Leveraged Intelligence

Solitude

It comes and it goes.  Its nature changes.  When young, I spent time feeling lonely and felt I had too much solitude.  Had I known that I would meet my mate, that my life would unfold as it has, I would not have been so worried.  But, I felt lonely for awhile.

Sometimes I feel like I will have no time alone ever again.  That, of course, is not true – and I don’t wish it as a regular diet.  But, we have had so many interactions continuously with so many people recently that I need a little meditative time now and then.

So, how exactly is a guy supposed to balance these needs?  By playing it as it lays!  It is possible to be alone surrounded by thousands of people, as every city dweller can attest:

Yet, it is possible to be together even though separated by oceans:

Solitude, sometimes desired, sometimes regretted, seems to seek us and avoid us according to whim.  This may seem like a curse … or perhaps like an opportunity, depending upon current circumstance.  How we decide to relate to it determines a great deal of our happiness.

I Did Some Honest Labor

I’m back in Kansas at the Folks’ homestead.  And, I dug three holes by hand for new fence posts in 96 degree Fahrenheit heat.  That’s 35.5 degrees Celsius for the rest of the world who have not yet successfully converted America to logic.  I will tell you about the details later – and, if you think my tavelogues have been boring … you just wait.

Oh, and did I tell you that Mom and Grannymar talked together on Skype for about an hour or more?  I have video of GM talking with the Queen, but I reckon I’ll have to get a release from both before showing that to you!

As George Costanza said in one episode (for our Seinfeld fans), “Worlds are colliding here!”

Voices I Recall

This is another in the Friday series of topics shared by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a list of whom is available with clickable links on the left side of this blog page.  The Magpie served up today’s topic and each of us will have posted simultaneously on the subject by the time you are reading this.  Well, maybe some won’t.  Don’t sweat it if you go to a site and don’t see it, because many members are busy with life and that is what loose is all about!

When I was a boy, Mom calling me to dinner was the sweetest sound you could hear.  Coming from her mouth, it didn’t sound like a chore, it sounded like she really wanted to feed you.  Maybe tonight would be “snoots,” macaroni noodles with tomato sauce and ground beef!

Sometimes, we kids would play a game on the floor while our moms shared the day over coffee.  We didn’t listen to what they said, but it was reassuring that they were there, at ease, gently radiating security without even thinking about it.

Later, stepping off the baseball mound at the end of a winning game, grinning ear-to-ear, it was my dad’s voice that was the icing on the cake, because it was filled with a genuine enthusiasm, a sharing of joy, the first voice I wanted to hear.  If it didn’t go so well, a losing effort, he didn’t insult me with any lies about my performance, but somehow he made me less concerned about defeat and ready take another shot at it tomorrow.  He spoke and it gave a sense of a world that was right and worth the effort, even when everything else said it was senseless.

I remember the speeches of JFK when I was a boy and how they made me feel encouraged and determined.  Or the voice of Cronkite that just seemed somehow honest and unadorned, trustworthy.   Even the voices of actors satisfied to stick with their craft working to perfect it, like Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck or Ingrid Bergman or Henry Fonda, somehow communicating integrity that stuck to your ribs like steak and potatoes.

The voices of parents, the voices of teachers, the voices of leaders during challenging times – the voices of my memory are the voices of those bigger than me at the time, the voices of those who could see what I couldn’t.  They spoke to my ideals and engendered new ones in me.  That is our calling, to listen to worthy voices – and to speak up when it comes our time.

These are times badly in need of those voices, those memorable voices of reason, voices worthy of trust, voices that generate passion for creation and achievement, voices that replace fear with focus and determination.  The voices that you remember won’t necessarily be the ones I remember, but they will have qualities in common.  They won’t be hysterical, but they will be passionate.  They are voices that will speak higher truth.

They are the voices that cut through the crap.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

OK, gang, it’s time once again to wish Happy Birthday to the Queen!

We need a boisterous toast to her health.  What say ye all??

Corky’s Real Life Tale of Terror!

Hi all you blog folks!

