Ringing Like a Bell

I hope you have someone or more than one someone in your life that inspires you. I'm blessed in that sense. I am constantly surrounded by the most amazing, inspiring women. I often feel that these ladies are the unsung heroes of everyday life. You know the ones -- the ones who keep on keepin' on even in the toughest circumstances. The ones who manage to fill lunch table conversation with laughter and joy, who will cry with you, who will bake you a birthday cake, or tell you there's something gross stuck in your teeth. One is always smiling and laughing. I've never spoken to her without a hug or an "I love you," maybe even both. She teaches a tough science course and is always thinking of new and better ways to engage her students. She helps them find pumpkin DNA in the fall and is legendary for her homey holiday sweaters. She wears them with joy because she really does love Halloween, Thanksgiving, and especially Christmas. She is so dedicated to her stud...

For weeks I've been on the lookout for the perfect summer bag. You know the one -- just right for the beach, pretty but not too fancy. I haven't been able to find the right one anywhere. Every time I've stepped into a store with purses for sale, I've browsed. Nothing. All the bags I've seen are either too fussy with lots of weird fringe or metal slugs attached to the sides. The longing for the right purse has been there buzzing in the back of my mind whenever I go out or pick up the purse I've been carrying (One I borrowed from a friend like seven years ago and still haven't returned. Sorry, Whit!). I am happy to report that today I received the bag I've been waiting for all this time. I have a theory that moms get tired after elementary and middle school, so all their eagerness, parent- teacher conference fuel, and gift energy are spent by the time their children get to high school. Consequently, teacher gifts are always pretty thin on the gro...

So, I've gone crazy over The World Needs More Love Letters . I know I already told you about it, but I just can't help myself. I have to give you an update. Today was the last day before my students' spring break. I wanted to send them off on a good note, so I introduced them to the concept and gave them the "homework" to hide love letters of their own over the vacation. I really do love my students; I want them to come away from my class with real skills that will help them out in real life, but also want them to come away from my class with the understanding that I genuinely do care about them, that they matter, and that I'm here for them, cheering them on. Let's face it, all of us need to know we have somebody in our corner, even if that somebody is a geeky language arts teacher or a total stranger. I guess that's why I love the idea of anonymous love letters so much. Recently, I've lost some of my former students to suicide. I don't r...

This weekend I was standing in line at Wal-Mart, which turned into about a twenty minute wait. Something about the lack of a tag on a bag the lady two people in front of me wanted to buy took forever. I know -- you're trying to figure out what level of Dante's Inferno that belongs in. I'm not sure either. Anyway, while I was standing there, I picked up one of the little, impulse-buy publications near the register and cracked it open. The page fell right to this article about the woman who started a movement (and website) called The World Needs More Love Letters . You need to check it out; it's not what you think. One day the woman was riding the subway when she noticed another woman who looked like she was having a really bad day. On impulse, she got some paper and a pen out of her purse and started to write the woman an anonymous letter. In the letter she encouraged the woman and told her how special she was to the world. After she'd written it, she felt so much...

One Christmas when I was in high school the adult ladies Bible class at my church, The Hamilton Church of Christ , decided to host a special dinner for the teen girls in our congregation. Each of us was paired up with a lady from the class as our 'buddy' for the evening. My buddy was Ms. Fayrene. When she came to pick me up, I gave her the Christmas pot holder set I'd picked out for her a few days before. She acted like I'd just given her a check for a million dollars, and right away she started talking about how much she loved the Christmas season, exclaiming that the gift was perfect. I'd always known her in a general way, but until I sat down in the front seat of her car, we'd never really talked one on one. She was wonderful. She asked me about my life and listened intently to what I had to say. The twenty minute ride to nearby Winfield was over in the blink of an eye. At The Boar's Butt (yes, it had a drive through), we stepped into a fabulously d...

Of all the things I need to teach my students, one of the most difficult is clear pronoun-antecedent agreement. For those of you who don't speak 'grammarian', that's the connection between the thing you just talked about and the he, she, or it that replaces that thing later on. When my students write, they are forever rattling off a list of men like Bob, Charles, Tom, and Alex. Then they begin the next sentence with 'he.' I've lost count of the number of times I've written, "which guy?," in the margins of  student essays. A few days ago, one of my classes was discussing a writing assignment. The thread of conversation carried us around to the topic of homeless veterans, which might have seemed illogical, but you've got to remember that I'm teaching a herd of fifteen-year-olds. One girls said, "That's messed up. They shouldn't let that happen." Her friend chimed in, "Yeah, They need to do something about that....

I nearly made that "Redneck-ognize," but I thought that might be one Honey Boo Boo reference too many. I hear my students say this phrase sometimes, usually when they are upset with someone else or at least pretending to be. Funny word, recognize . I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Have you ever embarrassed yourself when you think you see someone you know? You know me. I've totally done it: One day I was walking across the campus at UNA, and I seriously thought I saw my friend Angie coming toward me. She was in a completely different town going to a completely different school at the time, so it made no sense for her to be at my university, but the more I looked, the more convinced I was that it was her. The girl I saw walked like her, had hair like her, and even dressed like her. It was probably some sort of psychological illusion because I really love my friend. She's like a walking party, and I was probably having a bad day or something -- wishful...

It was July, and we were packed into our family's peach colored 1988 Caprice Classic. We were on the interstate that cuts clear across the state of Arkansas returning from a trip to see my dad's family in Kansas. It was a trip we couldn't really afford to make, but my grandmother was sick, very sick. Looking back I'm glad my parents made those visits happen. As a result I have many strong memories of my grandmother and a strong connection to my dad's family. We must have been almost exactly at the mid-point of our trip home when the car died. It didn't sputter. There were no warnings. It just turned off like an unseen switch had been flipped. We were in the middle of nowhere. All I could see was miles of open highway before and ahead of us. Mom and we four kids stood by the car while dad ran down the hill. He said that he remembered seeing a house on the other side of the fence along the highway. "I just hope I don't get shot," he said as he jogg...