Three days ago Her Majesty suggested I get out of town. It was nice of her to put it that way. Nobody wants to hear, "Why don't you go to hell" I'd been sequestered in the Columbus Ohio area for 13 months. I was up for it.
Yours truly left Dublin Ohio Thrusday morning at 9am. I always thought is was neat that when I drive I notice what I believe are interesting sights. Others wouldn't think the way I do. For instance, when I crossed the border into Indiana the orange road barrels popped up--------all the way to Indianoplis. We're talking 75 miles at 55 mph. The my mind began computing because these orange things are privately owned and rented to the state a 5 cents per. They are placed at 30 feet apart. I'm too lazy to compute the money but every day some guy gets a ton of cash.
The barrels ended on the west side of Indianapolis but when I entered Illinois border they pretty much contined to Rock Island; a total of 150 miles. I've always hated Illinois from their pathetic football teams to their pitiful government to Chicago.
When I arrived in Rock Island I stopped to visit a young man who is now 53 years in age. He played football for me and was in my history class. I had not seen him in 33 years. What a joy. I absolutely loved him as a teacher but I don't think he knew it. His name is Steve. I sent him aTrump flag a couple of weeks ago but only because I saw his patriotism on Facebook. That's how we reconnected after all these years. Steve is what I would call a free spirit. He always had an attitude of 'so what'. One day at football practice he showed up with T-shirt yellow in color with green lettering. It read, 'It's Miller Time" Our head coach went absolutely insane because he came to practice with a shirt promoting beer. I, at the time, thought this was silly because I knew as soon as practice was over the coaches would head out to Lee's Liqour Store & Bar and suck down Miller's for a good three hours.
Steve, in his infinite wisdom, after getting berated by our head coach, got ahold of a magic marker and wrote on the shirt: he put a karat sign between the 'The'and 'Miller' and wrote the words, "Joe" who was a player on the team. If you're stupid, it read "It's Joe Miller Time' who was a player on the team. Isn't that classic and quick thinking?
Steve told me a story about myself I didn not remember. Isn't it weird that we remember certain situations and forget others?
Anyway, in history class, according to Steve, there were twins. Those I remember. I'd split them up in seats across the room because I couldn't tell them apart. One of them was a trouble maker; not the kind of kid who set others on fire but one who had to be the center of attention. Steve said, and honest to goodness I do not remember doing this, I'd had enough one day I'd had enough of with the kids shenanigans. I walked over to his desk, picked it and him up and carried him to the hallway and shut the door.
I do remember his dad and mother calling a teacher conference with the principal and me. The dad's last words were to me: "I'm going to punch you in the mouth". The guy was about 5'6" and weighed something around the size of a minnow and I started laughing." Thanks to Steve for reminding me of this.
He also remembered that in the front of my classroom tied to the wall I had an eight knot noose. The first day of school I told the kids that if they gave me trouble, then I pointed to the noose, they could expect this.
Try that today and see what happens.
The visit I had with Steve was worth more than any money I made in my life. He's successful with a wonderful wife and lives in a home 90% of the people would die for. He takes care of his mother-in-law who is a lovely woman.
He has done and is doing God's work and I'm more than blessed to have been his coach and teacher lo these many years ago.
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