be a team player, I was the one who ended up losing out in the end. Even as a young mother, I would try to socialize with the other Mom's, but I didn't go to the "right" church or attend the "right" meetings. As a result I've gone through most of my life without a real friend other than my husband.

I've tried, but frankly people are mean. I would be a good friend. I would back up other people. I would go out to lunch. I would watch your house when you were gone and visit you at the hospital when you were sick. I would bake brownies for your bake sale when your oven was broken. All I ever wanted was a friend. Somewhere deep inside this crusty 62 year old body is a little girl who just wanted someone to play with. It's really kind of sad that so many adults seemed to see my flaws first.

Conspicuous Technology Consumption

I've taught for over 20 years and I think I've nailed down how school districts make money. You will notice several prominent urban districts are once again pleading and demanding money even though they seem to regularly pass bond issues and get more money for facilities that have little to do with learning. I know it's not getting in teachers' pockets.

Several of my peers with similar credentials and years are barely midrange on our districts salary levels although most of us are retiring within months. How does that work out? It is because the district uses a skewed method of comparing teaching fields to "real world" compensation. By that reasoning anyone in humanities is paid less than anyone in the desirable STEM subjects. That may sound favorable, but I'm not really sure even those teachers are being as highly compensated as the usual folks: coaches, administrators and the mid level bureaucrats that school boards deem "necessary" for the districts to achieve accolades.

So where is the money coming from and where does it go? It's no secret that Technology is one of the buzzword topics politicians find so attractive. They like Technology because it's something they can quantify in number and dollars for votes. So politicians sign off on billions of dollars in programs and hardward intended for nebulous STEM programs. Here's where the fun part comes in. Administrators will often be sought by producers of hardware and programs so that those providers can become preferred vendors. Now I'd like to believe no money changes hands, but seriously do you believe that?

Listen to this timeline:
2007-When I first began working my district we had PC's. When I tried to write a grant for Apples I was told by our school and district IT departments that they would not support any maintenance.
2009-A new superintendent takes a job and almost immediately he moves to have EVERY STUDENT from K-12 issues an Apple IPad-that's issuing 50K+ IPads plus every teacher was issued a Power Macbook and IPad. So we had to shift all our programs to a new paradigm. What was ironic is while we made this costly move, when we had problems with our browsers (although we had Apple products we were using Google Apps so we had to use Chrome) we were told to download free virus scans. Suddenly we saw staffing for IT being cut in half. Hmmm
So we dithered about for seven years-kids gradually stopped paying the meagre $35 insurance fee because they could do as much on their phones plus many of the devices ended up broken or hacked thanks to the downloads of movies, games and such which were played during class all the time.
2016-We're using Apple devices, Chrome browsers, Google apps and Microsoft Office. This situation with multiple platforms would continue until.....

.....2018...we were issues new Apple Airs-good thing since my down button had stopped working and my e and r keys had become unidentifiable. The Air's didn't work like the Power Mac's and the procedure to save 19 years of documents, presentations and lesson plans didn't fully work for anyone. So most of us are starting nearly from scratch to rebuild some very complex programs. But that's not all-not content to gift us with a new learning curve for devices, our Fearless Technology Leaders also decided we need to learn an entirely new method of presenting classes with their work. So now we have to learn Canvas from scratch. It is bulky and not at all intuitive. I have nine shells-some for multiple classes and multiple shells for others. There is no easy fix to align them meaning that rather than uploading material once, I will have to do it NINE TIMES. This is not efficient and there was no reason for it since most of us had finally settled into Google Classroom last year.

In this story is the answer to how districts make money so they can pay ridiculously high salaries to star players-coaches, administrators, band directors. They get grants from politicians for the sake of votes, then the administrators cozy up to potential vendors to get sweetheart deals and possibly kickbacks and to perpetuate the "need" for new software, the leads of Technology ALWAYS advocate for changing the software, because that means someone will have to install, introduce, teach and remediate for those programs UNTIL THE NEXT ONE COMES ALONG. So all that money for "Education" never gets to classrooms or Teachers. Instead it creates a new ruling class of highly paid administrators who can retire early on lucrative buy outs while the rest of us are lucky if we see $2000 a month after we retire. Read it through, look at your district--you know I'm right.

