A week to celebrate

This week featured two "holidays" that happen to celebrate events/people that changed my life. I'll begin with Teacher Appreciation Day, which was May 5.

In the first place, if it weren't for two specific teachers, I wouldn't even be here. So thanks to Mom and Dad for that. (I couldn't resist.)

I know people who think teachers have the easiest job ever. I happen to disagree with them. Some teachers don't have as much work to do outside the school, that is true. But many of the teachers I know do a lot of work outside the classroom. When I was growing up, I remember Dad often bringing home papers to grade. He'd get home late after practice (play, wrestling or golf, take your pick) but would wait until we'd gone to bed before getting started on them. At the time, I thought it would be cool to grade papers, so sometimes if they were multiple choice or true/false questions, where it was either right or wrong, Dad would let me "grade" quizzes or tests. So, if you were in high school when I was in early elementary and you got a test or quiz back with check marks that didn't look like Dad's, it was probably one I checked.

Dad (and Mom, after she went back to teaching full time) taught English. Part of the English curriculum includes literature, as I'm sure you remember. Believe it or not, teachers had to read the short stories, poems, plays and novels they taught. They had to think harder about the materials to come up with quiz and test questions. And often with literature units, the questions were short answer or essay, which take longer to grade than true/false questions. Both my parents spent hours outside the classroom grading papers and preparing lessons. So to those who think the job of a teacher is easy, my response is, you don't know what you're talking about.

The second event was the movie "Star Wars," which is celebrated May 4. For the uninitiated, that's May the Fourth ... be with you. I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but May 4 has become Star Wars Day. How did "Star Wars" chance my life? It stretched my imagination, showing me that I didn't have to limit my stories to Earth or my characters to humans. I had never considered that before. It blew my mind.

So happy belated Star Wars day and Teacher Appreciation Day. To all the teachers out there, thanks for everything you've done in a thankless job. And to all the Star Wars fans out there, how long until the next chapter in the saga?