Quotes for the Day 10/26/2008
In the intermediate girls' Sunday School class this morning:
Me: Here are next week's papers, and I'm ready for you to hand in this week's papers. (Only one of the five girls hands hers in.)
Me: I'm going to start writing down the names each week of those who do their papers and hand it in.
Alicia: Not this week yet though, please? I just didn't have time.
Class Member: What happens if we don't do it?
Me: If I tell you that, you'll weigh the consequences and try to figure out if it's worth it or not, and I want you to do it for what you can learn, not because of a punishment or reward.
Class Member: You've been teaching too long. You know all the tricks.
Holli: You're way over-qualified. . . .
Eunice: We talked about it that you'll probably give us a test some time.
Me: The year isn't over yet . . .
It was a busy weekend with most of the class having attended a wedding yesterday and having lots of guests in the community, and I could understand why it was difficult to get everything done.
*******************************
Last night, on the phone with my brother, after he had reminded me that since Shane had come and picked all the peppers left on their plants, I had missed my chance at getting them.
Me: I guess I'm still in my perennially vascillating mode. . .
Lowell: I hear that. (Don't you hate it when they agree with you like that?)
Me: We didn't get home from cooking and cleaning up at the wedding till around 5:30 and I didn't feel like tackling another project after that. Besides, it looks like someone had better cook lots of food for the carry-in tomorrow with all this company. I thought I'd better get started tonight with that.
Lowell: No kidding. It looks to me like it's going to be like filling silo.
Me: What do you mean?
Lowell: Did you see how many of those guys are over six feet tall?
Me: No, I didn't notice, probably because I was so busy in the kitchen I didn't really look over the crowd very much. And my back was turned to the mike during the open mike time, so I didn't even get a good look at most of the people who talked.
I made it a point to check out the height of our visitors today. Lowell was right. A lot of them were tall, or maybe we're "shrimpier" here than I realized.
********************************
Dad: (At the beginning of his sermon today, after an acknowledgment that he probably seemed very old to some of the people in the audience) : I've discovered that being old is one way to get some extra attention. If any of you out there feel a need for extra attention you might consider having lots of birthdays. Several weeks ago, when I was at the camp meetings in Perkins, a man was introducing his 6 or 7 year-old boy to me, and he said to his son 'This man was already an old man when I was your age.'
******************************
Hiromi and I talked today over lunch with a visitor from Madison, WI who had come to visit her friends William and Elizabeth who had once been her neighbors. She is about 82 years old.
Madison, WI guest: I loved the sermon today. It was so inclusive, just like my grandmother was.
She went on to tell us that her mother had been raised by her Mennonite grandparents in Lancaster Co. PA after her own mother died when she was very young. Our guest remembered that grandmother (actually her great grandmother if I have it right) as being accepting of everyone, even if they were very different from herself.
Madison Woman again: I used to be a counselor at the university, and whenever I noticed a student that seemed particularly ready to meet the challenges of school life and do well there I would inquire about their background. Almost always they were farm kids. They knew why they were in school. Their goals were very clear and they didn't waste their learning opportunity. Sometimes I would tell them ' You're eligible for money to help pay for your education.' Usually they were surprised and asked questions till they understood what they needed to do to apply for the funds, but they obviously hadn't come expecting someone else to pay their college expenses.
She has similar impressions of most of the homeschooled students she knows, although her years at the university probably did not coincide with homeschooled college students having arrived on the scene.
This lady also told us that when she first heard years ago that LeRoy (whose family she knew) had applied for admission to both the University of Kansas and Yale University, one of her friends said to her "You know he won't get into Yale. No one I know has ever been admitted there."
"I said to her, 'Don't be so sure. They're looking for diversity, and what could be more out of the ordinary than an Amish farm boy, who has a 4.0 junior college record?' "
LeRoy was admitted and graduated two years later.
I was interesed in our new friend's references to her husband's time in the military during World War II--"things we all wanted to forget." He was a captain who participated in the Battle of the Bulge where he lost most of his men early on. The replacements he was sent were very young and very frightened. They scattered easily whenever rumors of the "tiger tanks" circulated (large and powerful German tanks), and he struggled then and many times after that to keep chaos at bay. Her husband had talked about some of the awful things his men did when they occupied a German village after the war--things that were strictly forbidden by the official US policy, and things that they would never have done in any other situation.
"People become inhuman during war," she said, tacitly affirming some of what she heard during the morning's sermon, in reference to nonresistance as the way of Christ.
Our friend has traveled to other states and three or four foreign countries to participate in Elderhostel programs. I had heard about this program but asked her to tell me more. I learned that it developed as a followup to Youth Hostels, utilizing facilities and learning opportunities on many college campuses, especially during the summer months. Usually, the sessions last for one or more weeks on a particular subject, with a great variety of subjects as possibilities.
I'd like to do that some time. The programs are open to anyone over 55. I qualify now.
**************************
The temperature tonight is predicted to go down to 28 degrees--the first freeze of the season--about a week and a half after the average date for the first freeze. That's why I took a huge basket outside tonight to harvest great clusters of frost-sensitive flowers, and why I now have six vases of flowers in the living and dining rooms, besides the two that Frieda gave me after the wedding yesterday.
Fall is always bittersweet. I regret seeing healthy-looking vegetation felled by frost, but it's a relief also to put aside the extra chores of maintaining things over the growing season.
Dwight (our market garden neighbor, about the garden) : I'm ready to have some of it freeze.