Butterflies and Moths

When I was young I used to classify the bubbles of anxiety as either butterflies or moths. Butterflies came before something exciting, such as Christmas or a birthday. Moths were caused by concern or fears. Right now I am not sure if I am harboring butterflies or moths or perhaps a mix of both.

I had major surgery earlier this summer. My recovery was supposed to take eight weeks, but my school year officially starts August 6th with a week of In-Service. I talked my doctor back to seven weeks and will return August 13th, giving me two prep days before students arrive. Any teacher knows prep time is precious.

But even though I have prepared and am continuing to populate the Yet Another New Platform for my classes, I am very uneasy. I can't sleep. I found myself in tears the other day. This is not excitement, it is fear. I'm not a fearful person normally, but honestly the increasing hostility of students and some peers is created a pit in my stomach that can't be explained away by surgery.

To be fair, even as a small fry, I was always nervous in anticipation of school. But now, as a teacher, knowing how our administration likes to change things on a whim for what largely seems the sake of change, I'm concerned that they will take this year to work me to death. Also, in full disclosure, I am tired-very tired. Teaching is not a job for low energy or the timid-and right now I feel like the poster child for both.

My closest friends have retired. They left early and there are few teachers that seem to relate to the concerns I have. I'm at the point that even most of the administrators are younger and it doesn't help that the AP in charge of my department seems especially manipulated by younger teachers. I am hoping to retire this year-I hope this year doesn't do me in.

And Again....this time Santa Fe, TX.

I look at these shootings and shake my head. 
I look at my students and I shake my head.
Situations which used to be resolved with shouting or a fistfight are now resolved with online bullying and deadly violence.

What happened?

First, as of 2011, more than half of teens had cell phones. Parents bought them in fear, ignoring the side issues of clandestine friends and activities. For some reason parents thought that in an active shooter situation, a cell phone would keep their children magically safe. Is that magical thinking or what? Cell phones are now drifting down to elementary levels, opening up an entire world where not only can they call for help, but predators can find them without their parents knowing. Want proof? Read:
Student abducted from high school

What is horrendous about this story is that the girl's family had moved her to a new school because she was going to testify against a sexual predator who had victimized her while she babysat his children. She had her information on her phone including her internet access. The predator pretended to be a cute guy at her new school who wanted to meet her for a cup of coffee after school. She didn't tell her parents because kids often hide such things from parents. She waited until the crowds thinned after school and got into the car that drove up without looking. It was the predator who raped and killed her. Her parents had no idea she was meeting anyone because teenager use their phones as walls to prevent parents from seeing their real lives.

These stories go on with bullying and suicides, drug deals and sordid parties. One kid had an affair with a teacher and although there was plenty of evidence, he was a high ranking athlete and the parents didn't want his phone history used for fear it would reveal drugs use that would eliminate those hefty athletic scholarships. Had he not been stupid and posted his entire text messages on social media where his girlfriend found it and printed it off, sending a copy to the principal, nobody would have been the wiser. He hid it all on a phone.

I find kids secretly trying to charge phones in my classroom all the time. When one student had hers stolen, the parents tried to blame the teacher-me. After that a couple of times I found phones and upon trying to find out who they belonged to, saw a desktop image that included provocative and borderline salacious photos of one of my students. At that point we have to include the FBI and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children to assure them these images, which are now in a database in Washington DC, are not of a kidnapped and exploited child. Images like that from dumb little girls are bought and sold on the Internet daily. Their parents probably bought them phones to keep them safe. I guess they never read about Pandora. So now I don't even look, I just turn in the phone and leave someone higher up the food chain to make those calls. 

My seven year old grandson knows how to get to the internet and access game sites that he should not be using. If a child that young can get that far away, then what are older kids doing? We already know that texting has eroded the ability to hold conversations- which may be why people spend far too much time yelling at each other on Twitter. We know that too many kids think that "getting famous on YouTube" is a viable career path. And many of them are willing to do literally anything to become famous or infamous. This is a very dangerous path when a kid can buy the supplies and find the instructions for making a bomb courtesy of Reddit or any anarchist site. And if you don't think Antifa is part of that "freedom", think again because I hear their platitudes expressed almost hourly.

