Hello on Tuesday

Dear Friends,



Our Monday was a quiet one.

Our son and his child left for north Tewksbury at 8 AM.

After they left, I spent a little while returning our house to an adult only living space.

I spent several hours doing loads of my clothes, and hauling bar glasses from the basement to the dish washer and back. I never realized how many glasses that I really had. I have another load or two to do today.



The contractor dropped off ceiling tiles during the middle of the afternoon, and he plans on installing them this morning at 10 AM. The painter is coming a little earlier to do some touch up paint work in the hallway.



Linda whipped up a crock pot soup while I was doing my thing. The boneless chicken thighs, beans, and vegetables in the soup made for a wonderful supper meal along with some Italian Bread.



Linda did make a one grocery store stop to pick up a couple of those pork rib roasts that I mentioned in a previous e-mail. She also took our Mac computer to a repair shop to see if it is worth fixing. It has been inoperable for several months. We use a Dell lap top currently for all of our computer needs, and we really like the operating system.



Linda has her usual Tuesday Mah Jongg session from 11:30 AM until 4 PM. I have enough to keep me busy around the home.

I might require an afternoon nap. I did take one on Monday.



Sports – The Red Sox won their game, and the Yankees and Rays lost their respective contests.

I can’t believe that Chicago Bears beat the Packers last evening.



Education – Linda and I watched the interview between Matt Lauer and President Obama on the Today Show on Monday. Longer school years are on the horizon, but how are our local communities going to pay teachers to work a month longer than they normally do? The President wants the best and the brightest teachers in the classroom, but so doesn’t every school system. He wants the students from the tough and low income schools and students in general to get higher standardized test scores, but he did admit that education starts in the home. There are currently a good deal of single parent homes which almost makes the President’s proposed goals a daunting task. I am not trying to imply the single moms or single dads can’t do the job, but it is so difficult.

Many these students who enter our schools come from fatherless homes. Unless this changes, a good number of our students are doomed to failure. It takes two people to make a baby, and it also takes two people to participate in child rearing.

A statistic came out the other day that grandparents are raising 3 million of their grandchildren in the United States. This is a scary statistic.

Parents have to be willing to shut off the television, computer games, cell phones, etc., and have their children sit down and read to them, and when they get older make them sit down and do their homework.

Role models are another important component of child rearing. Children have to see their mother and father interacting with one another. They should observe that one or both of their parents have to go off to work to provide for the family. Parents have to engage their children in extra curricular activities. It would have been quite impossible if Linda had to raise our two boys on her own. Fathers and their male children bond in a different way than with their Mom. Do you think that Linda would have played catch with our boys in the back yard? Do you think Linda would have shown them how to put a worm on a hook, or take the boys ice fishing, target shooting, hunting, swing a baseball bat, swing a golf club, shoot some hoops, etc.?

One Christmas when our children were small, Linda spent days and hours searching for those Cabbage Patch Dolls. Well, she bought them for our two sons. She didn’t get the reaction that she wanted from our two boys. Our boys wanted dart guns to shoot each other with, and action / reaction toys. They wanted remote control cars, and boats, new pairs of skis, new pairs of skates, new bikes, skate boards, etc.



Well, I have to stop rambling. This education thing is another item that won’t be a quick fix. Also, don’t blame the teachers, and the teacher Unions for all the ills in education. As the family unit has started to deteriorate over the past 30 or 40 years, so has our society.



Have a great Tuesday.

Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad