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Families of the Lounge

Messages
15,259
Location
Arlington, Virginia
Thanks
And sorry to you all for the sudden burst of Pictures, but I just got permission to show them

5.jpg

Great pic!
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
That's the best part! Bonus points for being able to give her back to the parents! :p


She stays with me about 75% of the time. If I had my way, it would be 100%. If she had her way, it would probably be 95%. I've been keeping her since she was about 3 months old. She starts to school this Fall, and I don't know what I'll do. I'll be lost without my "best buddy."
 

Babydoll

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,483
Location
The Emerald City
She stays with me about 75% of the time. If I had my way, it would be 100%. If she had her way, it would probably be 95%. I've been keeping her since she was about 3 months old. She starts to school this Fall, and I don't know what I'll do. I'll be lost without my "best buddy."

I'll be going thru the same in September. :(
 

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
I'll be going thru the same in September. :(

Kindergarten was hard for me when my daughter started - my kid was the one who sobbed and refused to let me leave. :( Tore me up. But we got through it okay and she'll be a sophomore in high school this fall.

Good luck! :)
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
Kindergarten was hard for me when my daughter started - my kid was the one who sobbed and refused to let me leave. :( Tore me up. But we got through it okay and she'll be a sophomore in high school this fall.

Good luck! :)


When my daughter (my granddaughter's mother) started to school, I walked her to class the first day. The second day, I got out of the car in front of the school only to hear, "You don't have to walk me to class, I KNOW where it is now." I have a feeling my granddaughter will be just as independent (and well-adjusted) as her mother was what seems like all those years ago.
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
Speaking of children starting to school …





My aunt Hazel was a teacher who taught school for 47 years. That was 47 years in the same grade (3[SUP]rd[/SUP]), the same school, and the same room. She dearly loved being a school teacher, but she didn't always love school ...

At the beginning of the school year in 1913, my Grandmother took my aunt Hazel by the hand, walked out the front door and down the road. They crossed the railroad tracks, and walked up the hill to the old Nebo School. My Grandmother took Hazel to her first grade class room and left her there. She then walked back to the house, only to find Hazel sitting on the front porch steps waiting for her. Hazel had slipped out of class, cut through the woods, and beat my Grandmother back home. The next day the same thing. Hazel beat my Grandmother home. The day after that, same story. My Grandmother finally decided it was no use, and let Hazel stay home till the beginning of the 1914 school year. After that, no more problems. Hazel went on to graduate from Nebo School in 1925, attended college at Asheville Normal School, and began her teaching career at Clinchfield School in 1928.
 

Babydoll

Call Me a Cab
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2,483
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The Emerald City
I took Lily to her school last week to meet her teacher. They did an assessment to see if Lily would need additional resources. She will - to keep her challenged! She's reading (Dr. Seuss is her favorite!), writing/spelling on her own, and doing addition/subtraction. Little smartypants.

Big Man, my aunt is retiring this week after 54 years of teaching. She says she doesn't know what she'll do with herself.
 
Messages
17,111
Location
New York City
Speaking of children starting to school …





My aunt Hazel was a teacher who taught school for 47 years. That was 47 years in the same grade (3[SUP]rd[/SUP]), the same school, and the same room. She dearly loved being a school teacher, but she didn't always love school ...

At the beginning of the school year in 1913, my Grandmother took my aunt Hazel by the hand, walked out the front door and down the road. They crossed the railroad tracks, and walked up the hill to the old Nebo School. My Grandmother took Hazel to her first grade class room and left her there. She then walked back to the house, only to find Hazel sitting on the front porch steps waiting for her. Hazel had slipped out of class, cut through the woods, and beat my Grandmother back home. The next day the same thing. Hazel beat my Grandmother home. The day after that, same story. My Grandmother finally decided it was no use, and let Hazel stay home till the beginning of the 1914 school year. After that, no more problems. Hazel went on to graduate from Nebo School in 1925, attended college at Asheville Normal School, and began her teaching career at Clinchfield School in 1928.

Big Man, fantastic story. I love the imagery of your very young aunt sitting on the porch steps waiting for her mother to get back from taking her to school. That is classic.

RE your post and Baby Doll - We have an old family friend who is in her early seventies and has been teaching for, I guess, close to 50 years. She retired, but now substitutes (but she seems to get assigned to a class for a semester so it isn't substituting - taking an odd class here or there - the way I used to think about it). I don't know all the economics of it, but since she has her retirement comp, I think she is a very inexpensive hire for the school and she does it for the engagement not the money.

That said, she said that the never ending rules and regulation changes - the "must" teach it this way, follow this new criteria, new plan, new whatever - is getting her close to stoping. And she is not a set-in-her-ways or tired person. She's full of energy, likes teaching and is not at all opposed to change, but has said that the last decade or so has, in her opinion, been just one top-down rule, plan, criteria after another to the point that she's probably going to stop soon. I have no idea if that is a country wide issue, or just something going on in her school district or state.
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
... Big Man, my aunt is retiring this week after 54 years of teaching. She says she doesn't know what she'll do with herself.