So what is my point? My point is we are bombarding young brains with a Wild West of technology without having properly prepared them for its use. As a result they are open to all kind of abuse. If some dirty old man pretending to be a teenaged boy can convince a 15 year old to send him nude photos, is it really that outrageous to think that a shy teen immersed in violent games, movies and imagery could be desensitized enough of other people's humanity to blur the lines between violent games and violent reality? I'm not making excuses, but we are seeing an escalation and now it's not about just guns because this kid studied Columbine's methodology and tried to build effective IED's. You don't buy those at Cabela's. 

This is the endgame of a mantra of "don't judge." We're supposed to not have absolutes and to blindly accept ever aberration regardless of how menacing or strange. 
Why did nobody ask why this kid was wearing a treanch coat in Texas spring heat? 
Why did nobody ask why Cruz had the police at his house 30+ times?
Why do we still not know the content of the minutes of the Newtown shooter's last ARD?
Why is the Vegas case being buried?
Why did the Aurora shooter's parents move three states away and why did college officials suggest rather than mandate therapy?
It goes on and on and on and the bottom line is that political correctness, those gut instinct that tell us to duck when a missile is coming, have been eliminated from our kids. Instead they cling to cell phones like pontoons ignoring that their very lack of attention may be giving these attackers a chance to act. 

So what can be done?
First. kids under the age of 15 don't need full internet access on their phones or at home, Period.
Second, we need to spend at least one tenth of what we don on athletics on making schools safer.
Third, students don't get to duck out and say they don't want to cooperate with security measures. I have to fight every day just to get kids to wear a photo ID. Whether it is clear backpacks, limited parking, no off school lunch, wearing uniforms or whatever-it should be stressed that this is for security and that those who won't cooperate will be removed.
Fourth, out high schools are too big in the name of competitive sports, performing arts and such. It's time for schools to be small enough that counselors, teachers and administrators know them.
Fifth, we need to start recognizing that not all kids are academic. We need to offer them a way out-whether it's dual credit or vocational programs they enjoy. We need to make schools be a place for kids from all kinds of backgrounds.
And finally, we have to go back against the ADA and stop allowing seriously mentally ill kids to be mainstreamed into classes where they disrupt and victimize at will. In most cases, not this one but most, the increasing delusions of the seriously psychotic occur as they reach the end of adolescence. I've had kids like this-kids who have histories of violence, who have spent time in mental health wards, who are on thorazine and it's ridiculous that they are in regular schools under the guise of being fair.

America, We Have a Problem

Perhaps it is because I teach high school that I am somewhat more aware of the secret social mores of teens. Every generation of teens has had it's own preferences, rituals and rites. Many of these were hidden from parents and the very forbidden nature of such activities made them all the more attractive. In earlier generations it was things like smoking, drinking, sex (always sex) and as time wore on drugs because a cult of secrecy for some teens. Earlier generations chose to be oblivious. There would be references to boys "sowing wild oats" or to "boys being boys" the assumption being that girls were the gentler sex and would act as governors on male behavior.

Then the world changed. Suddenly it was easy for young women to BE easy with impunity. Other than the social stigma of community or culture, young women could avoid pregnancy in spite of multiple partners. Women could choose to marry, or not. And that was fine as far as it went. There was still a thin fiber of limitations-things that we hoped our young people would avoid or at least delay. Of course the AIDS epidemic put a damper on the more hedonistic behavior, but there was still this idea that they could have it all and what is more, that they deserved it all. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it people like me," was their mantra This generation, the teens of the 80's, the kids whose self-esteem matter more than their final product are now the parents of teens and twenty somethings. They have been led to believe that simply by trying to be good parents that they are successful  It is not going well.