Back when I first started spinning these tales (I think I was talking about our life in Manchester) I think I mentioned that as a child (and adult) I had nightmares. Those of you that have watched the Walton’s on TV probably remember how they all say good night to each other at the end of the show as the lights go off in each room? Well, I would say goodnight to everyone in the house including our pets until my Mom would finally say, “Corky, if you don’t be quiet and go to sleep I may have to come in there.” I knew that meant that I had to shut up but sometimes I didn’t go right to sleep and would roll around in my “fudder” bed and think about all the things that just might happen to be hanging around to get me. What they wanted me for I’ll never know but I figured they did and I’d go to sleep for awhile and then wake everyone in the house with all kinds of noises; mom would come in and quiet me down and then we’d all get some sleep.

I had this aunt Esther that was scared of everything (the daddy-long-legs were all tarantulas to her) and I spent a lot of time with her. She is the one that figured out where Robert came from. My mother was never afraid of anything in her life (one time she was washing dishes during a thunder storm and lightening came and knocked out the light bulb and her only worry was that it was getting dark and she wanted to finish the dishes…….I was hiding behind the couch I think) and she would just give aunt Esther the devil for scaring the kids so much. After all, a red circle around the full moon didn’t necessarily mean that the world was coming to an end very soon. Aunt Esther could whip her weight in wildcats but she was still scared and very, very superstitious. Just a little background on some of the other nuts in my family, lol.

When Con was about 10 months old and we were living and taking care of Joe’s grandmother (she stepped off the curb and broke her leg so needed someone to take care of her) and Joe and I were the ones that were chosen. She was a fine lady and we enjoyed her and she enjoyed Con like he was one of her own babes. She was 80 and I was just past 19 so there was a little age difference and she taught me a lot about lots of things. One of her daughters decided that we needed a little vacation and took her home with her for a couple of weeks. During that time I decided it was a good time to do my fall house cleaning and it was quite a job because the house was fairly big.

I hadn’t had any trouble with nightmares or sleeping for some time but one night, quite late, I leaped out of bed and told Joe that someone was trying to cut my head off and he should help me. Well, you can imagine how it must have affected him…..me running around and around the dining room table trying to get to the front room door and he was coming out of a deep sleep. He swears that when he got up there was something or someone hovering over Con’s bed (in our bedroom) and he went over there to see what was going on. I was still in the dining room but managed to make it to the front door which I unlocked and ran out and jumped off the front porch (skipping all the steps and my knee still hurts from time to time from that flying leap) with Joe behind me trying to get his clothes on so he could go outside and catch me. By the time he got outside, he didn’t know which direction I had gone and didn’t want to leave Con with “the thing” and didn’t know what to do. I had gone next door; beat on their door; got them all out of bed and told them that someone had tried to cut off my head. I came to myself (woke up) and there they were…..circled around me wondering what in the hell was going on. When I finally really came to, I sheepishly told them that I guessed I’d better go home because Joe would be worried about me. I think they were happy to let me go, lol. I met him in the yard and he took me in the house and went back to bed and had quite a long talk (I think he was afraid to let me go back to sleep or that “the thing” might come back)

I stayed in the house for a couple of days until I had to hang out diapers (no driers in those days) and the neighbor lady peeked over the hedge and asked me, very kindly, if I was feeling better and that she thought I was doing too much and should maybe take it a little easier.

I have never been so embarrassed in my life!!! One thing is for sure, Joe swears “the thing” was there and another thing I was happy for……I had just bought new nightgowns from Penny’s…..thank goodness they did not have Victoria’s Secret stores then.

This happening is why I had to sleep next to the wall and get permission to get out of the bed after dark. I talked to my Mom about it and she said that of course there are Poltergeists but they are not to be feared……..that was fine for her, they weren’t trying to cut her head off.

I’ve worn you out so will close for tonight. Our bedroom happened to be the room where Joe’s aunt Margaret had died when she was l0 years old I just thought of that.

Corky

Religion and Spirituality

Part of the continuing Blogger’s Consortium series with simultaneous posts on the topic being done by Ashok, Grannymar and Ramana – in alphabetical order.  Ashok came up with this topic … ambitious fellow that he is.  I mean, this is a WHOLE LOTTA TOPIC!

Non-free media use rationale for Elmer Gantry (film)

Gantry was a hard living salesman and he consorted with drunks and whores.  But, he had a passion for life and he had an abiding belief in God.  A genuine belief in God.  The nature of that belief was tested and fleshed out when he became a revivalist preacher in the American Midwest of the early Twentieth Century, became a revivalist preacher because he was mightily attracted to Sister Sharon Falconer.  The problem was that Sister Sharon kind of was deluded that she was God’s chosen messenger while Gantry thought she would do just fine as a real human being sharing life and passion with him!  Ultimately, Gantry’s very real faith grounded in life was what carried him through while Sister Sharon’s delusions did her in!

