Tag Archives: travel

People All Have Worth

2nd Doctor  I know that you are probably immediately listing all the reasons that my title is totally wacky monkey-thinking in your head.  And if you want to lay into me in the comments, you are more than welcome.  But the reality is that teachers have to develop the mindset that all kids can learn and all people have value… no matter what.  That can be hard to accept when you factor in how corrupted, warped, and badly-taught so many people have turned out to be.  It honestly seems, sometimes, that when faced with the facts of how people act… being violent, or greedy, self-centered, thoughtless, un-caring, and willfully stupid… that they really don’t even have value to others if you kill them, let them rot, and try to use them as fertilizer.  The plants you fertilize with that stuff will come up deformed.

But the Doctor I have pictured here, the Second Doctor played by Patrick Troughton always seemed to find Earth people delightful.  Alien people too, for that matter, unless they were soulless mobile hate receptacles in robotic trash cans like the Daleks, or mindless machines powered by stolen human brains like the Cybermen.  There is, indeed, music in every soul, even if some of it is a little bit discordant and awkward.  And people are not born evil.  The classic study done on Brazilian street kids showed that even with no resources to share and living empty, hopeless lives, the children helped one another, comforted one another, and refused to exploit one another.  As a teacher you get to know every type that there is.  And there are stupid kids (deprived of essential resources necessary to learning), and evil kids (lashing out at others for the pain inflicted upon them), and needy kids (who can never get enough of anything you might offer and always demand more, MORE, MORE!)  Sometimes they drive you insane and make you want to resign and leave the country to go count penguins in Antarctica.  But the Doctor is right.  No matter what has been done to them, if you get to know them, and treat them as individual people rather than as problems… they are delightful!  Andrew

So let me show you a few old drawings of people.

Cute people like Andrew here.

Or possibly stupid and goofy people who never get things right.

Harker

Or long-dead people who made their contributions long ago, and sacrificed everything to make our lives different… if not better.DSCN4448

Supe n Sherry_nOr young people who live and learn and hopefully love…

And try really hard at whatever they do… whether they have talent or not.

Player3

And hope and dream and play and laugh…

And sometimes hate… (but hopefully not too much)…

And can probably tell that I really like to draw people…

Because God made them all for a reason…

even if we will never find out what that reason is.

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Filed under art my Grandpa loved, humor, Paffooney, philosophy

The Dog-Walk

Yes, I will admit to walking the dog for all the wrong reasons…  I take her to prevent more poop piling up in the house on the living room carpet, but that’s just the most obvious reason that my wife and kids truly believe is the only reason.  The truth is more sinister.  When life goes against me (like my recent trouble with anti-teacher policies in Texas and the scourge known as insurance pirates) I take the dog out for walks so I can stumble and grumble and swear at the dog.

dogwalk1

I took my camera along on this walk because I needed something to post for today even though I am all grumbly and rumbly and not ready to write.  As we were taking off, I noticed my wife’s daffodils had sprung up to look around, confused by the warmer, wetter weather than we normally get during the time of year when Dallas is known for freezing Superbowls solid.

dogwalk2

Daffodils, like most Texas residents, are a little naive and a little too ready to think only good things can happen to them because they are white and relatively wealthy and very Republican, living in the State at the center of the universe.

dogwalk3

Then the second one pops out.  Like any other Texans, two together make the average IQ in the room drop.  Opinions get tossed back and forth to snowball into masses of prejudice against Mexicans crossing the border, too many black folks, too many people on food stamps eating up all the profits, and other massively bright blossoms of bigotry.  Sometimes they watch Fox News together and get really dangerous.  But fortunately, when two or more fear-charged brain-cells come in close proximity to each other (a feat that requires at least five Republicans) they begin to develop an electro-magnetic sixth sense and begin to perceive truth on the far perimeter.

dogwalk4

The forecast in North Texas for this coming week is for a strong chance of severe winter weather (for North Texas that is the code for a slight chance of snow).  So, I got a good laugh at daffodil expense.  But, I guess I don’t really hope they die an icy death.  I’m just grumpy because sometimes my life just doesn’t progress very well.

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Filed under grumpiness, humor, photo paffoonies

Blue Holiday Time

Christmas time has come again. And my family, still attached to Jehovah’s Witnesses, avoids everything important to the world around us at this time of year. My wife and daughter, the only members of my immediate family that still live with me, took the RV to San Antonio to pick up my mother-in-law who miraculously escaped hospice care in 2023, and took her to South Padre Island to spend time with her that statistically they should never have had a chance at. So, I, also in poor health, am left at home with the dog to spend the holiday we don’t celebrate all alone. I am not bitter. I have time to draw and write stories and poetry.  And I can watch others here in Dallas enjoy a holiday that once made a big difference in my childhood every year. I can reflect on loved ones now gone and memories those loved ones once shared with me about family meals at reunions and holiday gatherings at Grandpa and Grandma’s place, cousins by the dozens with shining smiles, and live Christmas trees in stands filled with sugar water and decorated with blinking lights and bubble lights and handmade ornaments and antique glass balls of many colors, some of which were handed down all the way from Germany where once our ancestors lived and loved and celebrated Christmas.

Yes, I am not bitter. Nor really lonely, depressed, or bored. The dog and I have our ways. There are songs sung to nobody. Arthritic dances that no one sees or laughs at. I am old enough to know that there is enough love stored in my heart for several more lifetimes if need be. And if there is no one to share them with for now, that’s not my loss. 

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The Rest of my Classroom Gallery

Here’s what’s left in my camera from school white boards and lessons.

Photo0107 Photo0110 Photo0112 Photo0118 Photo0123 Photo0126 Photo0127 Photo0133 Photo0137 Photo0139 Photo0144 Photo0146 Photo0149 Photo0142There you have it, the results of 31 years of doodling on the chalkboard (which became the dry erase board).  And yes, I did tell them the cartoon fairy drew all the pictures.  Especially when they were in my class for the second or third year when they asked, “Who does all the pictures on the board?”  And yes, I started doing this back in dinosaur days in white chalk on a green blackboard, followed by colored chalk, which later became a gray marker-board for washable marker, and finally became dry erase white board.  And I really bought my own chalk and markers too.  Teachers do that, you know.

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Filed under artwork, cartoons, goofiness, humor, Paffooney, photos, teaching