Monday, August 4, 2025
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Remembering Getting Ready for the School Year
In 25 years of teaching, August 1 was always a significant date.
It marked the end of reading just for fun and pleasure, and writing whatever work had been my focus - a short story, play, that blasted novel I never seem ever to finish.
It was time to get ready for school.
My summer reading had already included new works I would be teaching, or rereading some that I would be teaching again. But now I would begin focusing on works I would be teaching.
Some teachers create detailed lesson plans. They would plot out the entire year. But that was not my style. I would plan what works I would be teaching, so I knew the order and about when I would be teaching them. But day-to-day plans - no.
What I would be doing is researching all the works and history surrounding the literature I would be teaching.
For example, if I know I would be teaching Uncle Tom’s Cabin that year, I’d try to find information about the slave trade, collections of slave songs, descriptions of the Underground Railroad, local links to the Railroad, the poems and essays of other writers dealing with the issue at that time, and so on.
August would also visits to my classroom, ordering needed supplies, making sure we had enough books available for my students, making photocopies, a least one faculty, a department meeting and in-service, and so on.
Later in the month I would go in to set up my classroom. At the last school where I taught, I built bookshelves to hold all the books I wanted to make available for my students. When I retired, I donated those shelves and many of those books to the school.
And now, in retirement, I read only what I want to read or think I should read. No lesson planning or background research, No school workshops and meetings.
I’m enjoying retirement, But part of me misses those days. I miss the students and the camaraderie of fellow teachers.
And I don’t have a handy excuse any more for not finishing that blasted novel!
Thursday, July 31, 2025
U.S. bishops invite Catholics to pray for end to taxpayer-funded abortion
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
Remembering a Visit to the Solanus Casey Center

I planned to visit the friary and the center if I could get any free time. I was able to visit after the conference officially ended, and I stopped there for a short visit before leaving Detroit to drive home to Western New York.
The exhibit also included the vestment he wore for his last Mass, and his Chalice and Paten
...and the rubber stamp he used to sign the many letters he sent to people in response to their letters asking for his prayers and guidance. (He received so many letters that, as he got older and struggled with health, he would dictate letters to secretaries, then stamp them with his signature.)His tomb had been moved into the church once the process had begun to investigate his sanctity - a first step toward him possibly being declared a saint.The tomb of the long-time porter is located, appropriately, at one of the entrances to the church. There is a carving of a violin on it.

It was also covered with slips of papers on which there were prayer requests. I wrote my own request, asking him to pray for something that is troubling my heart.
At the entrance to the Center, there is a garden with art reflecting lines from St. Francis of Assisi's "Canticle of Brother Sun."
I also got a lesson in Franciscan poverty. I'm a bibliophile (with a house jammed with far too many books). After my initial swing through the center and the chapel, I went to the bookstore/gift shop, hoping to find a book or two that I did not already have (or three or four!).
It closed at 4 - before I got to it. Ha!
In the years since that visit, Father Solanus has been beatified, and there is a miracle being currently investigated that could lead to his being officially declared a saint, though, in my mind he already is. I made my Secular Franciscan Profession in 2011, and took him as my patron saint.
Meanwhile, the center has undergone a major renovation since my visit. I believe the tomb has been moved.
I hope to get back there again some day.
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Ozzy Was a Whiz Kid
was by water borne
to the Alamo
where he was heard to mumble, "When ya gotta go, ya gotta go."
(According to the San Antonio Express News, on Feb. 19, 1982, an intoxicated Osbourne publicly urinated in Alamo Plaza, specifically on the Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot monument commemorating the men and women who chose to defend the Alamo in 1836.
He was arrested and paid a fine, and was banned from performing in San Antonio for 10 years. He apologized, and was eventually allowed to perform in that city again.
Then, in 2015, 33 years after the incident, he was finally welcomed back to the Alamo for a segment of the History Channel's series, Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour.
After his death July 22, the Alamo, on its Instagram account, issued a statement:
However, redemption and reconciliation eventually became part of his history as well. In 1992, Ozzy personally apologized to then-Mayor Nelson Wolff and expressed genuine remorse for his actions. Decades later, in 2015, he revisited the Alamo grounds to learn and appreciate the site's profound history, openly demonstrating humility and understanding.
At the Alamo, we honor history in all its complexities. Today, we acknowledge Ozzy Osbourne's journey from regret to reconciliation at the historic site, and we extend our condolences to his family, friends, and fans around the world. May he rest in peace.)
Pax et bonum