As teens, the kids of the 80's grads used first pagers and then cell phones to give their parents the illusion of supervision without actually acquiescing to supervision. These kids would avoid their parents and knew how to get away with partying to the point that they had special ring tones and friends who would vouch for their presence at vetted houses rather than let parents know where they really were and what they were really doing. What is more, parents GAVE these kids these devices under the wrongheaded idea that by doing so they were "parenting." What they were really doing is giving teens the tools to set up entire networks of underground social media and the associated behaviors of that kind of network. The upside of this is a sort of Ferris Beuller fantasy, but the reality is that too many kids began to isolate themselves from reality. Suddenly their social network of countless friends became more necessary that their real family or even their real friends.

The truth is that if you have a teen right now in your home, and that teen has a cell phone, there's a real likelihood that they sleep with their cell phones. Delaying gratification or even refusing to talk or text someone is viewed as a social faux pas. Teens who use their cell phones to text are 42% more likely to sleep with their phones than teens who own phones but don’t text. Try taking a cell phone away from the average teen is akin to torture. I don't exaggerate when I saw I have had far more threats of violence flung at me for the simple act of taking up a cell phone in class than any other action. Cell phones in class have become a disruptive invasion of privacy. Student film teachers and others surreptitiously to post on social media without consent and often along with disparaging comments. The bullying capabilities are exponential as a child can be bullied at school, at work, at home and even on their phones. It is a situation that can appear inescapable for teens who often have not developed real world social insulation. It can lead down some serious and dangerous paths.

That teens have a secret social network should be no secret, but the intensity of that network and the demands that alpha teens place on their lower status peers can force less sophisticated teens into social situations beyond their control. Far too often it's not if they will engage in sex or drugs or drinking it is when. The kids who party know which parents will turn a blind eye. The kids who party are not necessarily the stereotypical druggies-they are just as often student council members, cheerleaders or band members. The days when you could spot the bad kids by what they wear are gone. Instead you need to look at what they post.


Here are a series of social media posts from teens:
1.
RT @fukunurhoexxx: #youthetype of b*tch that give up your p*ssy for free and think its cool #p*ssyaintfree #fb
RT @TheSoleManSB: We in need of some trees … Wea tha weed man
RT @MisunderstoodC_: Get high to balance out the lows
RT @___xMaxDee: I got game for you young hoes, don’t grow to be a dumm hoe
RT @Bombshelll_: “@La_VidaBella: I’ll beat the pu**sy up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up”
2.

What Have I Been Saying?

This article, written by a Millennial, says everything I've been saying for the last eight years.

Finally!

Quote:

Ending Mass Shootings

So we have yet another one. A kid with a violent history goes unreported because of a misbegotten protocol designed by liberals to keep troubled kids out of the police radar. Thirty nine visits to one address is alot by anyone's standards and should have been a huge red flag that this kid was trouble.

But, this is not the first time. A few generations back people who were mentally ill, violent, predatory or in other ways a danger to society were either institutionalized, jailed or hanged. For the most part that established a code that most Americans sought to uphold for many decades. All that changed starting with the 1970's. During that time we were urged to judge people not by how they looked or acted, but by their humanity. Brick by brick those walls of self-preservation were systematically eliminated with mantras of "don't judge." So instead of avoiding the creepy looking guy, young kids would ignore him. Young women put in earplugs on jogging trails tuning out the predators along the way. Young men following the social examples of celebrities and pro-athletes indulged in risky, dangerous and criminal behavior. Part of this was excused by a generation of parents who were not just reluctant, but diametrically opposed to using any sort of authority to raise their kids. Instead parents worked hard and threw material goods at kids missing the point that devices cannot be role models and machines can't raise kids.

Is it any wonder that many kids have no respect for life? I have heard horrendous stories of kids abusing animals, smaller kids, seniors and each other. We have a case in DFW where varsity soccer players sodomized new members of the team. And this is a repeat of a situation a few years back where the same thing happened in another district with the golf team. A couple of generations back, such things were uncommon and definitely not part of the average teens bolus of knowledge. Thanks to the actions in the Oval Office of Bill Clinton, all that changed. Private activities were suddenly in prime time and parents were faced with the dilemma of explaining what Monica did to their school aged children or having some older kid do it. We're now in an era where everything is open game and that in turn leaves our children open to exploitation by those we trust to take care of them. When more than half of kids are born into single parent families, at some level kids have to wonder if their lives mean anything to anyone at all?