I’ve always loved that movie, REALLY loved it.  And part of that is because it evokes so many of the forces of life’s spirituality that has formed my underlying beliefs.  Let me show you a picture of my father taken during World War II:

He was AWOL in Vancouver at the time.  If it didn’t endanger any men or hurt the war effort, he wasn’t really what you would call a fan of the rules!  Let’s face it, he could have walked straight out of Casablanca looking like that.  Later, he lost his older brother over Germany in that war and he was on the first wave assault ship heading across the Pacific to attack Japan when the bombs were dropped.  They were estimating with his guys 90 – 100% casualties, if you can imagine that!

He came back from that war hardened, really hardened.  A lot of soldiers return from war more than a little lost as human beings.  They can still live hard, but something is missing in their souls.  Then, along comes love:

Sister Sharon, step aside for the real thing!!  No delusions for this young woman, shown in a picture from Christmas 1945.  I say young woman, even though she was only 14 when the picture was taken.  Somehow, hard times grow you up fast and she was no stranger to hard times.  Very bright and quite beautiful – as is obvious – she took care of business!  Both feet were always planted squarely on the ground.

So, now God goes to work and places this ex-soldier in a diner with some friends, a diner where my Mom was a waitress.  She waited on their table, of course.  And, when one of the guys asked if she would go out with him, she told him flat out, “No … but I’ll go out with him!” pointing to Dad.

So, two good-looking bright people have now met.  The young woman raised as a Nazarene Christian – and, trust me, Gantry and his delivery had NOTHING on the Nazarene Christians! – and a young man who has just been molded in the crucible of Hell needing to find his way back home.  To make a long story short – because I intend to do some further work on parts of it in later posts about our family – Dad went back to college on the GI Bill to get a degree in Business and a Minor in Philosophy of Religion.  He had to reclaim his soul – and he had to do it his way, part of it in the classroom, part of it with Mom and part of it in bars on the tough side of town with his new in-laws!  I’d be hard put to judge which place brings you closest to God; the sanctuary, the Comparative Religion classroom, or the bar!  But, one thing is for sure, it is the love that ties it all together.

So, he studied and drank and fought and loved, and they shared life and had me and my sister.  Some of my favorite memories of my youth are sitting with Dad discussing religious ideas.  It was no holds barred.  As much as he was in love with Jesus, Dad was never a Holy Roller.  He behaved toward the Church a whole lot like he did toward the Army.  A lot of the rules were irrelevant as far as he was concerned and that was what he taught his boy.  But – and this was key – it wasn’t because he didn’t believe.  It was because he always felt the package presented was short of the truth.  And the truth he saw was earned in discussions with some really fine theologians; in studying other religions besides the one with which he was raised; in figuring out his own truths of life with his wife that he loved, with the kids that he taught and with the herculean task of reclaiming that which was rightfully his, his own loving spirit.

The Church and religions in general like to control and offer rewards and punishments.  Many are quite happy to peddle hysteria and snake oil like Gantry often did, but a life like my folks had inoculates you against their power grabs in such a way that you can separate the wheat from the chaff and feast spiritually from what religious giants offer.  But, it takes life’s forge to get you ready for that and sometimes it is earned with a black eye or a split lip or a philosophical discussion on a bar stool.

How did my folks win?  They put the truths of life, the love of people and their own spirituality first.  They had to.  It was survival for them.  But, note the important distinction here: they did not approach spirituality through religious understanding – they approached religious understanding through their spirituality.  And they threw something else out the window, the idea that being human is somehow bad, something to be escaped.  They embraced their humanity and celebrated life – and found God right in the middle!

Power and a Cup of Coffee

Is this man free?

Is this woman free?

I know that both are care givers and that this not only restricts travel freedom, but can be just plain tiring.  I know that both have mobility limitations; hip, back and/or leg problems.  These would seem to not be the characteristics of free people – yet I think they both have a mastery of something most people have never thought about and many will never understand.  They both have a quiet mastery of the moment.

The man in the top picture is my friend Ramana Rajgopaul at his home in India and a post on his blog spurred this posting.  The woman in the bottom picture is my mother in her home in Kansas.  Different cultures, different genders.  But, in the scheme of things, what difference do these small matters make?  Some things are universal and universally available – and time pretty much fills that bill.

