Aunt Grace’s Christmas letter….

… was always one of the first to come. Maybe to start a fire under all of us. I found one floating around in my bookshelves that I think I just couldn’t bear to put away in some drawer or revolving file or whatever, thus still floating over books on my bookshelf. So for your enjoyment, here is the re-run of the Christmas 2008 newsletter… just let me get my glasses so I can read it!

“GREETINKS  AVERYONE!!!! ( as H.Y.M.A.N..K.AP.L.A.N would boom out as he came a little late to night school to learn proper English.)

And so we have started our annual visit. THANK YOU to those of you who have sent cards and/or letters—- and to those of you who will 🙂 be sending some. I do have a lot of faith in you. Well, this year (and part of last year) has taken me back to the classroom! What familiar territory! And I have enjoyed and am enjoying it. Kast year I subbed at Hinckley. Thought I would see what the atmosphere was like- and I wasn’t disappointed. The only time I have been in that school was for relative graduations and band concerts. But, now I was “clicking” down the halls and in the rooms where the learning for those events take place. I was whatever class teacher they needed a sub- jr. high and sr. high. In jr. high HomeEc (as I knew it) one of the fellows asked me, “How old are you?” (Now what was he seeing and analyzing?) 😉  So I said, “103.” ONE HUNDRED THREE?!?!?!?!?!  REALLY?!?!?!?” “Sure.” “How many years have you been teaching?’ “75”. So he started doing some pencil work on his hand. Don’t ask me what or why. About 2-3  weeks later in a 9th grade science class, a fellow asked me the same question. (I think I was being given a memory test 😉 So I gave the same answer. Then he started doing some work on a piece of paper. One of the girls asked what he was doing. “I’m trying to figure out how many years it will be till I’m that age.” So I said, “Let me know when you get there and I’ll send you a birthday card.” One girl really let out a laugh while another girl said, “What’s so funny?”

This fall I was asked if I would teach at Harvest Christian School in   Sandstone. The school has pre-school through the 9th grade. I teach 7,8,9 English. The 7th and 8th are together, 6 students, and the 9th has three students. 1st and 2nd hours of the morning. That I like. These young people don’t gripe, groan, or complain about the assignments, tests. One day I told them that and added, “You don’t know how good that is!” And there are white boards with colored ‘ink sticks’ 🙂 to use (no more fingernail scratching accidentally, of course! Ooofdah. What a sound and feeling that was!) on the blackboard with ‘scritchy” sounding chalk. Smooth, please!

The first day of school when I made the coffee and poured a cup, I very clearly saw the white bottom of the cup. So I told the headmaster that if making good coffee was the basis for my coming back the next day, I probably wouldn’t be there! 🙂 The, the second, day, I was unlocking the door (thank goodness it was open a bit) I lost control of the key and I heard it ‘plink’ somewhere. ~ You know, if I were to win $10,000 if this happening, it wouldn’t have happened! I looked all over  on the porch. Oh my no -no such luck! The key had fallen between two of the porch boards! The sun was bright in the east so I thought I would bend downtto see what I could see (insert curly-haired stick figure on knees with face peering between porch cracks) ~ not the best position to be in – facing east  –  with traffic going by. So I gave that up and told the “Mrs. Headmaster” . She had one of the boys get it for me. No more funny am’s.

I went to school reunions this past summer –  Foston, Parkers Prairie. Always enjoyable to visit with former students, parents, teachers, friends in each place. At Parkers, I was at the City Park where all of the students were for the Fall Festival. I was visiting with some former students. One of the fellows said that his class had celebrated their 30th reunion the previous week and added, “After we got done talking about our classmates who didn’t make it, we started talking about you.” 🙂  I just let out a good laugh – didn’t touch that one! 😉 (was I supposed to say something?)  When I was at Parker in the spring, I found only two people from “my time” in the high school, a teacher and a student (she’s not a student anymore!:)  However, as I went to the various business places, I found former students as employers, employees, customers – how good could it get for me.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!    12-18-08