Then there's the virtue signallers. These are the folks who demand that ALL kids be educated. This is why many teachers have kids who are dangerous in their classrooms. I've had kids on thorazine-so potentially violent that he came with a keeper. I've had kids with ankle monitors. I've had one girl who I discovered had never been in a general ed classroom since she tried to kill her mom at the age of 11. ADA requires that we provide a free education to these kids as well as the general population-basically giving these kids a wider range of targets. This same group also pushed for deinstitutionalization-removing facilities from the map and leaving loving families to become the first victims at the hands of someone in the middle of a psychotic rage. Do you doubt this? The Newtown shooter, the Aurora shooter, the Tucson shooter were all known to be seriously mentally ill. But the laws now make it almost impossible for someone to be involuntarily committed until someone gets hurt.

Now we have media and political types circling like sharks. I do not appreciate entities like CNN trying to manipulate and orchestrate the situation. That a young man who risked his life and used his head to protect others was denied the right to speak freely by CNN because his views did not jibe with the narrative CNN is pushing is disgusting. I understand that many of the students involved are upset. I also know that many of these same kids are adhering to what they see is popular in social media because nobody wants to be left out. I've seen this phenomenon before. Once, my son had a friend who was killed in a car/train accident. He knew the girl had been bullied by a group of girls, but those same girls sobbed and got all the sympathy and attention even though they were her tormentors. My son, then 14, was so outraged that he started yelling at them.  In another case, my younger son had a friend who died in an accident at 17. Kids who didn't even know him took the day off to "go to his memorial." I'm sorry, but kids often make bad choices and the ranting and marches are bad decisions for a generation that was entertaining the idea of eating Tide pods two weeks ago.

If you want to really stop school shootings-here's how you do it:
1. Uniforms-you can see instantly who doesn't belong.
2. Armed resource officers willing to engage (obviously not the case in Parkland)
3. Unseal criminal records of minors.
4. Background check everyone-this is going to be problematic to liberals b/c they like to claim those here illegally can't get ID's.
5. Remove ADA mandates that require schools to provide education for students who a dangerous, criminal or mentally ill in ways that cannot be predicted or controlled.
6. Make high schools smaller-these giant high schools only serve to make winning sports teams-we have more at stake here.
7. Reestablish mental health hospitals for teens-right now finding a space is almost impossible.
8. Stop allowing social media in school-there is no valid educational reason to have a cell phone.
9. Reinstate vocational programs that will give ALL kids purpose.
10.Eliminate layers of bureaucracy and put more educators in the classroom so that they know the kids and the kids know them.

Why Meddling With Enrollment to Ensure Outcomes Doesn't Work

Over 1000 elite colleges now don't use SAT scores as part of the criteria for admission. This was ostensibly done to increase minority enrollment (I'm guessing illiterate enrollment mainly), but as with all things, there are unintended consequences.

Here's the story and research: Story Here

Why Millennials Should Have Kids

There's a great number of stories in the media these days on why Millennials aren't having children. Most of those articles concentrate on the economics of children over the emotional investment. I find this to be a very sullen case of a generation that has documented every meal, every event and sometimes every emotion in online drama. In short, I think they need to grow up. But there are more reasons that Millennials should have kids. Let me outline why millennials-some of the most highly educated, carefully insulated and categorically managed group in history-should have children.

1. Having children will teach you to love on a level that you have never loved before.
If you buy sweaters for your dogs or toys for your kittens, if you watch then online at work courtesy of motion detection cameras, then you have a capacity to care, but not on the level that you will love a child. Babies grow into entirely separate people, which in and of itself is a miracle. More than that babies and children can think and reason and communicate on a level you will never achieve with your pet dog, cat or wombat. In the vast scheme of things, kids are just more fun.

2. Having children will help you grow up. No matter how affluent, parents too often find them must bend their own desires in order to accommodate their children. For Millennials who are used to having control of Every. Single. Aspect. of their lives, this is a good thing. Life is messy and disorganized. Whimsey and caprice are simple facts of life. Learning to roll with the punches, to deny yourself for the benefit of others is a good thing. It's the type of attitude our society needs to experience more, but seems disinclined to nurture. Having to stay up all night with a crying baby and still get up to face the day is a far more courageous action than partying with friends and moaning about the hangover at work the next day. Selflessness is an acquired trait-it builds character.