What you cannot see (unless you look very closely) is the cup of coffee behind Mom’s knee.  If I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen her sitting with a cup of coffee…  We were sitting and talking one day and I told her that I thought I knew what sitting with that cup of coffee was about.  It was about just sitting.  Not worrying about money or transportation or anything else.  Just sitting for awhile.  I felt it was her form of meditation – and she agreed.  To me, her coffee drinking was a very valuable time exercise. 

The present is the point of power.  Nothing can be done at any other time.  Nothing can even be at any other time.  But, the present can be expanded or contracted.  Expanded, it can contain both the packed trunks of the past and the ephemeral concerns for the future.  The price paid is dissipation.  Life becomes a washed-out, half-hearted ghost of itself.  The result is emotional and spiritual bondage.  Every movement, every thought is without enthusiasm.  Every action is without potency.  Life has no immediacy.  Life just isn’t alive!

Don’t get me wrong.  There are great memories to be shared.  There are good plans to be made.  But, they are part of a laser-like focus in the present when done in the most healthy way.  The past is not viewed sentimentally, it is celebrated.  The future is not dreaded or obsessed over, merely prepared for and released.

The present offers an even greater treasure when it contracts.  Athletes know it as the zone, when they are so attuned with the moment and only the moment that everything slows, their timing becomes perfect, their touch precise.  Any action offers that zone and you know when you are in it.  Writing offers that zone when the words flow and the ideas pour out in an ordered, coherent fashion, content expressing inner emotion and understanding.  Public speaking, teaching, music – even partying – have the zone.

Meditation contracts the present even further, for it couples with a quieting of the inner dialogue, a cessation from broadcasting the world.  It allows the most fundamental perceptions to arise and the world becomes magical.  Suddenly it becomes clear that there are more dimensions available to the human perception, questions unasked in the normal hustle and bustle.  It becomes a world of wonder and the mundane becomes miraculous!  An inkling forms of how the prophets and the shamans see the world at all times, for they learn to reenter the world without leaving their meditative state.  They are true masters of the present.

That is why I see these two people to be free.  Not just these two, of course, but they are part of this blog’s close family and I treasure that.  It is not because I see them as shamans or prophets – although, who knows? – but because I see them ever savoring the moment, reflecting within to expand without.  That is what makes them warm and supportive of the people and world they find around them.  That is what makes them free.

That is why I offer a toast to fellow free spirits from some fellow free spirits:

From left, my mother, me, my daughter, my father.

How are you doing right now?

Time to Reopen the Whine Bar!

We’ve had so many heavy topics lately, I thought that it was time to open the old establishment back up.  Whew, what a run!

I asked Mom to paint a picture to put up on the wall and this is what she came up with:

I, of course, told her that it was a perfect representation of our attitude here.

Now…belly up to the bar and tell me what is on your mind.  Whine anyone??

A Serious, Sad Event in Kansas…

There is an article in the SF Chronicle this morning on the killing of Dr. George Tiller, late term abortion provider in Wichita, KS one week ago.   It deals with the impact of incendiary speech and is worthy of examination.  Whether your views are from the Right, Left or Center, incendiary rhetoric does not help.  It may sell soap, but it does not help.

What does help is sincere reflection, especially from those closest to the problem.  My mother and I were discussing this on the phone a couple of days ago and she related to me a story that you really must read.  It is very relevant, very powerful, very personal.  It has a lot of heart.  But, what it is not is an effort to sell soap and especially not to be incendiary.  Her effort at reflective balance is laudable and moving and I give it to you unedited, in her words:

The year was 1945;  springtime;  I had just turned 14; and, had been a junior in high school until I refused to cut my hair so I could take swimming.  My mother told me that if I didn’t go to school, I had to find some kind of job;  so, I was baby sitting to pay for small necessities until I could convince someone that I was 16 so I could get a good job and earn maybe ten to twelve dollars a week…..woo-hoo!  The war was starting to wind down and many of the soldiers and sailors were returning home to their families.  Having learned so much the first semester of that year, or so I thought, and refusing to get my hair cut (my really FIRST REAL REVOLT) taught me many things.  Some good and some really bad.

