Yup, am back....   For a while there I considered shutting this down in favor of Facebook but it is hard to close the door on an old friend.

    I am not sure exactly what I believed when I thought about "retirement" some 6 or 7 years ago but I am sure it was not this.  Although what I do is not physically difficult, it is demanding and exhausts me. 
   We all work for one reason or another.  Other than money to pay the bills my reason was to see something tangible come from my efforts, to see "results." When I worked for  someone else, success was measured in how high up the corporate ladder I could climb; how much responsibility I was given; how many people worked for me.  As a businessman I measured success in the amount of money the business made.
   It is hard to see "results" in what I do now. I teach children to read, write, and hopefully think. In the process of doing so this year I have discovered my own weaknesses.
  Some of the children I teach will never, ever, become independent.  One of my parents has three children; two of them will never be able to hold down a job. Never.  They will always be dependent on their mother.  How does she cope? How WILL she cope? I could go on, and in later posts I will, but what I wanted to say was that I have discovered how little I know about an extremely complex subject.  One year with these kids has brought home to me the fact that I am no where near as smart, as talented, as competent, as good as I had thought.  But I do love to go to work every day.  That counts.
    But I digress, it is five a:m down here on the bayou and I have other things to do before going to class.  Allow me to introduce to you a young lady who has her life in front of her.  May she be given the opportunity to have it blossom and be as wonderful has mine has been.  I hope to see her soon.