3. Having children will help you learn to be truthful. If you think you want to be the kind of person your dog expects you to be, consider how you want to appear to your children. Children are mirrors of family life. They are honest to a fault. They will let you know via word or deed when things are working and when they are not. Watching a child operate in the world is a far better template for behavior than most of what we see in the adult world. And troubled kids are a clear indicator of adults needing to clean up their acts.

4. Having children will expand your goals. Most Millennials don't think much beyond their own personal Venn diagram life. But what happens outside and beyond matters. It's been proven than societies that have fewer children value educational facilities less. Who is going to care for your ailments if there are not enough medical workers? What is more, who will take care of you when you are aging? Much of the Boomer generation is dealing with that right now. While you watch your parents care for aging grandparents have you considered who will handle your estate, your DNR orders, your demise? Who will comfort your spouse? Who will carry those family memories? Are you really willing to simply let them fade away? When it comes to that, if you only have one child, do you feel at ease leaving them alone with those memories?

5. Having children will keep you young. I've witnessed childless friends and their aging process isn't pretty. It's not that people with kids don't have medical issues, but childless couples seem adrift in our society. They are often limited to socializing with people their own age and as that group continues to get up there in years, the interaction with the current world fades. They become disconnected socially politically, emotionally. They frequently become people who only discuss medical care, funerals and politics. This more than any organic disease leads to much of the depression and dementia seen in seniors. Is that really what you want?

6. Having children will teach you fear.  That might seem like a bad thing, but it is not. Life is a rollercoaster. The depth of your fear is equal to the height of your joy. (Sorry-Khalil Gibran...) Being a parent is one of the scariest most joyous things you will ever do. You will watch a sleeping child just to see them breathing. You will wait up after dances and parties. You will feel your heart break when your child is left out or bullied. But you will also feel unbridled pride when your child gets an award, graduates, gets married or has children of their own. You cannot experience such emotion unless you take the risk of having children.

7. Having children will give you faith. While Americans are "unchurched" more, there is nobody more faithful than a parent worrying about a child. Do you think any parent at St. Jude's waits outside the treatment room praying to Science? Do you think that any parent can not marvel at the utter beauty of a sleeping child or that their own offspring are so creative, clever, talented and fun? Regardless of your faith or upbringing, you cannot truly care about humankind unless you understand that something beyond mere biology makes up the human psyche. If that's not faith, I don't know what to call it.

I think this generation of Millennials has been raised to fear everything. They want to be safe instead of free. They fear what they view as encumbrance of marriage, monogamy, children, family as some sort of trap instead of a support trellis on which they can grow. They want to know the answers to the test before they take it. They want insurance. Life is not a sure thing. It's a balance of risk and security. You can have your half caff latte daily or you can have love. You can have "experiences" traveling and doing, but your photos will eventually mean nothing. When nobody says your name, you die a second death. When you fail to have children, you may do it for yourself, but you do it TO everyone who came before. Their stories become lost. While I would never advocate for people who truly don't want kids to have them, the false cries over economics and social issues denies the very humanity Millennials claim to embrace.

Absentee Students

Recently my district had an entire week off for Thanksgiving break. Nine days from Saturday before Thanksgiving until the Sunday after is no short weekend. This evolved from what was earlier a four day weekend when my kids were in school. Then the parents would complain they had to leave early to get to grandma's house. So the districts changed the vacation period to five days. Parent then assumed that "it's only two days" and took their kids out the entire week. So again district buckled and the entire week was given to them. But that wasn't enough. I had kids leaving the Wednesday prior to the week off and one student whose family stayed in Mexico on vacation until the week after the break. Whatever happened to requiring students to be in class?

Oh sure, we have a 90% attendance rate requirement in Texas, but instead of enforcing some rules, our administrators willingly give permission to miss up to six days for "college visits" (which many times take place on ski lifts...) and allow students to miss time for cruises, family trips, etc to the point that make up work is almost impossible. And who gets to take up the slack and endure abuse from parents? The teachers.