Being independent was always a failure of mine.  Many things came to me very easily…..some things were lessons that were forced on an innocent kid and really hard to accept.  As most of you are aware of, this has been a very bad time in Kansas as far as history is concerned.  The killing of Doctor George Tiller was a heinous crime committed by a person that is mentally unstable (according to our news media back here) and should have been locked up for things he did many years ago.  He had no reason to kill Dr. Tiller other than the fact that  he ran an abortion clinic that performed late term abortions (something that is legal here).  Dr. Tiller had just been cleared in court for 19 charges brought against him by an Anti-Abortion group.  I’ll not name names but these people have been against Dr. Tiller for many years.  Back in the 1990’s someone shot the doctor in both arms as he went to get into his car.  After that, he would hire off duty police officers to escort him whenever he went out (to his clinic, church, etc.) but having been acquitted of any illegal activity he thought that escorts were no long necessary…..especially to church where he was an usher and where he was shot (as witnessed by two other ushers that were threatened with the weapon used to kill the doctor).  I am not a fan of abortion and cannot fathom the idea of having one and I feel that the real leader of the group has blood on his hands (even though the nut case that committed the crime was not a true member of the group just a wannabee I guess).  The man killed Tiller; got into his car; and, headed for his home which was a town close to Kansas City.  He was arrested in Gardner, KS and offered no resistance.  He is being held in the Wichita jail and his bail is very, very large……in the millions of dollars.

When I was 14 years old, I had no idea what an abortion was.  We did not have subjects such as sex education in Health or even the notorious 5th grade Health classes that explained how little girls became women.  What we learned, we learned from our mothers and mine did not choose to talk about sex except to say that it was not something that GOOD GIRLS DID until they were married……kinda’ like the Rusty Warren record where the mother is standing on the curb after the wedding yelling, "You can do it now."  Times were different then but some girls, and women too, did it and got pregnant.  Some girls, and women too, did not want to have a baby or marry the boy, or man, that had made them that way……..no matter, the law said that you either made the male marry the female; send the girl away to the mountains (or desert) for nine months for her health and put the baby up for adoption; or, maybe the girl and her mother would both go away for the mother’s health and come back with a "baby brother or sister" for the girl and it would be reared as a sibling for her.  That way there would be no disgrace for the family and they could all go merrily on their way and be a supposedly happy family (even so, some of these families didn’t look very happy and many people whispered behind their backs).  ABORTION WAS AGAINST THE LAW and the only way to have one was not very pleasant.

Now you are thinking, Good Lord, did she get pregnant and have an abortion?  No, I didn’t but the woman that I baby sat for did.  Her husband had been gone for some time (maybe doing the same things she had done, I don’t know) and was coming home so what was she to do but what she felt she had to do……break the law and have an illegal abortion (remember this was before the Roe Vs. Wade law was passed).  She asked me if I would go with her to the doctor and sit in the car with her kids while she had a checkup.  I said OK and did just that.  I did make some remarks about the grungy part of town we were in and that he must not be a very rich doctor to have his office down there.  It didn’t take him very long to do whatever he did to her and she came back out and told me that if she got sick that I should drive the car on home and make sure the kids were OK.  I told her that I couldn’t drive and she said that she thought I wouldn’t have any problem because I was a smart girl and had surely watched while other people drove.  I looked down at her car seat and it was turning red and I asked her what kind of checkup she had had (I knew that I had a problem on my hands but didn’t know what it was).  She said just a female thing and it caused women to bleed sometimes and that she wanted me to be sure to see to the kids and make sure that they had their supper; baths; and, were put to bed before I went home.  I assured her that I would and I did but after performing my chores I checked on her and she looked like she was going to die (which scared me a lot).  We didn’t live very far apart so I took off for home and told the woman that I was staying with what had happened and why I was so late getting home.  She went over to the other house and after walking up one side of the woman and down the other, took her to the hospital where she stayed for several days.  I stayed with the kids during that time because she had no relatives in the area (when my mother found out what I was doing, she went ballistic as only she could and laid down some laws as to what I could and could not do as far as working was concerned).  It is a period of my life that I would just as soon forget but it also shows what happens when laws are made that cannot be enforced.  If they reverse the Roe vs. Wade law, this type of thing will happen more and more only some women and girls won’t even go to quack doctors for an abortion, they will rely on clothes hangers or turkey feathers like they did back in the good old days…..and a  lot of them will die like they did in the good old days.