Me: Here are next week's papers, and I'm ready for you to hand in this week's papers. (Only one of the five girls hands hers in.)
Me: I'm going to start writing down the names each week of those who do their papers and hand it in.
Alicia: Not this week yet though, please? I just didn't have time.
Class Member: What happens if we don't do it?
Me: If I tell you that, you'll weigh the consequences and try to figure out if it's worth it or not, and I want you to do it for what you can learn, not because of a punishment or reward.
Class Member: You've been teaching too long. You know all the tricks.
Holli: You're way over-qualified. . . .
Eunice: We talked about it that you'll probably give us a test some time.
Me: The year isn't over yet . . .
It was a busy weekend with most of the class having attended a wedding yesterday and having lots of guests in the community, and I could understand why it was difficult to get everything done.
*******************************
Last night, on the phone with my brother, after he had reminded me that since Shane had come and picked all the peppers left on their plants, I had missed my chance at getting them.
Me: I guess I'm still in my perennially vascillating mode. . .
Lowell: I hear that. (Don't you hate it when they agree with you like that?)
Me: We didn't get home from cooking and cleaning up at the wedding till around 5:30 and I didn't feel like tackling another project after that. Besides, it looks like someone had better cook lots of food for the carry-in tomorrow with all this company. I thought I'd better get started tonight with that.
Lowell: No kidding. It looks to me like it's going to be like filling silo.
Me: What do you mean?
Lowell: Did you see how many of those guys are over six feet tall?
Me: No, I didn't notice, probably because I was so busy in the kitchen I didn't really look over the crowd very much. And my back was turned to the mike during the open mike time, so I didn't even get a good look at most of the people who talked.
I made it a point to check out the height of our visitors today. Lowell was right. A lot of them were tall, or maybe we're "shrimpier" here than I realized.
********************************
Dad: (At the beginning of his sermon today, after an acknowledgment that he probably seemed very old to some of the people in the audience) : I've discovered that being old is one way to get some extra attention. If any of you out there feel a need for extra attention you might consider having lots of birthdays. Several weeks ago, when I was at the camp meetings in Perkins, a man was introducing his 6 or 7 year-old boy to me, and he said to his son 'This man was already an old man when I was your age.'
******************************
Hiromi and I talked today over lunch with a visitor from Madison, WI who had come to visit her friends William and Elizabeth who had once been her neighbors. She is about 82 years old.
Madison, WI guest: I loved the sermon today. It was so inclusive, just like my grandmother was.
She went on to tell us that her mother had been raised by her Mennonite grandparents in Lancaster Co. PA after her own mother died when she was very young. Our guest remembered that grandmother (actually her great grandmother if I have it right) as being accepting of everyone, even if they were very different from herself.
Madison Woman again: I used to be a counselor at the university, and whenever I noticed a student that seemed particularly ready to meet the challenges of school life and do well there I would inquire about their background. Almost always they were farm kids. They knew why they were in school. Their goals were very clear and they didn't waste their learning opportunity. Sometimes I would tell them ' You're eligible for money to help pay for your education.' Usually they were surprised and asked questions till they understood what they needed to do to apply for the funds, but they obviously hadn't come expecting someone else to pay their college expenses.
She has similar impressions of most of the homeschooled students she knows, although her years at the university probably did not coincide with homeschooled college students having arrived on the scene.
This lady also told us that when she first heard years ago that LeRoy (whose family she knew) had applied for admission to both the University of Kansas and Yale University, one of her friends said to her "You know he won't get into Yale. No one I know has ever been admitted there."
"I said to her, 'Don't be so sure. They're looking for diversity, and what could be more out of the ordinary than an Amish farm boy, who has a 4.0 junior college record?' "
LeRoy was admitted and graduated two years later.
I was interesed in our new friend's references to her husband's time in the military during World War II--"things we all wanted to forget." He was a captain who participated in the Battle of the Bulge where he lost most of his men early on. The replacements he was sent were very young and very frightened. They scattered easily whenever rumors of the "tiger tanks" circulated (large and powerful German tanks), and he struggled then and many times after that to keep chaos at bay. Her husband had talked about some of the awful things his men did when they occupied a German village after the war--things that were strictly forbidden by the official US policy, and things that they would never have done in any other situation.
"People become inhuman during war," she said, tacitly affirming some of what she heard during the morning's sermon, in reference to nonresistance as the way of Christ.
Our friend has traveled to other states and three or four foreign countries to participate in Elderhostel programs. I had heard about this program but asked her to tell me more. I learned that it developed as a followup to Youth Hostels, utilizing facilities and learning opportunities on many college campuses, especially during the summer months. Usually, the sessions last for one or more weeks on a particular subject, with a great variety of subjects as possibilities.
I'd like to do that some time. The programs are open to anyone over 55. I qualify now.
**************************
The temperature tonight is predicted to go down to 28 degrees--the first freeze of the season--about a week and a half after the average date for the first freeze. That's why I took a huge basket outside tonight to harvest great clusters of frost-sensitive flowers, and why I now have six vases of flowers in the living and dining rooms, besides the two that Frieda gave me after the wedding yesterday.
Fall is always bittersweet. I regret seeing healthy-looking vegetation felled by frost, but it's a relief also to put aside the extra chores of maintaining things over the growing season.
Dwight (our market garden neighbor, about the garden) : I'm ready to have some of it freeze.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:15 PM
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