When I was in school excessive absences were shown to be negative influences on a student's progress. When I had chicken pox in first grade and had to miss two weeks, serious consideration was given to holding me back in spite of my grades. Now students are allowed to make up "seat time" by sitting in an empty room biding their moments to make up missing classes. In talking to many students, they admit that if the advantage of seat time wasn't available, they probably could have made it to class.

We are teaching these future employees a poor lesson about accountability, responsibility and maturity. This is being aided by parents who seem unwilling to pay attention to a calendar and made worse by competition seasons that sometimes require days out of class. In the Spring we can look forward to soccer, golf and tennis students missing one day a week for the three months they compete. That's 20% of their class time. And THAT time is forgiven. But once you add in band trips, AcDec trips. Latin Club, Spanish Club, college trips and more and soon students are prolonging and delaying every project and exam. It makes grading impossible. But it makes learning negligible-with a dismissive attitude toward the process and the idea that graduation can be bought via threats and manipulation.

READ

On "Culture"

Some people believe culture is something you acquire via experience, travel or training. Other people believe culture is strictly defined by geography-where you were raised and what resources were available shape how you develop. And then some people believe, mistakenly I think, that culture is solely a matter of race. Let me explain why I think this last group is wrong.

I have known people of color who were born in Ghana, Jamaica and other locales. When matters of "race" as defined in American politics comes up, they admit to being mystified at how so many people can allow history or their own behavior to hold them back. I have to admit all these folks were college educated and came here legally and intentionally to pursue careers. So how come people who come here legally can overcome hurdles that people of color seem unable to surmount? If "culture" as defined by the Left, by BLM, by ACLU, by DNC and by all liberals, is a matter of race, how come so many people of color come here and succeed, often without the educational or social props our nation current provides many citizens?

What is "culture" anyway? The visible aspects of culture include how we dress, how we act, what we eat, and sometimes what we drive and where we live. Those used to be the sum limit of culture. There was a time when everyone listened to music from every culture. Unfortunately a kind of narrow asceticism has entered our nation where one must declare to be within the limited norms of stereotypes set not by the individual, but by others within the society who claim special knowledge. Thus a six year old white girl dressed as a fictional Disney princess Moana or Jasmine is accused by the media elite, such as Comsopolitan Magazine, of being racist and "appropriating culture." I'm confused by this because these are made up animated characters and as such really have no culture to speak of. While I certainly wouldn't encourage anyone to put their child in blackface or don a sombrero and claim to be a Mexican, what harm is it to dress like a cartoon of another little girl?

I'm not sure who is in charge of this cultural definition thing. It seems that like so many school elections, universities have allowed the very few who want the title to have the position. It's probably so that they can be left alone to play beer pong in peace. These mouthy little snowflakes are very open in pointing out the offenses others make to culture. This exercise prepares them to be trapped in Academia as either a student or adjunct professor for the rest of their lives because honestly, who else is going to hire them? These puffed up little twits have an entire new vocabulary of offenses to match the slate of gender nuances that everyone else is supposed to embrace. I think I speak for millions when I say-I don't give a damn what or who you do, just leave us alone.

Going along with culture is the "new racism." According to these same arbiters of cultural norms-you're racist and I'm racist and we just don't know it. If we lock our doors, we're racist. If we avoid dangerous neighborhoods, we're racist. If we don't adhere to policies that support turning over most of your income to the nearest person of color even if they make more than you do....you guessed it-racist. Racist as a term has become almost meaningless. It's just something mobs like to shout along with "death to cops" and "f*ck---whoever". I see their mouths moving but none of their sounds make any sense. And that is because the claims of racism have become so outrageous that only the most doctrinaire liberal believes all of them.