As I said before, I am for women’s choice.  I do not think you can legislate morality and we have no place to treat the mentally ill (unless they have committed a criminal act such as rape or murder).  My husband and I had no trouble getting me pregnant but I had one pregnancy that was easy and one that was hard from the night I conceived her (my husband had made a pact with a friend that if he found his wife to be pregnant to let him know and we would have kids the same time).  We had our daughters two weeks apart so you can see that we had no trouble at that time.  Troubles developed in the first trimester and I spent a lot of time in bed; threw up most of the time; and, took meds to keep me from aborting which has caused problems for our daughter but during that hard period, there was never a thought in our minds about not carrying that beautiful little baby to full term.  In my opinion, it should be every woman’s choice because I could not have any more children after I had her and we would have missed out on a lot of joy (and headaches) had we not had her.  Nobody has angels…..even in the good old days.

Corky

Mom…this is too good to just be a comment!

My mother wrote this as a comment and the general public should see this out in the open.  It’s just too good to stay hidden.  I only added some formatting:

Maynard,

Don’t feel bad about taking a class over. I never did get to take Kindergarten (country school that I walked to 2 miles morning and night) and I always felt deprived. So, to make up for it, I was a bit of a pain to the teachers all the way through school. I spent more time in the office (answering the phones; running the mimeograph machine; or working in the storeroom handing out paper, pencils and other supplies)or being a hall monitor letting anybody do anything they wanted to as long as I wasn’t directly involved

I hated having to sit next to some of the slow boys so tried to get out of that whenever possible but I loved to read and I got to put everybody to sleep after lunch with a chapter a day.

When they moved me from country school where in order to go to the bathroom the teacher had to unbutton my suspenders (I wore bootpants with lace up boots) then my bootpants, then my long underwear (during the winter months) and send me to the basement bathroom. After I did whatever it was I needed to do, I came back upstairs and she had to redo all the things that she had undone so I could go. This took place many times during the day until one cold day she refused to go through the ritual and you’ve got it……I wet my pants and they were frozen by the time I walked home. My mother had been friends of the teacher in high school and I still have the note that she wrote and the answer that the teacher sent home with me the next day…..Mom not happy at all and the teacher very apologetic.

After that I just came and went whenever I wanted to…..didn’t even have to ask. I skipped the 2nd grade after being tested and went to town school as a third grader and since they were learning cursive writing and I already knew how I got to help a lot of kids learn to write.

One day, a dog came into the classroom and since I’d been wrestled around by a greyhound I got up on top of my desk……the teacher came in and smacked me up side the head (without asking me anything and this time my mother made a trip to school) and after that I took over that school room.

I had lots of fun helping with the Kindergarten parties and teaching the "little" (I was 7) kids to button their coats, etc. The teachers had me do anything they could find to keep me out of their hair. Things went pretty smoothly (even the 8th grade thing) until one time I fastened (with a thumb tack) my horned toad to the history teacher’s desk drawer and when he opened the drawer it tried to get out (naturally) and the poor man nearly had a heart attack. I thought he was a wuss and he thought I was a demon from Hell and he made me stand with my toes against the wall and my nose in a circle on the blackboard…….that gets mighty tiresome after an hour or so!!

I could hardly wait til Halloween so we could egg his house, lol. After that year, I went back to the new house and the school system thought I should take the 8th grade over since I hadn’t taken the 7th grade….my mother had to go to school again and she made it quite plain that I was not going to do that.

So, I went my freshman and sophomore years in Salina and decided to go to Coffeyville for a visit during the summer and liked it so well decided to go to school there. I was 14 at the time and the first semester was great but the second semester I was scheduled to take first hour swimming. At that time I had hair that reached nearly to my waist and it took it a long time to dry plus it was so thick I couldn’t get it into a swimming cap. I went in to have a little heart to heart talk with the principal about changing my P.E. to last hour. He said that the schedule was already made out and I could braid my hair or cut it off as far as he was concerned. I told him that as far as I was concerned I would do neither of those things; I was quitting school; and, I wanted my book and locker fees returned to me. He told me that I was only 14 so I could not quit and I said the law was that you had to be out of the 8th grde or 16 and I was out of the 8th grade and I’d wait in his office for my check. The poor man would have killed me if he could have gotten away with it and when I called my mother and told her what had happened she said that it was OK if I wanted to quit school but if I did, I had to get a job.

I know you must be getting tired of reading this so I’ll stop for now and tell you the rest of my story tomorrow night.

Sleep tight,

Corky