Please tell her I send my congratulations on a job well done. Teaching is a noble profession. You will never get rich in monetary terms, but the real "rewards" are beyond measure.
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
Big Man, fantastic story. I love the imagery of your very young aunt sitting on the porch steps waiting for her mother to get back from taking her to school. That is classic. ...


I like the fact that, in the cool and quite of the evening, I can sit on that very same front porch and, with just a little imagination, "see" my aunt Hazel sitting on those same steps.
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
... That said, she said that the never ending rules and regulation changes - the "must" teach it this way, follow this new criteria, new plan, new whatever - is getting her close to stoping. And she is not a set-in-her-ways or tired person. She's full of energy, likes teaching and is not at all opposed to change, but has said that the last decade or so has, in her opinion, been just one top-down rule, plan, criteria after another to the point that she's probably going to stop soon. I have no idea if that is a country wide issue, or just something going on in her school district or state.


I come from a long line of teachers. Besides both my aunts having been teachers, both my parents were teachers, too. My Dad was the principal of Oak Hill School (K-12) from 1949 till his retirement in 1979. As part of the job as principal, we lived in the "principal's house" located on the school grounds. The house was right smack in the middle of the school, with the elementary building on one side of the yard and the high school building on the other. Just from my observations, I saw a drastic change in education beginning in the early 1970s. Today's educational system, in our county at least, does not resemble anything like it was "back in the day."

I had breakfast yesterday morning at a little dinner in the Oak Hill community. One of my Dad's former students from the Class of '57 came and sat down at my table and started talking about the "good old days." My Dad used to take kids to ball games, buy them shoes if they needed them, help get them started in college. When he died in 2008, former student after student stood up in church at his funeral service and gave testimonies as to all he did for them. I say this not to brag about my Dad (although I can't help but do so just a little), but to point out that a principal today could not do things like this. The "system" would prevent it from happening.

I admire anyone going into teaching today. It is a hard job.
 
Messages
17,111
Location
New York City
I like the fact that, in the cool and quite of the evening, I can sit on that very same front porch and, with just a little imagination, "see" my aunt Hazel sitting on those same steps.

That feeling, that capturing of the past you reference sitting on your porch is a big part of my enjoyment of vintage items and things like Fedora Lounge.

I was thinking about my great grandfather the other day. He died when I was 6 in '70 and he was probably 106. He started life in Russia and the records we could find show him being born in 1864. I'd say that's close, but who really knows - but whatever the exact day, he was very, very old. Other than the last month of his life, he was conversant and understood - even if he did nod off in the middle of conversations sometimes and you had to practically shout to get him to hear you.

Even though I was young, I remember him very well. He always spoke in a very calm voice and, when he talked to me, he talked about how I should want to be a good person in the world and always do the morally right thing. You knew this was very, very important to him and it was the thing he was trying to teach to me. Even as a kid at 6, I knew he was using words and spoke to children in a way that was different than was the norm in the late '60s / '70s. I knew he was from another era.

I also remember him telling me about growing up in a small village which had a well in the center where they got their water. He told me how his mother used to ask him to get her water for this or that. I don't remember him telling me much more about his upbringing, but I think about how just two lives - his and mine - connect (at this point) 151 years of history together.

We are restoring a 1927 apartment that we bought recently, and the other day, we were shopping for a kitchen faucet (it will be a new one, but in a 1920s style and wall mounted). While shopping, I thought about my great grandfather, as a little boy, walking to the center of the village to get water from the well. And now I'm in a store chockablock with faucets; whereas my great grandfather - who I knew - got water from a community well. Just an amazing connect to the past.

My mother has a few of his possessions, and whenever I see them, I can feel the connect more strongly - it's not about the physical things themselves, but the tangible connect to someone we knew, we loved, to a time they lived in, to the past. Your porch, my great grandfather's modest possessions - they aren't just things, they are so much more.
 
Last edited:

AmateisGal

I'll Lock Up
Messages
6,126
Location
Nebraska
Speaking of children starting to school …





My aunt Hazel was a teacher who taught school for 47 years. That was 47 years in the same grade (3[SUP]rd[/SUP]), the same school, and the same room. She dearly loved being a school teacher, but she didn't always love school ...

At the beginning of the school year in 1913, my Grandmother took my aunt Hazel by the hand, walked out the front door and down the road. They crossed the railroad tracks, and walked up the hill to the old Nebo School. My Grandmother took Hazel to her first grade class room and left her there. She then walked back to the house, only to find Hazel sitting on the front porch steps waiting for her. Hazel had slipped out of class, cut through the woods, and beat my Grandmother back home. The next day the same thing. Hazel beat my Grandmother home. The day after that, same story. My Grandmother finally decided it was no use, and let Hazel stay home till the beginning of the 1914 school year. After that, no more problems. Hazel went on to graduate from Nebo School in 1925, attended college at Asheville Normal School, and began her teaching career at Clinchfield School in 1928.

I love this story!!!
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
... it's not about the physical things themselves, but the tangible connect to someone we knew, we loved, to a time they lived in, to the past. Your porch, my great grandfather's modest possessions - they aren't just things, they are so much more.


I don't think it could be said better.
 

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