Here are just some of the things I have heard defined as racist:
Devil's Food Cake
Black Holes in space
Blackmail
Reading to your white children at night. (shame on you!)
Not taking a knee
Marriage
Intact families
Manners
Writing
School

These are just a few of them-I'm sure there are more. I don't mean to pick on these people, but seriously don't they have other things to do? Jobs? School? Something? More and more when you get on social media it's another litany of woes from the Left. I don't think they are even listening to each other anymore. Rant, rant, rant. Scream, scream, scream. Pop in your earbuds and it becomes some sort of hysterical mime troop encountering an obstacle Daddy can't just write a check to make it go away. I'm tired to death of their constructed and constrained culture imposing itself on mine. Contrary to the spox on the Left, everyone has rights. And although it's only implied, one of them is the right to be left the hell alone. I'm asking nicely on behalf of the millions of us who are thinking this, but not saying it for fear of being fired, attacked or making liberals cry.

Reality now

I went to in-service today. I finished up the Dyslexia trainting and then ESL/ELL training. I also sat in a meeting where evidence of how the whole chaotic nastiness of Antifa and the public protests have seeped down to the school level. Imagine my shock at two things revealed today that happened at my socalled "good' suburban school.

1. In protest, someone is taking it upon themselves to smear feces and menstrual blood in the boys and girls bathrooms. No wonder my students ask to go in the restrooms that are fulling in sight of teachers at all times. This is beyond nasty, it's unhealthy and borderline psychotic. In the hands of students the type of things they've seen from Occupy and Antifa and BLM register as normal. So we are beginning to see the new normal in schools.

2. Pot has been around awhile. But now we have dealers selling acid that is so toxic that just touching it with bare hands can get it into your bloodstream. How it was found was on the floor wrapped in a packet of foil. Any teacher or student or custodian could have picked it up and been impacted.

If this is happening in "good" schools, what is going on in others?

Indy

When my daughter was graduating from high school, my husband was out of work.

The only thing she wanted was a dog.

My kids have grown up with dogs. Our first "children" were a black Lab with a streak of wanderlust, named Pete, and a Golden Retriever/Border Collie mix,named Sandy. My kids learned to walk clutching Sandy's back. She would circle them in the yard making sure they were safe. The world seemed fresh and bright a new. After Sandy died and we moved, Pete would slip through our fence back to our old house looking for his friend. Sandy died at 14, Pete lived to be 16.

So there were two chaotic years where we had no pets except for Thor The Thunderbunny. Christi wanted a dog. So looking in the Greensheet, she found a "free" dog. We went over to a nice house in Richardson, an upscale neighborhood, and saw this poor hysterical Golden Retriever. She was thin, she was scared and she was terrified of men. So of course we took her. Only the mother of the family cried. Looking back I wonder if whatever abuse Indy suffered was domestic violence. It took a long time for her to trust.

We named her Indy because we picked her up on the day of the Indy 500. The owner, of course, lied. She was heartworm positive and had to go through two rounds of treatment. She became an inside dog-a hilarious, smart companion who stayed with my husband and me even when the kids moved out and up.

Indy was a very particular dog. She thought our rabbit was a puppy and licked it like one. She didn't chase squirrels, only rabbits because I think she thought they were Thor. She didn't retrieve. She loved what we called the Ch's-Chocolate (yeah I know, just a taste), Cheese and Chicken. I believe she had "cheeseradar" -she could hear me unwrapping cheese from outside. She was queen of our greenbelt park that trails along our backyard. She truly was the Alpha female ruling those that walked by. In her head though, she thought she was a little dog. She was scared of big dogs-never could get along with my daughter in law's chocolate Lab-but loved little dogs. The few times we boarded her she was always with the little dogs acting very much like a babysitter to them all.

Indy slept in our bedroom at the foot of our bed. Many is the time I would trip over her in the dark. She wasn't a cuddly dog-whatever trauma she suffered when she was a puppy prevented that-but she trusted us almost enough to let us clip her nails. Indy hated bathtime although she loved the results.
She was a beautiful, funny, caring friend. And I will miss her smile when I come home from work.

In a world where people are often untrue and unfaithful, dogs are always honest. If they don't like you, they let you know. And if they love you, you have a forever faithful friend. In the end, Indy could no longer walk. Brian would carry her outside several times a day. She couldn't eat anything, not even chicken. She was ready to go long before we were ready to let her go. She was a good girl and we will miss her. I hope if I am a good enough person, I will see her again, playing with Sandy and Pete in a place where there is no more pain and no more fear.